Mobs have seldom been tempted, even had a chance to go wrong, that they have not gone wrong.
The "people" is a fetish.

It was the people, misled, who precipitated the South into the madness of secession and the ruin of a hopelessly unequal war of sections.

It was the people backing if not compelling the Kaiser, who committed hari-kari for themselves and their empire in Germany.

It is the people leaderless who are making havoc in Russia.
Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, in all lands and ages, the people, when turned loose, have raised every inch of hell to the square foot they were able to raise, often upon the slightest pretext, or no pretext at all.
This is merely to note the mortal fallibility of man, most fallible when herded in groups and prone to do in the aggregate what he would hesitate to do when left to himself and his individual accountability.
Under a wise dispensation of power, despotism, we are told embodies the best of all government.

The trouble is that despotism is seldom, if ever, wise.