"The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb."
"The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb."
Many a silent man is as shallow as he is silent—but hemaybe as deep also; and because he gives no sign as to whether he is deep or shallow, and because his silence offends no one and is not in the way of those who want to talk, he is given credit for profundity.
We all know the story of the worn-out, world-tired club-man who said he was looking for a man who was really wise, really experienced, and really deep. At last he felt that he had found him in another club-man—very handsome, especially full of forehead and broad between the eyes, perfectly groomed, and silent to the point of stillness. The Searcher for a Wise Man tried to engage him in conversation on a hundred differentsubjects. His attempts met with failure; which made a still deeper impression.
But at a certain dinner one night, where both of these men were guests, the club-man arranged to have the silent one sit next to him. Every attempt was still a failure. Nothing more than "Yes" or "No" could be gotten from the deep one. But when shrimps were brought on, the supposedly great man colored with pleasure, and said: "Hey, shrimps! Them's the dandies!" The illusion dissolved.
I do not know whose story this is, but it illustrates my point so well that I appropriate it. In other words, your permanent attitude, your continuous impression on the world, is one of your assets, just as your ability is, just as your character is; and discretion in speech is a matter of great moment as affecting this impression. I use the term continuous attitude and impression, because it is a small matter what your temporary and transient impression is. If it becomes necessary, talk to any extent required, no matter what the immediate impression may be. But it is the stream and continuity of your life of which I am now speaking.
The three distinguished successes cited a moment ago in financial and political life donot drink, smoke, or swear. Mark that latter fact—they do not swear. I repeat again that this is no Sunday-school lecture, but the plainest kind of a talk on practical methods of success. The money you will lay aside in bank, or the property you will accumulate, is one kind of an asset; but the respect of men, the confidence of a community, is an asset also, and a more valuable one. Very well. An oath never yet created respect for any man who used it.
Even men who are habitually profane always feel a contemptuous yet pitying regret when they hear a foul word fall from a mouth they expected to be clean. You want people you live among to believe in you. They are not going to believe in you spontaneously. You are on trial every day of your first few years among them. As you go in and out among them they acquire a confidence in you which finally grows into an unquestioning faith. Beware how you start, in the minds of men whose good-will you must have, a question as to whether their good opinion of you is justified or not. Profanity will create such a question.
I remember having heard the most promising young lawyer in a certain town swear in the presence of a conservative old banker whohad begun to "take the young man up" and was giving him some business. The gray-bearded man of money made no comment, but I noted a slight lifting of the eyebrows. That young man had unconsciously started a question of himself in the mind of the man whose business friendship he was seeking. How did that question run?
"What's this? An oath! I'm surprised. How does this young fellow happen to swear? Perhaps I do not know as much of him as I ought to. I must look into his antecedents more closely. What kind of training has he had? What other bad habits has he had, and has he now? Yes, certainly I must look into this young man a little more before I trust him further."
That is how the question ran in the old man's mind. And nobody can tell whether he ever did completely trust the young fellow again or not. A subconscious inquiry was doubtless always present whenever that young man's work was mentioned. No matter whether the old banker's caution was justified; no matter whether this sensitiveness to the language which the young man used is reasonable or not—the young man needs all the respect and confidence he can possibly get. It is a good thingfor him to have the admiration of those among whom he dwells, but their respect and confidence he must have. He cannot get along without that. Let him be clean of speech, therefore.
This growing prejudice against profanity is not unreasonable. Oaths indicate a poverty of language—of ideas. The thief, the burglar, the low-class criminal everywhere, expresses all his emotions by oaths. Are they angry? They swear. Surprised? They swear. Delighted? They swear. Every conception of the mind, every impulse of the blood, is expressed in the narrow and base vocabulary of profanity. So that the first thing an oath indicates is that he who uses it has limited intellectual resources, otherwise he would not employ so commonplace a method of expressing himself.
Then, too, we quite unconsciously connect the swearing man with the class which habitually employs profanity as the staple of its talk; and so he who uses an oath in our presence automatically sinks to a little lower level in our esteem. We cannot help it. We do not reason out the why and wherefore of it, but we know it is so.
Do not justify yourself by talking aboutWashington raging at Monmouth, or Paul Jones boarding theSerapis, or Erskine climaxing his greatest effort for justice with an appeal to the Father of the universe. These men all swore, and swore mightily on those occasions, but their oaths were oaths indeed.
Liberty or tyranny, life or death, justice or infamy, hung in the balance, and their oaths were prayers as earnest as ever ascended to the Throne. But that is no example for you, young man. If you will agree never to use an oath until you have the provocation of treason, and your country thereby endangered, as Washington had at Monmouth, there are a million chances to one that the Sacred Name will never pass your lips in vain.
I knew a man in the logging-camps twenty-eight years ago. He there acquired that lurid speech which was the language by which oxen, horses, and men themselves were in those times driven in those rude camps of rugged industry. My friend did not remain a logger. He became a lawyer and achieved some distinction and success, but he could not shake off the habit of swearing. He would find himself "ripping out an oath," as the saying is, on the most surprising occasions—and they were brilliant oaths, splendid, flashing,coruscating oaths. His talk was a very tropic jungle of profanity.
So great were his abilities, so unceasing and intense his energies, and so upright his life, that he succeeded in spite of this defect. But this strong, fine man told me that this low habit of speech delayed his progress constantly. A few years ago, in a great crisis in his life, he was suddenly able to break the spell, and I think he is now prouder of his clean words and that mastery of himself which their use indicates than he is of any single success he has achieved or of any single honor he has won.
But the newspaper correspondent said the truest thing of all when he suggested that the really capable and apparently successful lawyer and politician, observed in the passing throng, had made a mistake in not having had the influence of woman in his life. There is positively nothing of such value to young men—yes, and to old men, too—as the chastening and powerful influence for good which women bring into their lives.
This is the universal opinion, too. All literature voices it. Wilhelm Meister and The Old Cattleman alike declare it. "There is no doubt about it," exclaims the sage ofWolfville, "woman is a refinin', an ennoblin' influence. * * * She subdooes the reckless, subjoogates the rebellious, sobers the friv'lous, burns the ground from onder the indolent moccasins of that male she's roped up in holy wedlock's bonds an' pints the way to a higher and happier life. And that's whatever!" And The Old Cattleman even includes the raucous "Missis Rucker—as troo a lady as ever baked a biscuit."
I should be the last man in the world to suggest that a young man should keep himself "tied to his mother's apron-strings," as is the saying of the people; and this is not what I mean when I again earnestly suggest that he keep as close to his mother's opinions, teachings, and influence as the circumstances of life will permit.
The same thing, as already pointed out, may be said with reference to a man's wife—even more strongly, if possible. But the conversation and opinion of any good woman are, as a practical matter and a measure of worldly wisdom, simply beyond price. She is wise with that sublimated reason called "woman's instinct."
There is, too, a human quality kept alive and growing in your character by woman'sassociation and influence that, as a matter of business power in meeting the world and its problems, is far and away beyond the value of the craft of the trickiest gamester of affairs, business, or politics who ever lived.
It is a saying of the farmer folks among whom I was raised that such and such a person "has principle," meaning that the person so described is upright, trustworthy, judicious; that such a person's attitude toward God and man and the world is correct.
Women "have principle" in the sense in which that term is used by the country people. They will keep you true to the order of things—to the constitution of the universe. They will do this not so much by preaching at you, as by the influence of their very personality.
The man who has gotten out of touch with womankind is not to be feared. He is to be pitied rather than feared, for he is out of harmony with the world—he is disarmed. No matter how large his mind and great his courage, he is neutralized for all natural, properly proportioned, and therefore enduring, effort.
I know a physician who, still young, has reached the head of his profession in this country. Sundays and the evenings with his wifeand children are not enough for him; he takes Wednesday also. Precisely this same thing is done by the young captain of finance and affairs whom I described first in this paper as being a total abstainer. This is not done for the rest it gives these men; or, if it is done for that, it is not the greatest benefit they get out of it.
They come back to their work with clearer and stronger conceptions of human character and of truth in the abstract and the concrete, with which all men, no matter what their profession or business may be, must deal. They have a new tenderness, a larger tolerance, a broader vision of life and humanity, and therefore of their business, which is merely a phase of life and affairs.
This particular suggestion would appear to me to be unnecessary were it not for the fact that I see the increasing number of men who think that their business or profession or career is the important thing, and that in these the influence of woman is not essential. They are frightfully wrong who think so. I am trying to give practical suggestions to young men. Therefore I emphasize the practical value of the influence of women.
Remember that most great men have beendiscovered by women, and that nearly all of them have had her for their inspiration.
The value of woman's society on character and intellect is above that of the conversation of the most learned and experienced men. It is the elemental and natural in her that give a perspective of life and its larger purposes that man alone cannot possibly secure.
The sum of practical wisdom for young men is to keep close to the elemental principles. I think Marcus Aurelius says, in his philosophy, "Let your principles be few and elemental." And here again the Bible puts it even better than this glorious old Stoic, directing us "to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."
Above all things, do not lose your confidence in your fellow men. You are not a very great man if you are not great enough to stand betrayal. You would better have your confidence broken a dozen times a day than to fall into the attitude of universal suspicion.
Keep your sweet faith in our common humanity, do not excite your nerves and intellect by intoxicants, keep close to the saving and elevating influence of women, and then—go ahead and work as hard as you please, be as keen as you choose, fight as savagely as youlike, and there is no power that can stay your conquest of the world; for the very nature of things themselves and the whole order of the universe are your allies and your servants. But do not get the impression that you are to be maudlinly "good." Oh, no! that is as fatal almost as wickedness.
You are an American—remember that; and be proud of it, too. It is the noblest circumstance in your life. Think what it means: The greatest people on earth—to be one of that people; the most powerful Nation—to be a member of that Nation; the best and freest institutions among men—to live under those institutions; the richest land under any flag—to know that land for your country and your home; the most fortunate period in human history—to live in such a day. This is a dim and narrow outline of what it means to be an American. Glory in that fact, therefore. Your very being cannot be too highly charged with Americanism. And do not be afraid to assert it.
The world forgives the egotist of patriotism. "We Germans fear God, and nothing else!" thundered Bismarck on closing his greatest speech before the Reichstag. It was the very frenzy of pride of race and country. Yeteven his enemies applauded. If it was narrow, it was grandly patriotic. It was more: it appealed to the elemental in their breasts.
Love of one's own is a universal and deathless passion, common not only to human beings but also shared by all animate creation. Be an American, therefore, to the uttermost limit of consciousness and feeling. Thank God each day that your lot has fallen beneath the Stars and Stripes. It is a sacred flag. There is only one holier emblem known to man.
You have American conditions about you every day, and so their value and advantage become commonplace and unnoted. To any young man afflicted with the disease of thinking life hard and burdens heavy in this Republic, I know of no remedy equal to a trip abroad. You will find things to admire in France; you will applaud things in Germany; you will see much in other lands that suggests modifications of American methods.
But after you have traveled all over the earth; after you have seen Teutonic system made ten times more perfect in Japan and Slav patience outdone in China—in short, after you circle the globe and sojourn among its peoples, you will come home a living, breathing, thinking Fourth of July.
Of course I do not mean that we are perfect—we are still crude; or that we have not made mistakes—we have rioted in error; or that other nations cannot teach us something—we can learn greatly from them, and we will. But this is the point as it affects you, young man: Among all the uncounted millions of human beings on this earth, none has the opportunities to make the most of life that the young American has.
No government now existing or described by history gives you such liberty of effort, or scatters before and around you such chances. No soil now occupied by any separate nation is so bountiful or resourceful. No other people have our American unwearied spirit of youth. The composite brain of no other nation yeasts in thought and ideas like the combined intellect of the American millions.
For, look you, our institutions invite every man to do his best. There is positively no position which a man of sufficient mind, energy, and character cannot obtain, no reward he cannot win. Everybody, therefore, is literally "putting in his best licks" in America. In other countries there is in comparison a general atmosphere of "what's the use?"—a comparative slumberousness of activity and effort.
Then, again, the American people are made up of the world's boldest spirits and the descendants of such. The Puritans, who gave force, direction, and elevation to our national thought and purpose, were the stoutest hearts, the most productive minds of their time. Their characteristics have not disappeared from their children.
The same is true, generally, but of course in an infinitely lesser degree, of most of our immigrants. Usually it is the nervy and imaginative men who go to a new country. Our own pioneers were endowed with daring and vision. They had the courage and initiative to leave the scarcely warmed beds of their new-made homes and push farther on into the wilderness.
The blue-eyed, light-haired Swede who, among all in his little Scandinavian village, decides to come to America, the Irishman who does the like, are, for the most part, the hopeful, venturesome, self-reliant members of their communities across the sea. The German who turns his face from the Fatherland, seeking a new home half across the world, brings us some of the most vigorous blood in the Kaiser's Empire. Such men believe in better things—have the will to try to get those better things.
Thus, the American Republic is an absorbent of the optimism of the world. We attract to ourselves the children of faith and hope among the common people of other nations. And these are the types we are after. They are the most vital, the least exhausted. I should not want "the flower" of other nations to immigrate to our shores. Nature is through with them, and they must be renewed from below. Do not object to human raw material for our citizenship. One or two generations will produce the finished product.
What says Emerson:
"The lord is the peasant that was,The peasant the lord that shall be.The lord is hay, the peasant grass,One dry and one the living tree."
"The lord is the peasant that was,The peasant the lord that shall be.The lord is hay, the peasant grass,One dry and one the living tree."
The purpose of our institutions is to manufacture manhood.
Make it impossible for the criminal and diseased, the vicious and the decadent, to come to us; bar out those who seek our country merely because they cannot subsist in their own, and you will find that the remainder of our immigrants are valuable additions to our populations. Don't despise these common people who come to us from other lands.
Don't despise the common people anywhere on earth. The Master did not go to the "first citizens" for His followers. He selected the humblest. He chose fishermen. A promoter of a financial enterprise does not do this. But the Saviour was not a promoter; He was teacher, reformer, Redeemer.
Then, too, consider our imperial location on the globe. If all the minds of all the statesmen who ever lived were combined into one vast intellect of world-wisdom, and if this great composite brain should take an eternity to plan, it could not devise a land better located for power and world-dominance than the American Republic.
On the east is Europe, with an ocean between. This ocean is a highway for commerce and a fluid fortress for defense, an open gateway of trade and a bulwark of peace.
On the west is the Orient, with its multitude of millions. Between Asia and ourselves is again an ocean. And again this ocean is an invitation to effort and a condition of safety.
The Republic is thus enthroned between the two great oceans of the world. Its seat of power commands both Europe and Cathay.
On the north is slowly building a great people, developing a dominion as imperial as ourown. The same speech and blood of kinship make certain the ultimate union with our vital brothers across our northern frontier.
To the south is a group of governments over whom the sheer operation of natural forces is already establishing a sort of American oversight and suzerainty.
Mark, now, our harbors. Behold how cunningly the Master Strategist has placed along our coasts great ports from which communication with the ends of earth naturally radiates.
Consider, too, the sweep of the ocean's currents in relation to this country. Observe the direction and effect of the Gulf Stream, and of the great current of the Pacific seas upon our coasts. Follow on your map the direction of our rivers, and see how nicely Nature has designed the tracery of the Republic's waterways.
In short, ponder over the incomparable position of this America of yours—this home and country of yours—on the surface of the globe. When you think of it, not only will your mind be uplifted in pride, but you will sink to your knees in prayerful gratitude that the Father has given you such a land, with such opportunities, for your earthly habitation.
Attempt now to estimate our resources. Your mathematics are not equal to it. The available productivity of the Mississippi Valley exceeds the supply of all the fertile regions of fable or history. The country watered by the Columbia or the Oregon surpasses in wealth-producing power the valleys of the Nile or the Euphrates in ancient times.
Our deposits of coal and iron already under development are equalled nowhere on earth except perhaps by the unopened mines of China; and greater fields of ore and fuel than those which we are now working are known positively to exist within our dominions. The mere indexing of America's material possibilities well-nigh stuns credulity.
But all these are definite and physical things, things you can measure or weigh. More valuable than all of these combined are our American institutions and our exalted National ideals.
You can meditate all day on the reasons for pride in your Americanism, and each reason you think of will suggest others. The examples I have given are only hints. Be proud of your Americanism, therefore—earnestly, aggressively, fervently proud of your Americanism. I like to see patriotism have a religiousardor. It will put you in harmony with the people you are living among, which, I repeat, is the first condition of success.
Also it puts a vigor, manliness, mental productivity into you. Make it a practise, when going to your business or your work each morning, to reflect how blessed a thing it is to be an American, and why it is a blessed thing. Then observe how your backbone stiffens as you think, how your step becomes light and firm, how the very soul of you floods with a kind of sunlight of confidence.
There was a time when each one of that masterful race that lived upon the Tiber's banks in the days of the Eternal City's greatest glory believed that "to be a Roman was greater than to be a king." And the ideals of civic duty were more nearly realized in that golden hour of human history than they had ever been before—or than they have ever been since until now.
Very well, young man. If to be a Roman then was greater than to be a king, what is it to be an American now?
Think of it! To be an American at the beginning of the twentieth century!
Ponder over these eleven words for ten minutes every day. After a while you will beginto appreciate your country, its institutions, and the possibilities which both produce.
Realizing, then, that you are an American, and that, after all, this is a richer possession than royal birth, make up your mind that you will be worthy of it, and then go ahead and be worthy of it.
Be a part of our institutions. And understand clearly what our institutions are. They are not a set of written laws.American institutions are citizens in action.American institutions are the American people in the tangible and physical process of governing themselves.
A book ought to be written describing how our government actually works. I do not mean the formal machinery of administration and law-making at Washington or at our state capitals. These multitudes of officers and groups of departments, these governors and presidents, these legislatures and congresses, are not the government; they are the instruments of government.
The people are the government.What said Lincoln in his greatest utterance? "A government of the people, for the people,and by the people," are the great American's words. And Lincoln knew.
The real thing is found at the American fireside. This is the forum of both primary and final discussion. These firesides are the hives whence the voters swarm to the polls. The family is the American political unit. Men and measures, candidates and policies, are there discussed, and their fate and that of the Republic determined. This is the first phase of our government, the first manifestation of our institutions.
Then comes the machinery through which these millions of homes "run the government." I cannot in the limited space of this paper describe this system of the people; the best I can do is to take a type, an example. In every county of every state of the Nation each party has its committee. This committee consists of a man from each precinct in each township of the county. These precinct committeemen are chosen by a process of natural selection. They are men who have an aptitude for marshaling their fellow men.
In the country districts of the Republic they are usually men of good character, good ability, good health, alert, sleepless, strong-willed. They are men who have enough mental vitality to believe in something. When they cease to be effective they are dropped, andnew men substituted by a sort of common consent. There are nearly two hundred thousand precinct committeemen in the United States.
These men are a part of American institutions in action. They work all the time. They talk politics and think politics in the midst of their business or their labor. Their casual conversation with or about every family within their jurisdiction keeps them constantly and freshly informed of the tendency of public opinion.
They know how each one of their neighbors feels on the subject of protection, or the Philippines, or civil service, or the currency. They know the views of every voter and every voter's wife on public men. They understand whether the people think this man honest and that man a mere pretender. The consensus of judgment of these precinct committeemen indicates with fair accuracy who is the "strongest man" for his party to nominate, and what policies will get the most votes among the people.
This is their preliminary work. When platforms have been formulated and candidates have been chosen, these men develop from the partizan passive to the partizan militant. Theyknow those who, in their own party, are "weakening," and by the same token those who are "weakening" in the other party.
They know just what argument will reach each man, just what speaker the people of their respective sections want to hear upon public questions. They keep everybody supplied with the right kind of literature from their party's view-point.
They either take the poll of their precinct or see that it is taken; and that means the putting down in a book the name of each voter, his past political allegiance, his present political inclinations, the probable ballot he will cast, etc.
Not many of these men do this work for money or office. There are too many of them to hope for reward. Primarily they do it because they are naturally Americans, because they have the gift of government, because they like to help "run the show." They are useful elements of our political life, and they are modest. They seldom ask anything for themselves.
They do require, however, that their opinions shall be taken into account as to appointments to office made from their county, and of course they make their opinions felt inall nominating conventions. Without these men our "American institutions" would look beautiful on paper but they would work haltingly. They would move sluggishly. They might even rust, and fall to pieces from decay.
This much space has been given to the political precinct committeeman because, as I have said, he is a type. He is the man who sees that the "citizen" does not forget his citizenship. This great body of men, fresh from the people, of the people, living among the people, are perpetually renewed from the ranks of the people.
All this occurs, as has been said, by a process of natural selection. The same process selects from this great company of "workers" county, district, and state committeemen—county, district, and state chairmen. And the process continues until it culminates in our great National committees, headed by masterful captains of popular government, under whose generalship the enormous work of National and state campaigns is conducted.
Very well. If you appreciate your Americanism, young man, show it by being a part of American institutions. Be one of these precinct committeemen, or a county committeeman, or a state committeeman, or a workerof some kind. Ifyoudo not, a bad man will; and that will mean bad politics and bad government.
You see, this whole question of good government is right up toyou.Youare the remedy for bad government, young man—youand not somebody else, not some theory. So be a committeeman or some sort of a "worker" in real politics. Help run our institutionsyourself, or, rather, be a part of our institutions yourself.
If you have neither the time nor aptitude for such active work, at least be a citizen. That does not mean merely that you shall go to the polls to vote. It does not even mean that you shall go to the primaries only. It means a great deal more than that.
At the very least be a member of an active political club which is working for your party's success. There are such clubs in most wards of our cities.
They are the power-houses of our political system. Party sentiment finds its first public expression there—often it has its beginnings there in the free conversations which characterize such American political societies. You will find the "leaders" gathering there, too; and in the talks among these men those plansgradually take form by which nominations are made and even platforms are formulated.
These "leaders" are men who, in the practical work of politics, develop ability, activity, and effectiveness. There is a great deal of sneering at the lesser political leaders in American politics. They are called "politicians," and the word is used as a term of reproach, and sometimes deservedly. But ordinarily these "leaders," especially in the country districts of the Republic, are men who keep the machinery of free institutions running.
The influence of no boss or political general canretaina young man in leadership. Favoritism may give you the place of "local leader"; but nothing but natural qualities can keep you in it. The more we have of honest, high-grade "local leaders," the better.
Whether you, young man, become one or not, you ought at least to be a part of the organization, and work with the other young men who are leaders. But be sure to make one condition to your fealty—require them to be honest.
"I have no time for politics," said a business man; "it takes all my time and strength to attend to my business."
That means that he has no time for free institutions. It means that this "blood-bought privilege" which we call "the priceless American ballot" is not worth as much to him as the turning of a dollar, or even as the loss of a single moment's personal comfort.
"Come down to the club to-night; we are going to talk over the coming campaign," said one man to another in an American city of moderate size and ideal conditions.
"Excuse me," was the answer; "we have a theater party on hand to-night."
Yes; but while the elegant gentleman of society enjoys the witty conversation of charming women, and while the business man is attending to his personal affairs and nothing else, the other fellows are determining nominations, and under the direction of able and creative political captains shaping the policies of parties, and in the end the fate of the Nation.
Of course that is all right if that is your conception of American citizenship. But if this is going to be "a government of the people and by the people,"you, as one of the people, have got to take part in it. That means you have got to take part in itall the time.
Occasional spasms of violent civic virtueamount to little in their permanent results. They only scare bad men for a day or two. Their very ardor soon burns them out. The citizen has got to do more than that—he has got to take an every-day-and-every-week interest in our civic life. If he does not, our brave and beautiful experiment in self-government will surely fail and we shall be ruled not even by a trained and skilful tyrant, but by a series of coarse and corrupt oligarchies.
In ancient Israel a certain proportion of the year's produce was given to the Temple. In like manner, if popular government means anything to you, you have got to give up a certain portion of your time and money tobeing a partof this popular government.
Just this is the most important matter in our whole National life. Recently there died the greatest master of practical politics America has produced. Firmly he had kept his steel hand upon his state for thirty years. A dozen times were mighty efforts made to break his over-lordship. Each time his resourcefulness, audacity, and genius confounded his enemies. But finally that undefeated conqueror, Death, took this old veteran captive.
He left an able successor in his seat of power, but a man without that prestige ofinvulnerability which a lifetime of political combat and victory had given the deceased leader. "Here," said every one, "is an opportunity to overthrow the machine." Within a few months an election occurred—not a National election, but one in which the "machine" might have been crippled.
But,mirabile dictu, the "good people," the "reformers," the "society" and "business" classes,did not come out to vote. They not only formed no plans to set up a new order of things,they did not even go to the polls. Yet these were the descendants of the men who founded the Nation and who set free institutions in practical operation.
This shows how American institutions, like everything else, have in themselves the seeds of death if they are not properly exercised. When the great body of our citizens become afflicted with civic paralysis, it is the easiest thing in the world for the strong and resourceful "boss," by careful selection of his precinct committeemen and other local workers all over his state, to seize power—legislative, executive, and even judicial. It has been done more than once in certain places in this country.
Where it is successful,the Republic no longer endures. The people no longer rule;an oligarchy rules in the name of the people. And where this is true, the people deserve their fate. And so, young man, if you do not expect this fate to overtake the entire country,youhave got to get right into "the mix of things."
You, I say, not some other man, butyou,you,you.You—you yourself—YOUare the one who is responsible. Quit your aloofness. Get out of any clubs and desert all associations which sneer at active work in ward and precinct. Do not get political locomotor ataxia.
It was a fine thing that was said by a political leader to a singularly brilliant young man from college who, with letters of unlimited indorsement from the presidents of our three greatest universities, asked for a humble place in the diplomatic service. He wanted to make that service his career.
"I like your style," said the man whose favor the young fellow was soliciting. "Your ability is excellent, your recommendations perfect, your character above reproach, your family a guarantee of your moral and mental worth. But you have done nothing yet among real men.
"Go back to your home; get out of the exclusive atmosphere of your perfumedsurroundings; join the hardest working political club of your party in your city; report to the local leader for active work; mingle with those who toil and sweat.
"Do this until you 'get a standing' among other young men who are doing things. Thus you will get close to the people whom, after all, you are going to represent. Also this contact with the sharp, keen minds of the most forceful fellows in your town will be the best training you can get for the beginning of your diplomatic career."
"Now let me tell you this," said President Roosevelt to this same young man: "You may have a small under-secretaryship; but let me tell you this," said he; "do not take it just yet. You are only out of college. Take a postgraduate course with the people. Get down to earth. See what kind of beings these Americans are. Find out from personal contact.
"If you belong to exclusive clubs, quit them, and spend the time you would otherwise spend in their cold and unprofitable atmosphere in mingling with the people, the common people, merchants and street-car drivers, bankers and working men.
"Finally, when you get your post, do as John Hay did—resign in a year, or a coupleof years, and come home to your own country, and again for a year or two get down among your fellow Americans. In short," said he, "be an American, and never stop being an American."
That is it, young man—that is the whole law and the gospel of this subject. Be an American. And do not be an American of imagination. You cannot be an American by seeing visions and dreaming dreams. You cannot be an American by reading about them. Professor Munsterberg's volume will not make you an American any more than a study of tactics out of a book will make you a soldier.
It is the field that makes you a soldier. It is marching shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers that makes you a soldier. It is mingling with other Americans that makes you an American. Our eighty millions will make you American. Keep close to them. The soil will make you American. Keep close to it.
Utilize your enthusiasms. Do not neutralize them by permitting them to be vague and impersonal. Be for men and against men. Be for policies and against policies. And remember always that it is far more important to be for somebody and something than to be against.
There is an excellent though fortunately a small class of citizens in this and every other country who are never for anybody but always against somebody. Frequently these men are right in their opposition; but their force is dissipated because they are habitually negative.
I know of nothing better for a young man's character than that he should become the admirer and follower of some noted public man. Let your discipleship have fervor. Permit your youth to be natural. But be sure that the political leader to whom you attach yourself is worthy of your devotion.
Usually this will settle itself. Public men will impress you not only by their deeds, words, and general attitude; but also through a sort of psychic sense within you which illumines and interprets all they say and do, and makes you understand them even better than their spoken words.
This subconscious intelligence which the people come to have of a public man is seldom wrong.
Somehow or other the people know instinctively those who really are unselfishly devoted to the Nation's interest.In the endthey never fail to know the man who is honest.
This instinctive estimate of the qualitiesof mind and soul of public men will probably select for you the captain to whom you are to give your allegiance. Be faithful and earnest in your championship of him. In this way you make your political life personal and human.
You give to the policies in which you believe the warmth and vitality of flesh and blood. And, best of all, you increase within yourself human sympathies and devotions, and thus make yourself more and more one of the people who in due time, in your turn, it may be your duty to lead, if the qualities of leadership are in you.
This matter of leadership among public men is becoming more and more important, because personality in politics is meaning more every day. Obeying generally, then, your instinct as to the public men whom you intend to follow, subject your choice to the corrective of cold and careful analysis.
It is probably true that the greatest danger of our future is the peril of classes, and inseparably connected with classes the menace of demagogy. The last decade has revealed signs that the demagogue, in the modern meaning of that word, is making his appearance in American civic life.
Such men always seize the most attractive "cause" as argument to the people for their support. They are quite as willing to pose as the especial apostles of righteousness and purity as they are to enact the character of the divinely appointed tribunes of patriotism. Whatever the political fashion of the day may be, your demagogue will appeal to it. It makes no difference what methods he finds necessary to use, so that he can achieve the power and consequence which is his only purpose.
If the ruling tendency be for honesty, these men will make that serve their purpose, or commercialism, or expansion, or war, or peace, or what not. There is no conviction about them. Sometimes such a man will represent himself as a great conservative. He does this not because he is conservative (sometimes he does not even know what that word really means), but because he thinks by associating his name with this word he can capture the "solid" elements among the people, business men and the like.
These illustrations can be multiplied without limit. They are as numerous as the "issues" which can be used to influence the people. Beware of the demagogue inwhatever guise he presents himself. Look out for the play-actor in politics. Whether he wear the cloth of the pulpit, the uniform of the soldier, the garment of the reformer, he is always the same at heart, never for the people, always for himself; never for the Nation and the future, always for power and the present.
Make sure, then, that the captain whom you elect to follow is above all other things sincere. Insist upon his being genuine. See to it that he is intellectually honest. I do not mean that he should be honest in money matters alone, or in telling the truth merely. I mean that he should be square with himself, as well as with you and the world. When a public man is honest and in earnest, you know it—know it without knowing why.
It is safe to follow such a man as this even when you do not agree with all of his public views. You know that he is honest about them; and a man who is honestwithin himselfwill change his views, no matter how dear they may be to him, when he finds that he is mistaken about them. The first and last essential of the men who are to voice the opinion and enact the purposes of the American people is an honesty so perfect that it is unconscious of itself.
"He does not deserve the least credit forbeing square," said Dr. Albert Shaw, the eminent editor, scholar, and publicist, concerning a public man; "he was born that way. His mind is so upright that he cannot help saying what he thinks. It would be impossible for him to tell you or the people a falsehood. He is truth personified. His honesty works as naturally as his heart beats, quite free from the influences of his will."
That is the kind of a political leader you ought to attach yourself to, while your young days last and your political and civic character is forming. But follow no man who is striving merely to advance his personal interests. What are they to you? Be sure that the man you choose for your chief is trying to do something for the Nation rather than for himself.
Of course you will belong to some political party. That is all right. Be a partizan. And be a hearty partizan while you are about it. But do not be a narrow one. Never forget that parties are only modes of political action. They are not sacred, therefore. So never mistake partizanship for patriotism. Remember always that your only reason for belonging to any particular party is because you find that the best method of being an American.
When your party is fundamentally wrongon some absolutely vital question ofprinciplewhich affects the fate of the Republic, do not hesitate to leave it. It has ceased to be of any use to you. Because your political association has been with certain men is no reason at all for continuing it. Or, rather, it is purely a sentimental reason, like that which makes the companionship of friends so dear, or the comradeship of soldiers so lasting.
But do not break away from your party merely because you think it wrong on minor questions.If you think its general tendency right, stay loyally with it through its common mistakes.Try to prevent those mistakes within the party. Fight like a man to make your party take the right course on every question, big or little, as you see it.
But when you are unable to convince the majority of your party associates that they are wrong; when they think that you are the person who is wrong, fall in line with them and march in the ranks, battling even more vigorously than you would had you prevailed. If the majority were right and you were wrong, you ought to help execute their views. If the majority were wrong and you were right, the earlier that fact is demonstrated the better for you and everybody.
So keep step with your rank and file, whether your party does what you think it ought to do or not on matters of passing moment. But I repeat, on large issues which come to your conscience—on questions which you think affect the destiny of the Nation, you are a traitor to the Republic if, in spite of your convictions, you stand by your party and against your country.
But to break with your party on minor issues is foolish. A certain class is coming to regard leaving one's party as a smart thing. But it is not a smart thing. Quitting your party does not necessarily mean independence. It may mean that, and then again it may mean stupidity; and still again it may only mean a "sore head," as the political phrase has it.
In a country as old as ours there finally comes to be in politics a fundamental division. There is the constructive and progressive on the one side, and the destructive and reactionary on the other side. These are merely the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature at work in human society. Usually it is found that one of these parties is naturally the Governing Party, and the other one is naturally the Party of Opposition.
Not only your judgment but your instincts will tell you, young man, to which one of these forces you belong. Each has its uses. You can well serve your country in either organization. It is merely a question as to whether you are in character and temperament a builder, a doer of things, or a critic of things done and the doing of them. Each is necessary.
I have no quarrel with your partizan creed, no matter what it is. That is your business. But whatever you are, be National. Be broad. Do not be deceived by catchwords. Remember that this is a Nation in the making. When the first railroad was built across the boundaries of states it modified old-time interpretations of our Constitution.
Telegraph and telephone wires, steam and electric railways, all the means of instantaneous communication which this wizard-like age of ours is weaving from ocean to ocean, are consolidating the American people into a single family.
Natural conditions and the ordinary progress of industry and invention are making old methods inadequate and unjust. So keep abreast of the growing Nation in your political thinking. Solve all American problemsfrom the view-point of the Nation, and not from the view-point of state or section. Consider the American peopleasa People, and not as a lot of separate and hostile communities. Be National. Be an American. Know but one flag.
Whatever party you belong to, and whatever your views on public questions, you will never make a profound mistake as long as you keep your civic ideals high and pure. Believe in the mission of the American people. Have faith in our destiny. Never question that this Republic is God's handiwork, and that it will surely do His will throughout the earth.
Understand that we are not living for to-day alone. Keep in mind the future—the tasks, opportunities, and rewards of which for the American people will make our large performances of to-day seem like mere suggestions. Strive to make yourself worthy of this Nation of your ideals.
And of all your ideals, let the Nation itself be the noblest. Fear not lest you pitch your thought too high for American realities and possibilities. No single mind can scale the heights the American people will finally conquer. No single imagination can compass theAmerican people's combined activity, power, and righteousness even at this present moment.
We have defects and deficiencies; fear not, they will be remedied and supplied. We have perplexities and problems; fear not, they will be untangled and solved. We have burdens, foreign and domestic; fear not, we will bear them to the place appointed, and, at the hands of the Master who gave us those burdens to carry, receive the reward for the well-doing of our work, and, strengthened by our labor, go on to heavier and nobler tasks which He will have ready and waiting for us.
For this Nation of ours is here for a purpose. He did not give us our liberty for nothing, or our location or our physical resources, or any element of our material, intellectual, or spiritual power. No, the Father of Lights has thus highly endowed us that we may do the very things which are at our hands to-day, and those other and greater things which will follow. It is for us Americans to solve the problems that confront us now, and the still harder and deeper ones that we do not yet behold; and we will solve them, never doubt. Live up to this ideal of your Nation's place and purpose in the world, young man. Be an American.