The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1906-01-21

We 80 often hear the proposition that,
after all. this Is n very small world.
This suggestion Is made when we happen
to run into some one we knew and whom
we supposed was across the continent.
II one happens to go to New York, and
Is rnbber-necking on Broadway, and runs
against a friend from San Francisco, he
invariably blurts out well. this is not
such big world after ALL or words OF
like import.
But I want to suggest that 1t is about
as big a world as any of us have ever seen
and IL you take the other view Of 1t, It
liz strangely large. met man the other
day from Boston, a man I know real
well, and among other things I inquired
after another friend, and he said ne
hadn't seen him for couple OF years.
or course Boston is a great big dizzy
old town-noted for Its winding streets
and crowded thoroughfares. and 1t might
not seem strange that my friend had
not met our mutual neutrality-suspicious.
have Offices on Washington Street, one
in the Winthrop Building and the other
IN the Journal Buildingr-not over fifty
feet apart-and yet for two years they
have come and gone. walked the streets
an darrtved at their Offices about the
same time in the morning. gone TO
lunch about tho same time. left
for home about the Same time.
and yet for two years they have
not sighted each other. Now. wouldn't
Il occur 10 one, who figures things from
that stand point, that the world was not
only very large. but very busy?
I was coming down from Charlotte.
North Carolina. the other night on the
train and sat with n man In the car
who came from Monroe. Monroe is about
twenty-five miles from Charlotte. on the
Sea Board Air Line, and my companion
WIS Mr.. Jerome. lawyer. Mr.. Jerome
has been In Raleigh hundred times
and / have seen him there doubtless.
the other night did he know me or
know him. AS lawyer. he is we'll
known, and as newspaper writer. my
name was familiar to him-but-pretty
large world when neishbors in North
Carolina never meet each other.
ootabo;hd dol raj rtl rtdluu tr lthtddlh
Another man met was an architect
Mr.. Rogers, the architect Of the Car
negie Library and some buildings at
the Normal College In my own town
he had been in Greensboro fifty times.
but I never saw liim-didn't know him.
and he perhaps would have been win.
Ing to have made an affidavit that he
had never heard of me.
While in Charlotte I met the Honor
able Paul Means. OF Concord. Paul Means
as an ex- Confederate soldier; as hap
by speaker: as we'll informed and
useful citizen stands pre-eminent among
North Carolinians-and yet he expressed
surprise to see that my hair was not as
long MS when he last saw ma-and that
was some ten years ago. Yet here we
had been living and mixing In a State:
attending political gatherings and re-
unions and riding on the cars all
around-and never as much as saw each
other for ten years. Pretty big world.
eh-pretty big State-pretty big section,
was going to say!
Big world? II you don't believe 1t go
down to some union passenger station
some day and stand there and look into
the windows of the cars composing the
through trains. Stand there week or
a month or a year--every day and every
day-look with all the strength and in
terest of our eyes and count on your
fingers of one hand how many people
you see whom you know. Take q stand
on a ferry boat In New York and watch
the tens of thousands landing, coming
from all over the world and see how
many you know. You will now and then
see a face that looks familiar. you will
say, "that looks like some one I have
SEEN" but that's only imagination
eager aginatIop-disappointe imagi-
nation, impatient to be rewarded for the
long strain of rubber necking INDUCED
In.
Big world? Get in the chorus Of even
the eighty millions OF people in this coun-
try and try to make your voice heard
above the din. Once In while you are
singled out-especially IL you take some
freak notion into your head and assert
n Wild mans opinion. as Doctor Osler
did:or IL you kill man, or are accused
Of killing man. and put up as game
a fight as Patrick has put up; or II you
bunco an insurance company and 80
on the stand laughing as though going
to a marriage feast and blandly ask the
committee what 1t Is going to do about
Accommodating of that kind may throw
You In the llmelight-but that is not your
personality at all-it is simply the act
the shocking or eccentric thing OF which
you was an agent. President Harper was
a great man--perhaps as great as We
have had In an educational line-and yet
his voice was heard in the worlds loud
chorus because he WAS at the head of a
university an institution of learning that
was a fayorite of Rockefeller and had
money to burn. Big world--so big that
the biggest man In 1t goes out and within
q day the waters again run even-the big
man Is missed by a few people who knew
him or an institution that needed HIM,
but that Is all. Take an the books of
Do GA fN...~ -