The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1916-05-19

! "ulSheTS OF OF OemanOlnS something
else that will furnish me an adequate
disguise, because l am sorry to find
that the cut Of my jib is unmistakable
ard that l must sail under false col
ors if am going to sail incognito.
yet as l have matched my expert
ences with my anticipations l of
course have been aware that was
taken by surprise because of the
prominence of many things to which
l had not looked forward. When we
are dealing with domestic affairs,
! gentlemen, We are dealing with things
! that to us as Americans are more or
less caluculable. There is singular
variety among our citizenship, it is
true, a greater variety e;en than
Lad anticipated; but after all we are
all stepped in the same atmosphere, we
are all surrounded by the same en-
vironment, we are all more or less
affected by the same traditions, and,
! moreover, we are working out some
thing that has to be worked out
among ourselves, and the elements
are here to be dealt with at first hand.
The Hard Questions.
"But when the fortunes of your
own country are, so to say, subject
! to the incalcuiable winds of passion
that are blowing through other parts
of the world, then the strain is of a
singular and unprecedented kind, be-
cause you do not know by what turn
of the wheel of fortune the control of
things is going to be taken out Of
your hands. It makes no differenc g
how deep the passion of the nation
lies, that passion may be so over
borne by, the rush Of fortune in cir
cumstances like those which now
exist that you feel that sort of al
| most said resentment-that a man
feels when his own. affairs are not
within his own hands. You can i'm
agine the strain upon the feeling Of
any man who is trying to interpret the
spirit Of his country when he feels
that that spirit can not have its own
way beyond a certain point. And one
, of the greatest points Of strain upon
me, if l may be permitted to point it
out, was this:
There are two reasons why the
chief wish of Americans IS for peace;
one is that they love peace and have
nothing to do with the present quar-
rel; and the other is that they believe
the present quarrel has carried those
engaged in it so far that they can not
be held to ordinary standards of re-
sponsibility and that, therefore, as
some men have expressed it to me,
since the rest of the world is mad,
! why should We not simply refuse to
have anything to do with the rest of
the world in the ordiaary channels of
action? Why not let the storm pass,
and then, when it is all over, have the
reckonings?
knowing that from both these two
points of view the passion of America
was for peace, 1 was, nevertheless,
aware that America is one Of the ma
tions of the world not only, but one OF
the chief nations of the world-a ma
tion that grows more and more pow
erful almost in. spite of herself; that
grows morally more and more in
fuential even when she is not aware
of it.. and that if she is to play the
part which she most covets, it is nee
essary that she should act more or
less from the point of view of the rest
of the world If l can not retain my
moral influence over a man except by
occasionally knocking him down, il
that is the only basis upon which he
will respect me, then for the sake II
his soul l have got occasionally to
knock him down.
The Real Basis.
you know how we have read in
isn't it in Ralph Connor's stories of
Western life In Canada ?-that all his
sky pilots are ready for fracas at
any time and how the ultimate saliva
ton of the souls of their parishioners
depends upon their using their fists
| occasionally. If a man will not listen
! to you quietly in a seat, sit on his
neck and make him listen; just as
have always maintained, particularly
! in view of certain experiences of
mine, that the shortest road to boy S
moral sense is through his cuticle.