Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-23
THE KEYS ON THE RING
Each Is a Link in a Chain That Binds a Nan o a Soriude From Which
He Vas Once Free

T KNOW a man who carries in his left-leg
L trouser pocket a large heavy key ring, on
which there are a dozen or more keys Of
all shapes and sizes. There Is a latchkey,
and the key OF his private office, and the
key OF his roll-top desk. and the key Of his
safe deposit box. and a key to the little mail
box IT the front door of his fiat Che lives
in what Is known as a pushbutton apart
ment house,, and a key that does something
to his motor car mot being an automobilist.
1 don't know just WHAT, and a key to his
locker at the golf club, and keys Of various
travelling bags and trunks and filing cases,
and all the other keys with which a busy
man burdens himself. They make a noble
clanking against his thigh when he walks Che
Is usually in a hurry, and he draws them
out Of his pocket with something of an i'm
posing gesture when he approaches the
ground glass door of his office at ten past
nine every morning. Yet sometimes he takes
them out and looks at them sadly. They
are q mark and symbol of servitude, just
as surely as IL they had been heated red-hot
and branded Oh his skin.
MOT necessarily an unhappy servitude,
~ hasten to remark, for servitude is not
always an unhappy condition 1t may be
the ~happiest OF conditions, and each of those
little metal strips may be regarded as a
medal Of honor. In fact, my friend does so
regard them. He does not think of the key
OF his roll-top desk as a reminder of hateful
tasks that must be done willy-nilly, but
rather as an emblem of hard work that he
enjoys and that is worth doing He does not
| think of the latchkey as a mandate that he
must be home by seven O'Clock, rain or shine
nor does he think of it as a souvenir of the
landlord who must be infallibly paid on the
frsl Of the month next ensuing. No, he
thinks of the latchkey as n magic wand that
admits him to a realm Of kindness whose
service is perfect freedom" as say the fine
old words in the prayer book. And he does
not think of his safe deposit box as a hateful
little casket Of leases and life insurance poll
cies and contracts and wills. but rather as
the place where he has put some of his W
past life into voluntary bondage-into Lib
erty Bondage at four and a quarter per
cent. Yet, however blithely he may psycholo-
gize these matters, he is wise enough to
know that he ID not a free man. However
content in servitude. he does not blink the
fact that 1t Is servitude.
Upon HIS will he binds a radiant chain, -
said Joyce Kilmer in a fine sonnet. How
ever radiant, It Is still a chain.
GO IT is that sometimes, in the lulls OF
- telephoning and signing contracts and
talking to statesmen and preparing estimates
and debating letters that must get off to-
night and trying to wriggIe out OF serving
on the golf clubs house committee. my
friend hings away his cigar, gets a corncob
pipe out OF his desk drawer. and contem-
plates his key ring n trlne wisttully. This
hubby little tyrant that he carries about
with him always makes him think Of a river
In the far Canadian north, a river that he
visited once, long ago, before he had built
up all the barbed wire OF life about his
spirit. 1t was a green lucid river that ran
in a purposeful way between long frlnges OF
pine trees. There were sandy shelves where
he and a fellow canoeist with the good gift
of silence built campnres and fried bacon
or Ash OF their own wooing. The name Of
that little known river (his voice Is gray,
az he recalls iD was the Peace and Il wai
TO-.