Humanly Speaking | Page 5

in?his own ward, to a safe and sane Fourth of July.?The obligation resting upon every citizen to write to
his Congressman.?The obligation to speak to one's neighbor who may
think he is living a moral life, and who yet?has never written to his Congressman.?The obligation to attend hearings at the State House.?The obligation to protest against the habit of employees
at the State House of professing ignorance?of the location of the committee-room where?the hearings are to be held; also to protest against?the habit of postponing the hearings after one has?at great personal inconvenience come to the State?House in order to protest.?The duty of doing your Christmas shopping early
enough in July to allow the shop-girls to enjoy?their summer vacation.?The duty of knowing what you are talking about, and
of talking about all the things you ought to know?about.?The obligation of feeling that it is a joy and a privilege
to live in a country where eternal vigilance is?the price of liberty, and where even if you have?the price you don't get all the liberty you pay for."
I was a little troubled over this effusion, as it seemed to indicate that Bagster had reached the limit of elasticity. A few days later I received a letter asking me to call upon him. I found him in a state of uncertainty over his own condition.
"I want you," he said, "to listen to the report my stenographer has handed me, of an address which I gave day before yesterday. I have been doing some of my most faithful work recently, going from one meeting to another and helping in every good cause. But at this meeting I had a rare sensation of freedom of utterance. I had the sense of liberation from the trammels of time and space. It was a realization of moral ubiquity. All the audiences I had been addressing seemed to flow together into one audience, and all the good causes into one good cause. Incidentally I seemed to have solved the Social Question. But now that I have the stenographic report I am not so certain."
"Read it," I said.
He began to read, but the confidence of his pulpit tone, which was one of the secrets of his power, would now and then desert him, and he would look up to me as if waiting for an encouraging "Amen."
"Your secretary, when she called me up by telephone, explained to me the object of your meeting. It is an object with which I deeply sympathize. It is Rest. You stand for the idea of poise and tranquillity of spirit. You would have a place for tranquil meditation. The thought I would bring to you this afternoon is this: We are here not to be doing, but to be.
"But of course the thought at once occurs to us, How can we be considering the high cost of the necessaries of life? It will be seen at once that the question is at bottom an economic one. You must have a living wage, and how can there be a living wage unless we admit the principle of collective bargaining. It is because I believe in the principle of collective bargaining that I have come here to-night to say to you working-men that I believe this strike is justifiable.
"I must leave to other speakers many interesting aspects of this subject, and confine myself to the aspect which the committee asked me to consider more in detail, namely, Juvenile Delinquency in its relation to Foreign Immigration. The relation is a real one. Statistics prove that among immigrants the proportion of the juvenile element is greater than among the native-born. This increase in juvenility gives opportunity for juvenile delinquency from which many of our American communities might otherwise be free. But is the remedy to be found in the restriction of immigration? My opinion is that the remedy is to be found only in education.
"It is our interest in education that has brought us together on this bright June morning. Your teacher tells me that this is the largest class that has ever graduated from this High School, You may well be proud. Make your education practical. Learn to concentrate, that is the secret of success. There are those who will tell you to concentrate on a single point. I would go even further. Concentrate on every point.
"I admit, as the gentleman who has preceded me has pointed out, that concentration in cities is a great evil. It is an evil that should be counteracted. As I was saying last evening to the Colonial?Dames,--Washington, if he had done nothing else, would be remembered to-day as the founder of the Order of the Cincinnati. The figure of Cincinnatus at the plough appeals powerfully to American manhood. Many a time in after years Cincinnatus wished that he had never left that plough. Often amid