The Iron Puddler | Page 8

a glass of beer, and you were

right in saying I was a minor. Where you made your mistake was when
you made fun of my breeches, seven years ago. And do you remember
that blue suit you had on at the time? I know where you got that blue
suit of clothes, and I know who had it before you got it. If you still
think that a bully in charity clothes can make fun of a boy in clothes
that he earned with his own labor, just say so, and I'll give you another
clout that will finish you."
All bullies, whether nations, parties or individuals, get licked in the
same way. They outrage some one's self-respect, and then the old
primordial cyclone hits them.

CHAPTER II
A TRAIT OF THE WELSH PEOPLE
My family is Welsh, and I was born in Tredegar, Wales. David and
Davies are favorite names among the Welsh, probably because David
whipped Goliath, and mothers named their babies after the champion.
The Welsh are a small nation that has always had to fight against a big
nation. The idea that David stopped Goliath seemed to reflect their own
national glory. The ancient invasions that poured across Britain were
stopped in Wales, and they never could push the Welshmen into the
sea.
The Welsh pride themselves on hanging on. They are a nation that has
never been whipped. Every people has its characteristics. "You can't
beat the Irish" is one slogan, "You can't kill a Swede" is another, and
"You can't crowd out a Welshman" is a motto among the mill people.
I didn't want to leave Wales when my parents were emigrating. Though
I was not quite eight years old I decided I would let them go without
me. The last act of my mother was to reach under the bed, take hold of
my heels and drag me out of the house feet first. I tried to hang on to
the cracks in the floor, and tore off a few splinters to remember the old
homestead by. I never was quite satisfied with that leave-taking, and

nearly forty years later when I had car fare, I went back to that town. I
never like to go out of a place feet first, and I cleared my record this
time by walking out of my native village, head up and of my own free
will.
On that trip I paid a visit to the home of Lloyd George in Cricuth.
Joseph Davies, one of the war secretaries to the prime minister, invited
me to dinner and we talked of the American form of government. (Note
the spelling of Davies. It is the Welsh spelling. When my father signed
his American naturalization papers he made his mark, for he could not
read nor write. The official wrote in his name, spelling it Davis and so
it has remained.) "You have this advantage," said Mr. Davies. "Your
president is secure in office for four years and can put his policies
through. Our prime minister has no fixed term and may have to step out
at any minute."
"Yes," I replied jokingly, "but your prime minister this time is a
Welshman."
Since then four years have passed and our president is out. But Lloyd
George is still there (1922). And he'll still be there, for all I know, until
he is carried out feet first. The instinct of a Welshman is to hang on.
These things teach us that racial characteristics do not change. In letting
immigrants into this country we must remember this. Races that have
good traits built up good countries there abroad and they will in the
same way build up the country here. Tribes that have swinish traits
were destroyers there and will be destroyers here. This has been
common knowledge so long that it has become a proverb: "You can't
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
Proverbs are the condensed wisdom of the ages. Life has taught me that
the wisdom of the ages is the truth. The Proverbs and the Ten
Commandments answer all our problems. My mother taught them to
me when I was a child in Wales. I have gone out and tasted life, and
found her words true. Starting at forge and furnace in the roaring mills,
facing facts instead of books, I have been schooled in life's hard lessons.
And the end of it all is the same as the beginning: the Proverbs,--the

Commandments,--and the Golden Rule.

CHAPTER III
NO GIFT FROM THE FAIRIES
From my father I learned many things. He taught me to be skilful and
proud of it. He taught me to expect no gift from life, but that what I got
I must win with my hands. He taught me