Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures | Page 2

We became engaged in the same work of reform, I as an advocate of temperance, he as candidate for the presidency of the United States on the prohibition ticket. From the warmth of friendship, my prejudice melted like mist before the morning sun and I found in General Green Clay Smith a combination of the noblest traits in human character.
Whoever would graduate in the highest franchise of being, and realize the royalty that comes of partnership with sovereignty, must have respectfulness of bearing and feeling toward those from whom they differ. We are greatly creatures of education and environment anyway, and until we can unlock the alphabet of a life and sum up the mingling, blending, reciprocal forces that have been playing upon that life, we have no more right to abuse persons for honest convictions than we have to blame them for their parentage.
You do not know the forces that have given direction to the lives of others; if so, you might know why one is a member of this or that church, this or that political party, why one lives north, another south, one on the land, another on the sea.
Some of you may differ with me, but I believe if General Grant had been born in the South, reared and educated in the South, his father had owned a cotton plantation and many slaves, General Grant would have been a Confederate General in the Civil War; while Robert E. Lee if born, reared and educated in New England would have been a Union General. If my opinion is correct, if all you northern people had lived down south, and we southern people had lived north, we would have gotten the better of the conflict instead of you.
If yonder oak, that came from the finest acorn and promised to be the monarch of the forest, was dwarfed by simply a drop of dew; if yonder rolling river, bearing its commerce to sea, was turned seaward, instead of lakeward, by simply a pebble thrown in the fountain-head; why not have consideration for those whose circumstances and early training set in motion convictions differing from ours. God did not intend all the trees to be oaks, or that all the rivers should run in one direction, but He did intend all to make up at last His one great purpose.
Thomas F. Marshall in an address many years ago, to illustrate the differences between people of different sections, said: "If you call a Mississippian a liar, he will challenge you to a duel; call a Kentuckian a liar, he will stab you with a bowie-knife or shoot you down; call an Indianian a liar, he will say, 'You're another;' call a New Englander a liar, he will say, 'I bet you a dollar you can't prove it.'"
Mr. Marshall intended his compliment for the Mississippian and Kentuckian, but really his compliment was to the New Englander. If a man calls you a liar, and you are not a liar, the manliest thing to do is to say, "I challenge you, sir, not on to a field of dishonor, where the better aimed bullet will tell who's a murderer, but I challenge you out into the sunlight of God's truth where I'll prove myself a man and you a slanderer."
I use this to show it is not just to look at character or questions from the narrow standpoint of prejudice.
Then again, we should not judge a person by one trait. There are persons for whom you may do fifty favors, yet make one mistake and they will never forgive you. George Dewey went to the Philippine Islands, remained in the harbor for months, never made a mistake and returned to this country the naval hero of the world; and never were so many babies, horses and dogs named for one man in the same length of time. But one morning the papers came out with the statement that he had deeded to his wife a piece of property some friends had presented to him, and within three days after, when his picture was thrown on a canvas in an opera house in Washington City it was hissed from the audience, and when later on he dared to allow his name used as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, we were ready to smash the hero at once. But we must remember there are very few men able to withstand the world's praises. Indeed there never was but one man who could be successfully lionized and that man was Daniel.
Captain Smith of the Titanic was held responsible by public opinion for the sinking of the great ship and was harshly criticised by the press. His forty years of faithful, careful service on the sea was erased by the one mistake. It