peril of classes, and inseparably connected with classes the menace of
demagogy. The last decade has revealed signs that the demagogue, in
the modern meaning of that word, is making his appearance in American
civic life.
Such men always seize the most attractive "cause" as argument to the
people for their support. They are quite as willing to pose as the
especial apostles of righteousness and purity as they are to enact the
character of the divinely appointed tribunes of patriotism. Whatever
the political fashion of the day may be, your demagogue will appeal to
it. It makes no difference what methods he finds necessary to use, so
that he can achieve the power and consequence which is his only
purpose.
If the ruling tendency be for honesty, these men will make that serve
their purpose, or commercialism, or expansion, or war, or peace, or
what not. There is no conviction about them. Sometimes such a man will
represent himself as a great conservative. He does this not because he
is conservative (sometimes he does not even know what that word really
means), but because he thinks by associating his name with this word
he can capture the "solid" elements among the people, business men and
the like.
These illustrations can be multiplied without limit. They are as
numerous as the "issues" which can be used to influence the people.
Beware of the demagogue in whatever guise he presents himself. Look
out for the play-actor in politics. Whether he wear the cloth of the
pulpit, the uniform of the soldier, the garment of the reformer, he is
always the same at heart, never for the people, always for himself;
never for the Nation and the future, always for power and the present.
Make sure, then, that the captain whom you elect to follow is above
all other things sincere. Insist upon his being genuine. See to it
that he is intellectually honest. I do not mean that he should be
honest in money matters alone, or in telling the truth merely. I mean
that he should be square with himself, as well as with you and the
world. When a public man is honest and in earnest, you know it--know
it without knowing why.
It is safe to follow such a man as this even when you do not agree
with all of his public views. You know that he is honest about them;
and a man who is honest _within himself_ will change his views, no
matter how dear they may be to him, when he finds that he is mistaken
about them. The first and last essential of the men who are to voice
the opinion and enact the purposes of the American people is an
honesty so perfect that it is unconscious of itself.
"He does not deserve the least credit for being square," said Dr.
Albert Shaw, the eminent editor, scholar, and publicist, concerning a
public man; "he was born that way. His mind is so upright that he
cannot help saying what he thinks. It would be impossible for him to
tell you or the people a falsehood. He is truth personified. His
honesty works as naturally as his heart beats, quite free from the
influences of his will."
That is the kind of a political leader you ought to attach yourself
to, while your young days last and your political and civic character
is forming. But follow no man who is striving merely to advance his
personal interests. What are they to you? Be sure that the man you
choose for your chief is trying to do something for the Nation rather
than for himself.
Of course you will belong to some political party. That is all right.
Be a partizan. And be a hearty partizan while you are about it. But do
not be a narrow one. Never forget that parties are only modes of
political action. They are not sacred, therefore. So never mistake
partizanship for patriotism. Remember always that your only reason for
belonging to any particular party is because you find that the best
method of being an American.
When your party is fundamentally wrong on some absolutely vital
question of _principle_ which affects the fate of the Republic, do not
hesitate to leave it. It has ceased to be of any use to you. Because
your political association has been with certain men is no reason at
all for continuing it. Or, rather, it is purely a sentimental reason,
like that which makes the companionship of friends so dear, or the
comradeship of soldiers so lasting.
But do not break away from your party merely because you think it
wrong on minor questions. _If you think its general tendency right,
stay loyally with it through its common mistakes._ Try to prevent
those mistakes within the party. Fight like a man to make your party
take the right course on every question, big or little, as you see it.
But when you are unable to convince the majority of your party
associates that they are wrong; when they think that you are the
person who is wrong, fall in line with them and march in the ranks,
battling even more vigorously than you would had you prevailed. If the
majority were right and you were wrong, you ought to help execute
their views. If the majority were wrong and you were right, the
earlier that fact is demonstrated the better for you and everybody.
So keep step with your rank and file, whether your party does what you
think it ought to do or not on matters of passing moment. But I
repeat, on large issues which come to your conscience--_on questions
which you think affect the destiny of the Nation_, you are a traitor
to the Republic if, in spite of your convictions, you stand by your
party and against your country.
But to break with your party on minor issues is foolish. A certain
class is coming to regard leaving one's party as a smart thing. But it
is not a smart thing. Quitting your party does not necessarily mean
independence. It may mean that, and then again it may mean stupidity;
and still again it may only mean a "sore head," as the political
phrase has it.
In a country as old as ours there finally comes to be in politics a
fundamental division. There is the constructive and progressive on the
one side, and the destructive and reactionary on the other side. These
are merely the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature at work in
human society. Usually it is found that one of these parties is
naturally the Governing Party, and the other one is naturally the
Party of Opposition.
Not only your judgment but your instincts will tell you, young man, to
which one of these forces you belong. Each has its uses. You can well
serve your country in either organization. It is merely a question as
to whether you are in character and temperament a builder, a doer of
things, or a critic of things done and the doing of them. Each is
necessary.
I have no quarrel with your partizan creed, no matter what it is. That
is your business. But whatever you are, be National. Be broad. Do not
be deceived by catchwords. Remember that this is a Nation in the
making. When the first railroad was built across the boundaries of
states it modified old-time interpretations of our Constitution.
Telegraph and telephone wires, steam and electric railways, all the
means of instantaneous communication which this wizard-like age of
ours is weaving from ocean to ocean, are consolidating the American
people into a single family.
Natural conditions and the ordinary progress of industry and invention
are making old methods inadequate and unjust. So keep abreast of the
growing Nation in your political thinking. Solve all American
problems from the view-point of the Nation, and not from the
view-point of state or section. Consider the American people _as_ a
People, and not as a lot of separate and hostile communities. Be
National. Be an American. Know but one flag.
Whatever party you belong to, and whatever your views on public
questions, you will never make a profound mistake as long as you keep
your civic ideals high and pure. Believe in the mission of the
American people. Have faith in our destiny. Never question that this
Republic is God's handiwork, and that it will surely do His will
throughout the earth.
Understand that we are not living for to-day alone. Keep in mind the
future--the tasks, opportunities, and rewards of which for the
American people will make our large performances of to-day seem like
mere suggestions. Strive to make yourself worthy of this Nation of
your ideals.
And of all your ideals, let the Nation itself be the noblest. Fear not
lest you pitch your thought too high for American realities and
possibilities. No single mind can scale the heights the American
people will finally conquer. No single imagination can compass the
American people's combined activity, power, and righteousness even at
this present moment.
We have defects and deficiencies; fear not, they will be remedied and
supplied. We have perplexities and problems; fear not, they will be
untangled and solved. We have burdens, foreign and domestic; fear not,
we will bear them to the place appointed, and, at the hands of the
Master who gave us those burdens to carry, receive the reward for the
well-doing of our work, and, strengthened by our labor, go on to
heavier and nobler tasks which He will have ready and waiting for us.
For this Nation of ours is here for a purpose. He did not give us our
liberty for nothing, or our location or our physical resources, or any
element of our material, intellectual, or spiritual power. No, the
Father of Lights has thus highly endowed us that we may do the very
things which are at our hands to-day, and those other and greater
things which will follow. It is for us Americans to solve the problems
that confront us now, and the still harder and deeper ones that we do
not yet behold; and we will solve them, never doubt. Live up to this
ideal of your Nation's place and purpose in the world, young man. Be
an American.
CHAPTER XI
THE WORLD AND THE YOUNG MAN
There has been much counseling of the young man respecting the world.
But what of counseling the world respecting the young man? Do not men
and women riper in years and richer in experience need to have their
attention called to the young man and the potentialities of him. He
faces the world with vigor, courage, and faith--this stout-hearted,
hopeful young fellow with To-morrow and all its possibilities coiled
up in his brain and heart.
The young man is the future incarnate. His soul is the abiding-place
of uplifting ideals, and the world--that vast collective individuality
to which you and I belong--too often dispels those sensitive
enthusiasms by its neglect or disapproval. Do we not find in our daily
speech a certain cynicism toward youth? Does not our skeptic wisdom
paste the label "illusions" over the word "ideals" written on the
young man's brow? Is there not a refusal to recognize young manhood's
force until it compels recognition by sheer mastery?
If so, it is a fault that the world should remedy. Not that the young
man should not prove himself before the world accepts him; not that he
should not win his spurs before he is knighted. No one insists that he
shall "make good" more than I do. But in the testing of him, let us
give him the help of our kindly attention. Let us lend him the
encouragement of our applause as he rides into the lists.
Countless young men have been needlessly discouraged by the
indifference of the occupied and the sneers of the calloused. Let us
not be so chary of our sympathy. Faith in most young men is a much
safer hazard than infidelity. For all things strong and pure and
helpful to the world _may_ be possible of those young fellows who
must, in any event, very soon possess the earth.
So let not the frost of the world's unconcern fall upon young
manhood's unfolding powers. Let us beware how we extinguish the
feeblest of youth's idealisms. Let us check not the onset of his
knight-errantry. And the world does these things--not purposely, not
even knowingly, but thoughtlessly. Many a young man has had his
life's work kept back and the ardor of it chilled by rebuff at the
beginning.
Many another has had his faith in God and humanity and the
effectiveness of the eternal verities in the world's work enfeebled
and even shattered by what he felt was the world's disbelief in them.
No statistician can collect and classify the instances of young lives
impaired by the heedlessness and insensibility of the mature to the
beatitudes which glorify all youth.
This attitude of the world toward young men is not caused by any
distrust of them or by any undervaluing of the high qualities of the
true, the beautiful, and the good which the young man brings to it.
Let no young man get the idea that the world of society and affairs is
"down on him," to borrow the phrasing of the people again. Let him
never for a moment feel that this world of experience and present
power does not believe in him.
For the world does believe in you, young man. It is not "down on" you.
It is busy, that is all. It is engaged with the numberless and
pressing concerns of its from-day-to-day existence. It is forgetful,
no doubt, but its apathy does not go deeper than that.
With this caution to the young man that he may not misunderstand what
is here written, I appeal to men and women, in whose faces the years
have etched the lines and wrinkles of knowledge and understanding, to
give more attention to young men; to encourage the nobilities of them;
to reach down a helping hand from your secure station on the heights
to him who struggles upward toward you.
It will not hurt you, sir or madam, to closely watch for signs of
developing power in the young men of your acquaintance and to
cultivate that growing strength by your active and aggressive faith in
the young giant whom you have thus discovered.
Men and women there are who search minutely for unknown powers in
plant-life, and by infinite pains in the use of that power, when
found, evolve newer, higher, and better types of fruit and flower. And
this is a good work. Men and women there are who sweep the infinitudes
of the skies that they may find a star hitherto unseen, or steal
unawares upon a hidden planet or a flying comet swiftly, yet
stealthily, emerging upon the field of the telescope's vision.
And that is a good work, too--yet fruitless, for the immensities of
the universe will never be measured, nor the mysteries of the skies
be solved, nor the stars give up their secrets. Most of us are on some
quest which requires the very infinitesimalities of patience, quests
that are grand and quests that are foolish, searchings that are useful
and explorations that are frivolous.
But the noblest of all prospecting is for strength and high purpose
and thoroughbred quality among the young manhood of our Nation. For
any one who helps some young man to make his life righteously
successful has enriched humanity more than he who reveals a Klondike
to the uses and the greed of the clans of trade.
Yes; and he or she who, in the search for strong minds and pure hearts
among young men, discovers to the world a _great_ man has in that
achievement wrought immortality for himself and herself, while
rendering to mankind a service like that of a Columbus or a Pasteur.
For Columbus discovered a new continent; but what of the man or woman
who while looking through all the immaturities of his youth
"discovers" a Columbus.
Thus would I direct the divining keenness of our men of affairs, so
swift and sure to detect advantages in business, to the young men who
wait at their outer gates for recognition and service. I would invite
the world, whose hearing is so sensitive to the material things of
commerce, to the exalted and eternal subject of human characters and
human destinies as they are developing daily, hourly, all about us. In
a word, I ask the ear of the world for its young men.
I read in some sermon--I think it was by Myron Reed--that the most
pathetic thing in life is that a man of either thought or action must
spend two-thirds of his time getting a hearing. "During this time,"
said the preacher, "the man of thought speaks his immortal word; the
man of action does his immortal deed; all the time the World is
refusing to listen or to heed; but finally, when the fires of genius
have burned low, when the great thoughts have been uttered and the
great works wrought, then it is willing to give ear and eye to the
necessarily feebler acts and thoughts of the great man's later days."
It refuses to come near the fire when in full glow; it comes and puts
its hands into the ashes after the flame has died out and the ashes
themselves are growing cold. Do we not find ourselves worshiping
echoes and ghosts in the persons of men who _once_ wrought
splendidly, and denying the real forces of the present hour until they
compel recognition by their overwhelmingness; and then, having
exhausted themselves, become in their turn ghosts and echoes.
It is all right to honor those who have done big things and are
"living on their reputations"; but it is all wrong to deny to those
young men who are doing and will do big things, now and in the future,
full and glad recognition of their power and possibilities.
The first thing that the world should remember about the young man who
is confronting it, asking his daily bread of it, is the inestimable
value of the qualities of freshness, of innocence, of faith, of
confidence, of high honesty, of Don Quixote courage which the young
man brings to it. These are qualities which in human character are
worth all the wisdom of the market-place many million times
multiplied. They are the qualities which, in spite of itself, keep the
world young and tolerable.
The young man comes to the world fresh from his mother's knee. The
Lord's Prayer is still in his mind; his mother taught it to him. The
glorious fable of Washington and the cherry-tree is still in his
heart; his mother taught it to him. A beautiful honor that makes him
very foolish on the stock exchange and causes the shrewd ones to say,
"He will know more after a while"--the splendid honor that makes him
throw over what the world calls "advantages"--still glorifies his
soul; his mother taught him that honor. The confidence that God is
just, and that success is surely his if he will but do right, still
beautifies him like the rose-tinted clouds of morning; it is the
influence of his mother's teaching.
Let the world understand that these qualities with which the mother
labors to endow her child, from the time the blessing of maternity is
hers to the time the bright-eyed young fellow steps out from the old
home, are more valuable to the world itself than all its gold-mines,
all its scientific discoveries, all its electric railroads, all its
games of politics, all its commerce. "Il mondo va da sé," said a
cynical Italian statesman--"the world goes by itself." But it does
not.
If the world were not each year renewed, refreshed, glorified by the
magnificent honor and fine expectancies of its young men, it would
soon become simply fiendish in its sordidness, selfishness, and
baseness. Let the world, then, preserve these fine qualities at which
it too often idly sneers; not for the young man's sake--no, that is
not to be expected--but for its own sake.
Let the world turn to the Master and think of what he said: "Except ye
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven." I am pleading for the tolerance of what, by a certain class
of men, are called impracticable business defects in youthful
character, which in reality are the vital blood by which the world is
kept morally alive.
The first attitude that the world ought really to take toward the
young man is charity. How parrot-like one is! Charity! "And now
abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these
is charity." I defy any man who talks about the practical affairs of
this life to get away from the Bible.
Let the world then have charity for the young man. Let it realize that
for the particular moment there is nothing conceivable so helpless as
he. He is just as helpless as, in time, he will become irresistible. I
have already earnestly advised every young man, as a practical matter,
to do at least one thing each day not only free from any selfish
motive, but from which no possible material benefit could come to
himself.
And now this is the reverse side of that shield. Let the world give to
the young man a little start, a little help, a little foothold, a
little encouragement. And I repeat that by the world I mean the great
mass of men who have ceased to be young men, or who, still young in
years, have achieved places of power--those who hold the reins of
affairs and business, of industrial and social conditions.
I heard of a banker once who saw to it that at least once each week he
hunted up some young man, bravely struggling, bravely fighting, and
gave him some little assistance--a piece of business, an opportunity,
needful and kindly counsel--something that moistened his parched lips,
dry and hot from running the hard race that all youth must run for
success. I said to myself: "There is something in reincarnation; the
soul of Abou-ben-Adhem is dwelling in that banker's heart."
For years the greatest pleasure of my life has been that young boys
have come to me from all over my State to talk about how they should
proceed in life's battle. You, too, may have the pleasure of helping
young men. But beware how you do this, saying in your heart, "I will
help this young man, and when he succeeds I will reap my reward." Such
a selfish thought will utterly poison your advice, deflect your moral
vision, distort your intellectual perceptions.
That man who advises a young man with the thought that some day he
will be able to harvest personal advantage from that young man's
success, has probably by that very thought been rendered incapable of
giving sound advice or profitable help. Help the young man for his
sake, for the sake of the great humanity of which he is a fresh and
beautiful part, for the sake of that abstract good which, after all,
is the only reward in this life worthy the consideration of a serious
man.
I heard not long ago of a brilliant and crafty young politician who
was and is an earnest champion and helper of a very successful and
highly practical man in public life. He had acquired some unfortunate
traits. He was suspicious, distrustful. He feared betrayal here, a
Judas there. The caution increased his cunning but was impairing his
character. The man to whose fortunes he was attached called him in, in
the midst of a great political battle on which the fortunes of that
man depended, and said to his young lieutenant:
"Success in this fight is important to me, but it is not so important
as the impairing of your character which I see going on. You are
becoming permanently distrustful, suspicious. You think one friend
will fail us here, that that friend is untrue, that the other one may
be influenced improperly. Very soon you will begin to suspect me, then
you will suspect yourself, and then--then, you are utterly lost. Stop
it. I would rather lose the fight than see your character become
negative."
That man was right, and the attitude he took in his advice to the
young man was right. Let the world quit encouraging young men to think
that guile succeeds. Let it encourage the faith that nothing but the
noble and the good really succeed in the end. Let every one point out
to the young man confronting the world that it is not so great a thing
after all to be "smart," not so great a thing after all to be capable
with the little tricks of life, but that it is everything to be good
and trustful and fearless and constructive.
It will not do for the world to reply that it does, in words,
encourage these fine qualities of youth. It does not, except in formal
and meaningless utterances--preachments that have not the vitality of
individuality in them. Words are very little, almost less than
nothing; but attitude and action are everything. The young man would
not feel that he had to be "slick," or crafty, or cunning, if the
world's attitude did not invite him to such a conclusion. It is the
nature of young men the world over, and particularly of young
Americans, to be open in life, direct in method, lofty in purpose, and
fearless in action.
A very successful lawyer once told me the following--it illustrates my
point: "I remember," said he, "that when I was a law student one of
the most brilliant young men I ever met--one of the most brilliant
young or old men I ever met--one day received a client of the firm
with a luxury of attention and a sumptuousness of courtesy that deeply
aroused my ignorant and rural admiration.