."

"Well, I call that bad luck," he said, "when some one else's words come
into a man's head instead of words of his own."

He looked about him, watching the scene with rich satisfaction. "It's
good to see all this again," he said. "I haven't loafed around here for
going on thirty years."

"You've been out of town?" I asked.

He looked at me with a steady blue eye in which there was something of
humor and something of sadness.

"Yes, a long way out. I've just come back to see how the Great Idea is
getting along. I thought maybe I could help a little."

"The Great Idea?" I queried, puzzled.

"The value of the individual," he said. "The necessity for every human
being to be able to live, think, act, dream, pray for himself. Nowadays
I believe you call it the League of Nations. It's the same thing. Are
men to be free to decide their fate for themselves or are they to be in
the grasp of irresponsible tyrants, the hell of war, the cruelties of
creeds, executive deeds just or unjust, the power of personality just or
unjust? What are your poets, your young Libertads, doing to bring About
the Great Idea of perfect and free individuals?"

I was rather at a loss, but happily he did not stay for an answer. Above
us an American flag was fluttering on a staff, showing its bright ribs
of scarlet clear and vivid against the sky.

"You see that flag of stars," he said, "that thick-sprinkled bunting? I
have seen that flag stagger in the agony of threatened dissolution, in
years that trembled and reeled beneath us. You have only seen it in the
days of its easy, sure triumphs. I tell you, now is the day for America
to show herself, to prove her dreams for the race. But who is chanting
the poem that comes from the soul of America, the carol of victory? Who
strikes up the marches of Libertad that shall free this tortured ship of
earth? Democracy is the destined conqueror, yet I see treacherous
lip-smiles everywhere and death and infidelity at every step. I tell
you, now is the time of battle, now the time of striving. I am he who
tauntingly compels men, women, nations, crying, 'Leap from your seats
and contend for your lives!' I tell you, produce great Persons; the rest
follows."

"What do you think about the covenant of the League of Nations?" I
asked. He looked out over the river for some moments before replying and
then spoke slowly, with halting utterance that seemed to suffer anguish
in putting itself into words.

"Ameri