anybody to believe in us? Who are the
men you say are like us? What are they like this morning?

"We have asked a hundred times; we can only ask it once more. How do you
think you are turning out yourself, Mr. President? Are you what you
thought you would be? Do you think it is a good time for us to decide
this morning what you are really like? And, after all, Mr. President--if
you please--who _are_ you? And once more, Mr. President, in God's name,
_who are we?_"

This is always the gist of what it says, "Who are we?"

It is the people's main point, after all, asking a President who they
are, wondering if he can interpret them.

Then he shuts his door and thinks, or he calls his Cabinet and thinks.

Rows of little-great men file by all day. They stand each a few minutes
with his little Speck or Dot of the People in his hands, and they say,
"This is the People."

He listens.

It is very hard to be always President of the People when one is
listening and the little-great go by.

One has to go back a little, in the night perhaps, or when one is quite
alone. He sees again the Child; it is what he is in the White House for,
he remembers, to express this dumb giant, this mighty Child, half weary,
half glad, standing there by day by night, saying, "Who are we?" One
would think it would be hard to be glib with the Child.

Sometimes it is so deep and silent!

Once when It broke in on Lincoln in this way and said, "_Who are we?_"
he prayed.

CHAPTER IX

NEWS-MEN

It seems very difficult to get news through as to who we really are to a
President. When I look about me and see what the President's ways are of
telling news about himself to us, I see that he is not without his
advantages. But when I look about to see what conveniences we have as a
people for telling our President news about us, I note some curious
things. The fears of the American people, the fears and threats of
labour and capital are organized and expressed, but their faiths, their
wills, the things in them that make them go and that make them American,
are not organized and are not expressed.

The labour unions are afraid and say, "We will not work," to their
employers, "You cannot make us work." The President hears this. It is
about all they say.

The capitalists and employers are afraid and they say, "We will not
pay," "You cannot make us pay."

Shall the President act as if these men represent Labor and Capital?

We say, "No."

N