y. Nations may smile at us if they want to. We will smile
too--rather stiffly and soberly, but for better or worse we propose from
to-day on, to let people see what we are trying to be daily, grimly,
right along side of what we are!

I have come to the conclusion that the only way, for me, at least, to
keep modest and kind, is to have my ideals all on. When one is going
around in sight of everybody with one's moral sleeves rolled up, and
one's great wistful, broad trousers that do not look as if they would
ever get filled out, it is awkward to find fault with other people for
not filling out their moral clothes. It may be a severe measure to take
with one's self hut the surest way to be kind is to live an exposed
life.

I propose to live the next few years in a glass house. There are
millions of other men who want to. We want to see if we cannot at last
live confidentially with a world, live naively and simply with a world
like boys and like great men and like dogs!

What I have written, I have written. I propose to run the risk of being
good. When driven to it, I will run the risk of saying I am good.

My motives are fairly high. See! here is my scale of one hundred! I had
rather stand forty-five on my scale than ninety-eight on yours!

If there is any discrepancy between my vision and my action, I am not
going to be bullied out of my life and out of living my life the way I
want to, by the way I look. Though it mock me, I will not haul down my
flag. I will haul up my life!

Here it is right here in this paragraph, in black and white. I take it
up and look at it, I read it once more and lay it down.

What I have written, I have written.

=III=

People do not seem to agree in the present crisis of our American
industrial and national life, about the necessity of getting at the
facts and at the real news in this country about how good we are.

Last November in the national election, four and a half million men
(Republicans) said to Theodore Roosevelt, "Theodore! do not be good so
loud!"

Four and a half million other men, also Republicans, told him not to
mind what anybody said, but to keep right on being good as loud as he
liked, for as long as it seemed necessary.

They wanted to be sure our goodness in America such as we had, was being
loud enough to be heard, believed in, and acted on in public.

The other set of men, last November (who were really very good too, of
course), were more sedate and lik