ed to see goodness modulated more. They
stood out for what might be called a kind of moral elegance.

The governing difference between the Roosevelt type and the Taft type in
America has not been a mere difference of temperament but a difference
in news-sense, in a sense of crisis in the nation.

Thousands of men of all parties, with the nicest, easiest stand-pat Taft
temperaments in the world, with soft, low voices and with the most
beautiful moral manners, have let themselves join in a national attempt
to shock this nation into seeing how good it is. A great temporary
crisis can only be met by a great temporary loudness.

This is what has been happening in America during the last six months.
At last, all men in all parties are engaged in trying to find out: Is it
true or not true that we want to be good?

We are trying to get the news through. It may not be very becoming to us
and we know as well as any one, that loudness, except when morally deaf
people drive us to it is in bad taste. We are looking forward, every one
of us, to being as elegant as any one is, and the very first minute we
get the morally deaf people out of office where we will not have to go
about shouting out at them we will tone down in our goodness. We will
modulate beautifully!

=IV=

There are three other bug-a-boos, besides the Modesty Bug-a-boo that
America will have to face and drive out of the way before it can be
truly said to have a national character or to have grown up and found
itself. There is the Goody-good Bug-a-boo, the Consistency Bug-a-boo,
and the Bug-a-boo that Thomas Jefferson if he were living now, would
never never ride in a carriage.

Each of these bug-a-boos in the general mistiness and muddle-headiness
of the time can be seen going about, saying, "Boo! Boo!" to this
democracy from day to day and year to year, keeping it scared into not
getting what it wants.

There is not one of them that will not evaporate in ten minutes the
first morning we get some real news through in this country about
ourselves and about what we are like.

What is the real news about us, for instance, as regards being
goody-good?

I can only begin with the news for one.

For years, I have held myself back from taking a plain or possibly loud
stand for goodness as a shrewd, worldly-wise program for American
business and public life, because I was afraid of people, and afraid
people would think I was trying to improve them.

What was w