business as I had
at any time in my life; for even at the height of this wave of
enthusiasm I dealt at length with a certain banker who finally placed
with my employers a large contract.

After conferring with the doctors, or rather--as it proved--exhibiting
myself to them, I returned to New Haven and discussed my project with
the President of Yale University. He listened patiently--he could
scarcely do otherwise--and did me the great favor of interposing his
judgment at a time when I might have made a false move. I told him that
I intended to visit Washington at once, to enlist the aid of President
Roosevelt; also that of Mr. Hay, Secretary of State. Mr. Hadley
tactfully advised me not to approach them until I had more thoroughly
crystallized my ideas. His wise suggestion I had the wisdom to adopt.

The next day I went to New York, and on January 1st, 1905, I began to
write. Within two days I had written about fifteen thousand words--for
the most part on the subject of reforms and how to effect them. One of
the documents prepared at that time contained grandiloquent passages
that were a portent of coming events--though I was ignorant of the
fact. In writing about my project I said, "Whether I am a tool of God
or a toy of the devil, time alone will tell; but there will be no
misunderstanding Time's answer if I succeed in doing one-tenth of the
good things I hope to accomplish.... Anything which is feasible in this
philanthropic age can easily be put into practice.... A listener gets
the impression that I hope to do a hundred years' work in a day. They
are wrong there, for I'm not so in love with work--as such. I would
like though to interest so many people in the accomplishment of my
purpose that one hundred years' work might be done in a fraction of
that time. Hearty co-operation brings quick results, and once you start
a wave of enthusiasm in a sea of humanity, and have for the base of
that wave a humanitarian project of great breadth, it will travel with
irresistible and ever-increasing impulse to the ends of the
earth--which is far enough. According to Dr. ----, many of my ideas
regarding the solution of the problem under consideration are years and
years in advance of the times. I agree with him, but that is no reason
why we should not put 'the times' on board the express train of
progress and give civilization a boost to a higher level, until it
finally lands on a plateau where performance and perfection will be