ncement in an established political
organization. So a great many men are active and busy in
such organizations, who would be equally active and busy in
movements founded on precisely the opposite doctrines, if
they could as well find their advancement in them. Yet, as
I have said, the prejudice which lay at the bottom of this
movement was very powerful, very sincere, and not unnatural.

Secret societies were formed all over the country. It seemed
not unlikely that the surprise of 1854 would be repeated,
and that the great Republican party, which had done so much
for civil liberty, would either be broken to pieces or would
be brought to take an attitude totally inconsistent with religious
liberty.

The organization, calling itself the American Protective
Association, but known popularly as the A. P. A., had its
branches all over the North. Its members met in secret,
selected their candidates in secret--generally excluding all
men who were not known to sympathize with them--and then attended
the Republican caucuses to support candidates in whose selection
members of that political party who were not in their secret
councils had no share. Ambitious candidates for office did
not like to encounter such a powerful enmity. They in many
cases temporized or coquetted with the A. P. A. if they
did not profess to approve its doctrine. So far as I know,
no prominent Republican in any part of the country put himself
publicly on record as attacking this vicious brotherhood.
Many men who did not agree with it were, doubtless, so strong
in the public esteem that they were not attacked.

That was the condition of things when, in the early summer
of 1895, I delivered an address at the opening of the Summer
School of Clark University in which I spoke briefly, but in
very strong terms, in condemnation of the secrecy and of the
proscriptive principles of this political organization. I
declared: "I have no patience or tolerance with the spirit
which would excite religious strife. It is as much out of
place as the witchcraft delusion or the fires of Smithfield."
I added: "This Nation is a composite. It is made up of many
streams, of the twisting and winding of many bands. The quality,
hope and destiny of our land is expressed in the phrase of
our Fathers, 'E Pluribus Unum'--of many, one--of many States,
one Nation--of many races, one people--of many creeds, one
faith--of many bended knees, one family of God." A little
la