is
made up of parasites who fasten and feed upon the industrious and
methodical.

If you have read history you know that the men who go quietly about their
business have been cajoled, threatened, driven, and often, when they have
been guilty of doing a little independent thinking on their own account,
banished. And further than this, when you read the story of nations dead
and gone you will see that their decline began when the parasites got too
numerous and flauntingly asserted their supposed power. That contempt for
the farmer, and indifference to the rights of the man with tin pail and
overalls, which one often sees in America, are portents that mark
disintegrating social bacilli. If the Republic of the United States ever
becomes but a memory, like Carthage, Athens and Rome, drifting off into
senile decay like Italy and Spain or France, where a man may yet be tried
and sentenced without the right of counsel or defense, it will be because
we forgot--we forgot!

In moral fiber and general characteristics the Huguenots and the Puritans
were one. The Huguenots had, however, the added virtue of a dash of the
Frenchman's love of beauty. By their excellent habits and loyalty to
truth, as they saw it, they added a vast share to the prosperity and
culture of the United States.

Of seven men who acted as presiding officer over the deliberations of
Congress during the Revolutionary Period, three were of Huguenot
parentage: Laurens, Boudinot and Jay. John Jay was a typical Huguenot,
just as Samuel Adams was a typical Puritan. In his life there was no
glamour of romance. Stern, studious and inflexibly honest, he made his way
straight to the highest positions of trust and honor. Good men who are
capable are always needed. The world wants them now more than ever. We
have an overplus of clever individuals; but for the faithful men who are
loyal to a trust there is a crying demand.

The life of Jay quite disproves the oft-found myth that a dash of Mephisto
in a young man is a valuable adjunct. John Jay was neither precocious nor
bad. It is further a refreshing fact to find that he was no prig, simply a
good, healthy youngster who took to his books kindly and gained
ground--made head upon the whole by grubbing.

His father was a hard-headed, prosperous merchant, who did business in New
York, and moved his big family up to the little village of Rye because
life in the country was simple and cheap. Thus did Peter Jay prove his
com