MEN I HAVE PAINTED
move along certain well-defined lines to a goal; and that goal is the stability of civilization.
To me certain truisms are to be deduced from an intelligent study of history and through just observation of present conditions. One is that the strength of a community is measured by the strength of its strongest member and not by the weakest. This test is the direct opposite of that applied to a plank or to a chain, whose strength is that of its weakest link or its greatest flaw. Another is that to increase the power of the strong is a better safeguard to a nation than to attempt to strengthen the weak, for there are innate defects in the weak that cannot be cured. In reformers there is always a disposition to criticize the strong just because they are strong. The Socialists, of course, deny them the right of strength, arguing that because some are weak all should be weak, or at least of an equal strength.
And so we fought our battles, in the Gray House, that house of mystery, in Hornton Street at the corner of the Abbey Mews, in Alpha House, in Murestead, and at last in The Hermitage, prior to and after 1914, when my oft-repeated prophetic warnings concerning the intentions of the German peoples have come true. In time of war have the police the right to open a road that the military has closed? This was one of the questions warmly disputed between us.
Under this trifling matter there is a principle that pierces as a sword to the foundation of society. In the last resort the soldier rules, and always will rule.
But the great problem of the inequalities among men was worthy of our attention as a subject becoming ever more important as humanity grows and groans under the weight of its possessions.
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