THE AMERICAN OUTLOOK
"Then what is worth while? Let us look at some of the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire us. Take a few at random:
"Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves—these will do.
"Let us ask ourselves this question: 'Was there any one thing that distinguished all their lives, that united all these men, active in fields so different?'
"Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose life-history is worth the telling, did something for the good of other men. . . .
"Get money if you can. Get power if you can. Then, if you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and your power.
"If you are one of the many millions who have not and can't get money or power, see what good you can do without either.
"You can help carry a load for an old man. You can encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You can set a good example to children. You can stick to the men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare.
"Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. We do not care much about feeding the children, but we care less about killing the men. To that extent we have improved already.
"The day will come when we shall prefer helping our neighbour to robbing him—legally—of a million dollars.
"Do what good you can now, while it is unusual, and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric."
It is the voice of the American tradition strained to the utmost to make itself audible to the new world, and cracking into italics and breaking into capitals with the strain. The rest of that enormous bale of paper is eloquent of a public void of moral ambitions, lost to any sense of comprehensive things, deaf to
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