The single
remark, when at last he turned his back, that it was a relief to
have him "extinguished," made us men and brothers, that audience
and me. I think of him with almost as much pleasure as I do of that
city editor chap out in Illinois who came blowing upon the platform
at the last minute and handed me a typewritten speech with the question
if that would do. I read it over. It began with the statement that
it was the general impression that all newspapermen were liars,
and went on by easy stages to point out that there were exceptions,
myself for instance. The rest was a lot of praise to which I had
no claim. I said so, and that I wished he would leave it out.
"Oh, well," he said, with a happy smile, "don't you see it gives
you your cue. Then you can turn around and say that anyway I am a
liar."
With tongue or pen, the argument shaped itself finally into the
fundamental one for the rescue of the home imperiled by the slum.
There all roads met. Good citizenship hung upon that issue. Say
what you will, a man cannot live like a pig and vote like a man.
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