We held our meetings at the City
Hall, where I had been spurned so often. All things come to those
who wait--and fight for them. Yes, fight! I say it advisedly.
I have come to the time of life when a man does not lay about him
with a club unless he has to. But--eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty! To be vigilant is to sit up with a club. We, as a
people, have provided in the republic a means of fighting for our
rights and getting them, and it is our business to do it. We shall
never get them in any other way. Colonel Waring was a wise man as
well as a great man. His declaration that he cleaned the streets
of New York, all prophecies to the contrary notwithstanding, by
"putting a man instead of a voter behind every broom," deserves to
be put on the monument we shall build by and by to that courageous
man, for it is the whole gospel of municipal righteousness in a
nutshell. But he never said anything better than when he advised
his fellow-citizens to fight, not to plead, for their rights. So
we grow the kind of citizenship that sets the world, or anyhow our
day, ahead.
Pages:
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404