Moreover, a settlement is always hard to avoid when the parties can be brought face to face.  I can differ from a man much more radically when he is not in the room than I can when he is in the room, because then the awkward thing is he can come back at me and answer what I say.  It is always dangerous for a man to have the floor entirely to himself.  Therefore, we must insist in every instance that the parties come into each other’s presence and there discuss the issues between them, and not separately in places which have no communication with each other.  I always like to remind myself of a delightful saying of an Englishman of the past generation, Charles Lamb.  He stuttered a little bit, and once when he was with a group of friends he spoke very harshly of some man who was not present.  One of his friends said:  “Why, Charles, I didn’t know that you knew so and so.”  “O-o-oh,” he said, “I-I d-d-don’t; I-I can’t h-h-h hate a m-m-man I-I know.”  There is a great deal of human nature, of very pleasant human nature, in the saying.  It is hard to hate a man you know.  I may admit, parenthetically, that there are some politicians whose methods I do not at all believe in, but they are jolly good fellows, and if they only would not talk the wrong kind of politics to me, I would love to be with them.

NO SYMPATHY WITH MOB SPIRIT

So it is all along the line, in serious matters and things less serious.  We are all of the same clay and spirit, and we can get together if we desire to get together.  Therefore, my counsel to you is this:  Let us show ourselves Americans by showing that we do not want to go off in separate camps or groups by ourselves, but that we want to cooeperate with all other classes and all other groups in the common enterprise which is to release the spirits of the world from bondage.  I would be willing to set that up as the final test of an American.  That is the meaning of democracy.  I have been very much distressed, my fellow-citizens, by some of the things that have happened recently.  The mob spirit is displaying itself here and there in this country.  I have no sympathy with what some men are saying, but I have no sympathy with the men who take their punishment into their own hands; and I want to say to every man who does join such a mob that I do not recognize him as worthy of the free institutions of the United States.  There are some organizations in this country whose object is anarchy and the destruction of law, but I would not meet their efforts by making myself partner in destroying the law.  I despise and hate their purposes as much as any man, but I respect the ancient processes of justice; and I would be too proud not to see them done justice, however wrong they are.

MUST OBEY COMMON COUNSEL