wake during those strenuous years. Were we really awake or
did we only look upon him and his antics as a sort of good show?
All that time Bryan was peace-a-footing and prince-of-peacing. Now
did he really have the minds of the people or did T.R.?

If we've really gone to sleep and if the United States stands for
nothing but personal comfort and commercialism to our own people,
what a job you and the patriotic men of your generation have cut
out for you!

My own conviction (which I don't set great store by) is that our
isolation and prosperity have not gone so far in softening us as it
seems. They've gone a good way, no doubt; but I think that even the
Jonesville people yet feel their Americanism. What they need
is--leadership. Their Congressmen are poor, timid, pork-barrel
creatures. Their governors are in training for the Senate. The
Vice-President reads no official literature of the war, "because
then I might have a conviction about it and that wouldn't be
neutral." And so on. If the people had a _real_ leadership, I
believe they'd wake up even in Jonesville.

Well, let's let these things go for the moment. How's the
Ambassador[33]? And the Ambassador's mother and sister? They're
nice folks of whom and from whom I hear far too little. Give 'em my
love. I don't want you to rear a fighting family. But these kids
won't and mustn't grow up peace-cranks--not that anybody objects to
peace, but I do despise and distrust a crank, a crank about
anything. That's the lesson we've got to learn from these troubled
times. First, let cranks alone--the other side of the street is
good enough for them. Then, if they persist, I see nothing to do
but to kill 'em, and that's troublesome and inconvenient.

But, as I was saying, bless the babies. I can't begin to tell you
how very much I long to see them, to make their acquaintance, to
chuckle 'em and punch 'em and see 'em laugh, and to see just what
sort of kids they be.

I've written you how in my opinion there's no country in the world
fit for a modern gentleman and man-of-character to live in except
(1) the United States and (2) this island. And this island is
chiefly valuable for the breed of men--the right stock. They become
more valuable to the world after they go away from home. But the
right bl