shining with soap, I believe it! Baxter tells
with humour how he persuaded Kausky to vote for the addition to the
schoolhouse. It was a pretty stiff tax for the poor fellow to pay, but
Baxter "figgered children with him," as he said. With six to educate,
Baxter showed him that he was actually getting a good deal more than he
paid for!

Be it far from me to pretend that we are always right or that we have
arrived in our country at the perfection of self-government. I do not
wish to imply that all of our people are interested, that all attend the
caucuses and school-meetings (some of the most prominent never come
near--they stay away, and if things don't go right they blame Charles
Baxter!) Nor must I over-emphasise the seriousness of our public
interest. But we certainly have here, if anywhere in this nation, real
self-government. Growth is a slow process. We often fail in our election
of delegates to State conventions; we sometimes vote wrong in national
affairs. It is an easy thing to think school district; difficult,
indeed, to think State or nation. But we grow. When we make mistakes,
it is not because we are evil, but because we don't know. Once we get a
clear understanding of the right or wrong of any question you can depend
upon us--absolutely--to vote for what is right. With more education we
shall be able to think in larger and larger circles--until we become,
finally, really national in our interests and sympathies. Whenever a man
comes along who knows how simple we are, and how much we really want to
do right, if we can be convinced that a thing _is_ right--who explains
how the railroad question, for example, affects us in our intimate daily
lives, what the rights and wrongs of it are, why, we can understand and
do understand--and we are ready to act.

It is easy to rally to a flag in times of excitement. The patriotism of
drums and marching regiments is cheap; blood is material and cheap;
physical weariness and hunger are cheap. But the struggle I speak of is
not cheap. It is dramatised by few symbols. It deals with hidden
spiritual qualities within the conscience of men. Its heroes are yet
unsung and unhonoured. No combats in all the world's history were ever
fought so high upward in the spiritual air as these; and, surely, not
for nothing!

And so, out of my experience both in city and country, I feel--yes, I
_know_--that the real motive power of this democracy lies back in the
little country neighbourh