Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/152

 in pity, in mercy, in sympathy for the outcast, the despised, the imprisoned, all that vast horde of the denied and proscribed, still less will it forgive him, for it knows instinctively that the privileges men have or seek could not exist in a system where these principles were admitted as vital, inspiring force.

There was nothing, of course, for one who believed in the American doctrines to do but to support such a man, and when he appeared to be so utterly without supporters it seemed to be one's duty more than ever, though I own to having shrunk from such unconventional methods as Jones employed. That meeting at the post-office corner, for instance; someone might laugh, and in the great American self-consciousness and fear of the ridiculous, what was one to do? The opposition, that is, the two old parties, the Republican and Democratic, had nominated excellent men against Jones; the Republican nominee, indeed, Mr. John W. Dowd, was a man to whom I had gone to school, an old and very dear friend of our family, a charming gentleman of cultivated tastes. It was not easy to be in the attitude of opposing him, but my duty seemed clear, and I went into the campaign with Jones, and we spoke together every night.

It was a campaign in which were discussed most of the fundamental problems of social life. A stranger, coming to Toledo at that time, might have thought us a most unsophisticated people, for there were speculations about the right of society to inflict punishment, the basis of property, and a rather