Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/70



MARK FAGAN, MAYOR

“Well, you were saying that you are a Catholic-”

“Yes, and I go to confession ever so often. I try to have less to confess each time, and I find that I have. Gradually, I am getting to be a better man. What I told you about hating men that were unfair to me shows. Some of them were very unfair; from hating them I’ve got so that I don’t feel anything but sorry for them, that they can’t understand how I’m trying to be right and just to everybody. Maybe some day I will be able to like them.”

“Like them also! What is it, Mr. Mayor, altruism or selfishness? Is it love for your neighbour or the fear of God that moves you?”

He thought long and hard, and then he was “afraid it was the fear of God.”

“What is your favourite book, Mr. Mayor?”

“‘The Imitation of Christ.’ Did you ever read it ? I read a little in it, anywhere, every day.”

I wouldn’t tell Jimmy Connolly, nor “Bob” Davis, nor Sam Dickinson, nor, to their faces, could I say it to many men in Jersey City; I’d rather write than speak it anywhere in this hard, selfish world of ours, but I do believe I understand Mark Fagan, how he makes men believe in him, why he wants to: The man is a Christian, a literal Christian; no mere member of a church, but a