most powerful realities in the world.  You vote the Republican ticket.  Why?  Because you have studied the issues of the campaign and reached a well-reasoned conclusion how the general interests may be served?  Possibly.  But nine times in ten it will be because of that word Republican.  You may believe that in a given instance the Republican cause or candidate is inferior; you may have nothing personally to lose through Republican defeat; yet you squirm and twist and seek excuses for casting a Republican ballot.  Such is the power—­aye, sometimes the tyranny—­of a word.  The word Republican has not been selected invidiously. Democrat would have served as well.  Or take religious words—­Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, or what not.  A man who belongs, in person or by proxy, to one of the sects designated may be more indifferent to the institution itself than to the word that represents it.  Thus you may attack in his presence the tenets of Presbyterianism, for example, but you must be wary about calling the Presbyterian name. Mother, the flag—­what sooner than an insult coupled with these terms will rouse a man to fight?  But does that man kiss his mother, or salute the flag, or pay much heed to either?  Probably not.  Words not realities?  With what realities must we more carefully reckon?  Words are as dangerous as dynamite, as beneficent as brotherhood.  An unfortunate word may mean a plea rejected, an enterprise baffled, half the world plunged into war.  A fortunate word may open a triple-barred door, avert a disaster, bring thousands of people from jealousy and hatred into cooeperation and goodwill.

Nor is it solely on their emotional side that men may be affected by words.  Their thinking and their esthetic nature also—­their hard sense and their personal likes and dislikes—­are subject to the same influence.  You interview a potential investor; does he accept your proposition or not?  A prospective customer walks into your store; does he buy the goods you show him?  You enter the drawing room of one of the elite; are you invited again and again?  Your words will largely decide—­your words, or your verbal abstinence.  For be it remembered that words no more than dollars are to be scattered broadcast for the sole reason that you have them.  The right word should be used at the right time—­and at that time only.  Silence is oftentimes golden.  Nevertheless there are occasions for us to speak.  Frequent occasions.  To be inarticulate then may mean only embarrassment.  It may—­some day it will—­mean suffering and failure.  That we may make the most of the important occasions sure to come, we must have our instruments ready.  Those instruments are words.  He who commands words commands events—­commands men.

II

    WORDS IN COMBINATION:  SOME PITFALLS