factory-class people.  In our own country Professor Jordan warns us against war, intemperance, overworking, underfeeding of poor children, and disturbs our contentment with his “Harvest of Blood.”  Professor Jenks is more pessimistic.  He thinks that the pace, the climate, and the stress of city life, have broken down the Puritan stock, that in another century our old families will be extinct, and that the flood of immigration means a Niagara of muddy waters fouling the pure springs of American life.  In his address in New Haven Professor Kellogg calls the roll of the signs of race degeneracy and tells us that this deterioration even indicates a trend toward race extinction.

    —­NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS.

From every side come warnings to the American people.  Our medical journals are filled with danger signals; new books and magazines, fresh from the press, tell us plainly that our people are fronting a social crisis.  Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have differed in opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority.  Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking business.  I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks ought to go out of the governing business.

    —­WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

Authority is the great weapon against doubt, but even its force can rarely prevail against prejudice and persistent wrong-headedness.  If any speaker has been able to forge a sword that is warranted to piece such armor, let him bless humanity by sharing his secret with his platform brethren everywhere, for thus far he is alone in his glory.

There is a middle-ground between the suggestion of authority and the confession of weakness that offers a wide range for tact in the speaker.  No one can advise you when to throw your “hat in the ring” and say defiantly at the outstart, “Gentlemen, I am here to fight!” Theodore Roosevelt can do that—­Beecher would have been mobbed if he had begun in that style at Liverpool.  It is for your own tact to decide whether you will use the disarming grace of Henry W. Grady’s introduction just quoted (even the time-worn joke was ingenuous and seemed to say, “Gentlemen, I come to you with no carefully-palmed coins"), or whether the solemn gravity of Mr. Bryan before the Convention will prove to be more effective.  Only be sure that your opening attitude is well thought out, and if it change as you warm up to your subject, let not the change lay you open to a revulsion of feeling in your audience.