It was when he was undergoing such criticism as this that he came to see me, to ask me to speak at Golden Rule Park. This was a bit of green grass next to his factory; he had dedicated it to the people’s use, and there under a large willow-tree, on Sunday afternoons, he used to speak to hundreds. There was a little piano which two men could carry, and with that on the platform to play the accompaniments the people used to sing songs that Jones had written--some of them of real beauty, and breathing the spirit of poetry, if they were not always quite in its form. In the winter these meetings were held in Golden Rule Hall, a large room that served very well as an auditorium, in his factory hard by. On the walls of Golden Rule Hall was the original tin sign he had hung up in his factory as the only rule to be known there, “Therefore whatsoever things ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” In the course of time every reformer, every radical, in the country had spoken in that hall or under that willow-tree, and the place developed an atmosphere that was immensely impressive. The hall had the portraits of many liberal leaders and humanitarians on its walls, and a number of paintings; and in connection with the settlement which Jones established across the street the institution came to be, as a reporter wrote one day in his newspaper, the center of intelligence in Toledo. Well then, on that morning when first he called, Jones said to me: “I want you to come out and speak.” “On what subject?” I asked. “There’s only one subject,” he said,--“life.” And his face was radiant with a really beautiful smile, warmed with his rich humor. I began to say that I would prepare something, but he would not let me finish my sentence. “Prepare!” he exclaimed. “Why prepare? Just speak what’s in your heart.” He was always like that. Once, a good while after, in one of his campaigns, he called me on the telephone one evening just at dinner time, and said: “I want you to go to Ironville and speak to-night.” I was tired, and, as I dislike to confess, somewhat reluctant,--I had always to battle so for a little time to write,--so that I hesitated, asked questions, told him, as usual, that I had no speech prepared. “But you know it is written,” he said, “that ‘in that hour it shall be given you what ye shall say.’” I could assure him that the prophecy had somewhat failed in my case, and that what was given me to say was not always worth listening to when it was said; and then I inquired: “What kind of crowd will be there?” “Oh, a good crowd!” he said. “But what kind of people?” “What kind of people?” he asked in a tone of great and genuine surprise. “What kind of people? Why, there’s only one kind of people--just people, just folks.”