Can you buy a pound of butter and be certain that you get sixteen full ounces? Can you buy a pound of meat and be sure that the scales are true? A new race is being born. Begin with those children, and teach them honesty before you teach them geography--honesty with the parents, honesty with each other, honesty with themselves. “As the twig is bent the tree inclines.” When I was a little boy I was taught that George Washington could not tell a lie. I had an ideal of George Washington. I wanted to emulate him. And so when I was a man I sought truth. I looked for it on the surface of the ground, and also in deep wells. Once I spent years in the wilderness trying to find truth in myself. I remained in the wilderness until I found it. Had I not found it, I should have left my bones there. You need a new set of copy-book maxims. If the boy who writes “Honesty is the best policy” at school in the morning, sees in the afternoon his father trying to trade a balky horse for a good roadster, he wonders if his teacher is fooling him. The disillusionment of children is tragic with menace for the coming State. I would rather see reproach in the eyes of an Adept Teacher than in the eyes of a child. If I fail my Teacher I do not hurt him seriously, if I fail my child I hurt him irreparably. You must face the fact that the life of America is going to be reorganized. You have wondered why I have not written of late. I have been busy, studying America. I have seen much that I can tell you, and much that I cannot tell you--yet. For I want you to be quiet. You could not be quiet if you knew as much as I know. It has been said that necessity knows no law. Forget it not, you war-profiteers who would corner the world’s necessities. Remember that a cornered animal is dangerous, and a cornered necessity has hoofs and horns. There is a disease that has no name among the doctors--the disease of colossal possessions. Its symptoms are a voracious appetite for more possessions, and a phobia lest possessions should be lost. It is worse than neuralgia and indigestion combined to disturb the rest of the victim. I long to see a hundred million and more people living in peace and plenty in America. Fanatics prattle about the confiscation of great fortunes. I do not care so much what you do with your fortunes. But I care much what you do with your land and your food, and I care more what you do with your men and women and little children. Do not get into a panic, I pray you. A panic is worse than a quicksand to get into. Keep calm. The country is in no danger, if it does not lose its head. LETTER XII LEVEL HEADS _May 15, 1917._ DO not get excited, you Americans. If you keep your heads, you will come through this all right. If you lose your heads, you may lose much besides--you may lose more than you can win back in a hundred years.