He stood there like the leader of a chorus beating time with his hands, and every man, woman and child sang his best. They sang the second verse with a vim that strained their throats. As I watched them my eyes grew blurry and my knees weak. I began to question all the hard things I had said about them, for if ever patriotism was expressed in music it was then. It seemed to me that a hundred years and more rolled back, revealing every man here as ready to shoulder a musket for his country as ever their ancestors had been. When the singing ceased and it came time for me to step forward I felt worse than I did when as a boy I had to speak a piece on Friday afternoon. I was appointed temporary chairman by acclaim and then started in to deliver the little speech I had prepared for the occasion. But I hadn’t gone far before I forgot it and took a new course. At first I had been self-conscious like a bashful man among strangers, but when I was used to the many eyes staring at me I felt as though I was with my own family. A common country and a common cause seemed to unite us on the spot. I had wished to avoid the personal. Even in the face of the publicity I have already given the little happenings of my own life, I can truthfully say I don’t like it. But I felt here as I felt before when I wrote for print, that what a man can talk of from his own knowledge counts for a great deal more than his theories. So before I knew it I found myself telling briefly what I put down in “One Way Out.” I tried to impress upon them the opportunities that are open to a man who tackles life in a pioneer spirit and the fun of the fight. Then I rehearsed what their ancestors had done on these same acres upon which they now lived and tried to make them understand that if to-day there were more handicaps there were also corresponding opportunities. I spoke of the big market awaiting their produce and by my personal experiences in living in the big city made them understand how hungry a market it was. “If your great grandfathers could come back here to-day,” I said, “there isn’t a man of them who wouldn’t build a fortune upon this land.” I was conscious of cheering from time to time but I didn’t realize how deeply they were really moved until I had finished. Then I became conscious again that I was on a platform facing them and I saw them rise to their feet and cheer again and again. I had in some way introduced Holt, but before he stepped forward he motioned to the band and they struck up Yankee Doodle Dandy. The leader didn’t step lively enough for him and amid more cheering and laughing he took the leader’s place and led them off at a quickstep that made the whole crowd keep pace with pounding feet. Ruth was in the front row with Dick and I caught her eye. She smiled at me in a way that made me very proud. Holt, taking advantage of the right feeling I had created in the audience, developed at once the practical side of the proposition.