When we found the place where he was born, it was a cow-stable and looked as if it had been none too good for that purpose, even in its palmy days, and my friend discovered that his parents were peasants, so poor that they were sent to America at the expense of the town. Nevertheless, he and his wife are cultured Americans and their children are graduates of our best colleges and universities. Not long ago, in travelling from the East to the West, my neighbour in the coach, a young man of evident good breeding, complained bitterly at the presence of some Russian Jewish immigrants. He hated them all, he said; and had no use for them. I looked into his face, and beneath the ruddy skin and dark, wide open eyes, saw that which only the initiated can readily detect--the racial origin. "May I ask your name?" His name was McElwynne, and his parents were English; but before I had done with him I knew that they had come from Russia, that their name was Levyn and that he was a Russian Jew but one generation removed from the steerage. Quite unintentionally, I once almost broke the heart of a woman in fashionable society. She pronounces her name with a French accent, and I translated it into Slavic; in that language it means a common garden tool, which proves her husband to be of peasant origin. The sight of the hole in the wall in Italy, and of the wretched huts in Hungary and Poland, has quickened my sympathies with the people who come out of them. Even so our fathers and mothers went forth, driven by hunger and dire need, drawn by the dream of better things and sustained by a simple and devout faith. After all, we are brothers. Born out of the womb of poverty, nourished by coarse fare, taught in the hard school of labour and saved from wretchedness by the same good providence. More and more we shall grow into one another's likeness, and that of God, as all have more bread, better air, cleaner homes, good books and an unobstructed view into heaven. For this, "Praise ye the Lord, kings and all people; princes and all judges of the earth!" Praise Him ye Irish and Scotch! Praise Him ye English and Welsh! Praise Him ye Germans and French! Praise Him ye Slavs and ye Latins! Praise Him ye Gentiles and Jews! "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord! Praise ye the Lord!" PART II With the Incoming Tide XIII PROBLEMS OF THE TIDE The 1,200 steerage passengers who sailed for the United States early in November, 1908, on the steamship _America_, of the Hamburg-American Line, were the advance guard of the vast armies of men which were waiting for the election of Mr. Taft to the presidency. That to them, was synonymous with the return of good times; but before those good times had a chance to prove themselves identical with those which took sudden flight over a year ago, the steamers of all lines were assured their full number of steerage passengers.