Since, then, we may not have a wise authority, why not frankly face the situation? We blame the police, and justly, for their cruelties; yet upon them American society has imposed an impossible task. We have demanded free speech and free assemblage by our fundamental law, and privately we have told the police not to obey the constitution. Who’s at fault? New York knows. Last winter at Madison Square Garden the same sort of folly was enacted as that which disgraced Chicago on Sunday, January 17. Then Arthur Woods, police commissioner, saw a great light. He made an experiment in freedom. It worked hugely to his credit and, parenthetically, to the discredit of some of those most noisy in demanding the right. The emptiness of many of the speakers was exhibited and that was all. The existing order was unruffled. As a result of his enlightenment Commissioner Woods made a request at the conference on the old freedoms held at Princeton: “Policemen are entitled to definite orders,” said the commissioner. “People in this country have the constitutional right to freedom of assemblage and freedom of speech. The police have not only the responsibility to permit it—but to protect them in its exercise, and the police should be so instructed.” The police should be so instructed; the welfare of the race demands it. But they won’t get instructions until powerful organized groups of citizens find expression. Upon this organization rests the future. A Hymn to Nature (_This fragment, a “Hymn to Nature,” unknown to us in the published works of Goethe, was found in a little bookshop in Berlin, and translated into English by a strong man and a strong woman whose lives and whose creations have served the ideals of all humanity in a way that will gain deeper and deeper appreciation._) Nature! We are encompassed and enveloped by her, powerless to emerge and powerless to penetrate deeper. Unbidden and unwarned she takes us up in the round of her Dance and sweeps along with us, until exhausted we fall from her Arms. She creates ever new Forms; what is, was never before; what was, comes never again—everything is New and yet ever the Old. We live in the midst of her and are Strangers to her. She speaks incessantly with us and never betrays her Secret to us. We have unceasing Effect upon her and yet have no Power over her. She appears to have committed everything to Individuality and is indifferent to the Individual. She builds ever and ever destroys and her Workshop is inaccessible. She is the very Children—and the Mother—where is she? * * * * * She is the only Artist. With the simplest Materials she arrives at the most sublime Contrasts. Without Appearance of Effort she attains utmost Perfection—the most exact Precision veiled always in exquisite Delicacy.