An unexpected attack in another quarter had disturbed him greatly; and oddly enough it was the Reverend James Paddock of the parish house at Ironstead who had fired an arrow into the weakest plate of Colonel Craighill’s armour. The minister had written a letter to the authorities directing attention to the vile condition of a group of tenements in Ironstead, not knowing who owned them, and it happened that one of the objectionable buildings belonged to Colonel Craighill. The _Mail_, a vigorous young independent newspaper, made the most of this opportunity in its reddest ink. The fact that this leading citizen, well known for his labours in behalf of the negroes in the South and for other notable philanthropies far removed from Pittsburg, should thus ignore the squalor at his own door, aroused the _Mail’s_ righteous indignation, and it demanded an investigation by the local branch of the Municipal Service League, of which Colonel Craighill was the national president. “Colonel Craighill”--to quote the _Mail_--“is an excellent type of the after-dinner reformer, posing in the lime-light abroad, but avoiding the discomforts that attend sincere, vigorous participation in home affairs. It is not our esteemed fellow-citizen we are after; it is the smug complacency and cant of many men of similar high position in our American cities, who wax eloquent in bemoaning our political depravity, but through cowardice or their own culpability are never heard from when there is any real work to be done.” Paddock was sorry to have caused this explosion and he called on the Colonel to explain; but Colonel Craighill’s rage was not appeased. He wanted to sue the newspaper, but his lawyer advised against it; the conditions in the tenement were about as the _Mail’s_ artist portrayed them, and there was no disputing the fact that the Colonel owned the property, though, to be sure, he had lately mortgaged it. The refusal of the _Star_ to spring to his defense astounded Colonel Craighill. It was not the _Star’s_ business, he learned, to correct the _Mail’s_ mis-statements, and the _Star_, smarting because the _Mail_ had scored a “beat,” began, out of sheer pique, a vigorous attack on the city administration. Colonel Craighill believed himself sincere in his devotion to reform work, and the _Mail’s_ assault was unfortunate in that it evoked echoes of the familiar cynicisms against all movements for our political and moral uplift. Gentlemen in white waistcoats at banquet tables cannot re-create mankind by resolution; nor do their failures mean that the people are unsound. Politics and government are practical matters. Democracy is an ideal. And as such it can never be fully realized. It gathers strength through successive experiments and reincarnations. The goal, always a little further on, is sought in faith and abandoned in despair, but its changing light can never outshine the hope in man’s heart. CHAPTER XXXIII THE HIGH MOMENT OF THEIR LIVES