“Let me say again that I shouldn’t be telling you all this if you didn’t have her ideas--and without ever knowing her! She lived on the corner below the church, where she could watch the door. She watched it for about two years, day and night, without ever seeing a soul go in, and people thought she’d lost her mind. And then, one Sunday morning when the whole town--all her old friends and neighbors--were bound for church, she came out of her house alone and walked straight down to that church she had built for sinners, and in at the door. “You see,” he said, rising quickly, as though recalling his obligations to St. John’s Men’s League, “she was the finest woman in town--the best and the noblest woman that ever lived! They found her at noon lying dead in the church. The failure of her plan broke her heart; and that made it pretty hard--for her family--everybody.” He was fingering his cards nervously, and I did not question the sincerity of the emotion his face betrayed. “It is possible,” I suggested, “that she had grown morbid over some sin of her own, and had been hoping that others would avail themselves of the hospitality of a church that was frankly open to sinners. It might have made it easier for _her_.” He smiled with a childlike innocence and faith. “Not only not possible,” he caught me up, with quick dignity, “but incredible! She was my mother.” THE SECOND-RATE MAN IN POLITICS [1916] In our great modern States, where the scale of things is so large, it does seem as if the remnant might be so increased as to become an actual power, even though the majority be unsound.--MATTHEW ARNOLD, _Numbers_. I WHO governs America? The answer is obvious: we are a republic, a representative democracy enjoying to the utmost government of, for, and by the people. America is governed by persons we choose, presumably on our own initiative, to serve us, to make, execute, and interpret laws for us. Addicted as we are to the joy of phrases, we find in these _clichés_ unfailing delight. Democracy, ideally considered, is an affair of the wisest and best. As the privileges of the ballot are generously extended to all, the whole people are invested with an initiative and an authority which it is their duty to exercise. We assume that all are proud of their inheritance of liberty, jealous of their power, and alert in performing the duties of citizenship. That we are not highly successful in realizing this ideal is a matter that is giving increasing concern to thoughtful Americans.