46 . Latitude and Longitude 



to ride the storm. Great as is the superiority in effi 

 ciency of the men who do things over those who do 

 not, it may be no greater than their superiority in 

 morality. In addition to the simple and sincere men 

 who have a twist in their mental make-up, these 

 knots of enthusiasts contain, especially among their 

 leaders, men of morbid vanity, who thirst for noto 

 riety, men who lack power to accomplish anything 

 if they go in with their fellows to fight for results, 

 and who prefer to sit outside and attract momentary 

 attention by denouncing those who are realiy forces 

 for good. 



In every community in our land there are many 

 hundreds of earnest and sincere men, clergymen and 

 laymen, reformers who strive for reform in the field 

 of politics, in the field of philanthropy, in the field of 

 social life ; and we could count on the fingers of one 

 hand the number of times these men have been 

 really aided in their efforts by the men of the type 

 referred to in the preceding paragraph. The social 

 ist who raves against the existing order is not the 

 man who ever lifts his hand practically to make our 

 social life a little better, to make the conditions that 

 bear upon the unfortunate a little easier; the man 

 who demands the immediate impossible in temper 

 ance is not the man who ever aids in an effort to 

 minimize the evils caused by the saloon; and those 

 who work practically for political reform are ham- 



