political consequences. They felt that they had left behind them a land of
oppression and they would not submit to tyrannous dictation in this free
land of ours, no matter who sought to exert it.

In this political laboratory I came in contact with the raw materials of
political life that, as an older man, I was soon to see moulded into
political action in a larger way in the years to come. I found in politics
that the great policies of a nation are simply the policies and passions
of the ward extended. In the little discussions that took place in that
store, I was, even as a youth, looking on from the side-lines, struck by
the fine, wholesome, generous spirit of my own father. Never would he
permit, for instance, in the matter of the discussion of Ireland--so dear
to his heart--a shade of resentment or bitterness toward England to
influence his judgment in the least, for he believed that no man could be
a just judge in any matter where his mind was filled with passion; and so
in this matter, the subject of such fierce controversy, as in every other,
he held a judgment free and far away from his passionate antagonisms. I
found in the simple life of the community where I was brought up the same
human things, in a small way, that I was subsequently to come in contact
with in a larger way in the whirligig of political life in the Capitol of
the Nation. I found the same relative bigness and the same relative
smallness, the same petty jealousies and rivalries which manifest
themselves in the larger fields of a great nation's life; the same good
nature, and the same deep humanity expressing itself in the same way, only
differently apparelled.

One of the most interesting places in the world for the study of human
character is the country store or the city grocery. I was able as a boy
standing behind the counter of the little grocery store to study people;
and intimately to become acquainted with them and their daily lives and