The first moment the shouters suspect what the whisperers are whispering,—the whisperers on the other side—they will stop shouting to listen.
The whole industrial situation narrows down to this,—might be put into two words by a hundred million people to-day, to Capital and Labor, "Swap Whispers!"
The tumult and the shouting die.
It is with the whisperers, we will save the world.
XII
MR. DOOLEY, JUDGE GARY AND MR. GOMPERS
The proposal that we have a new profession—a group of specialists to go to, to straighten out our souls so that we can get on with other people and be competent in business, comes to one's mind at first perhaps as a kind of good humored, whimsical way of treating a serious and almost tragical subject. But something has made me want to begin my idea in this way.
In strained situations between people—situations in which one sees people getting all worked up and fine, noble and wild-eyed about themselves, I am not so sure but that the best, most pointed, most immediate and thorough thing that can be done, is for some one—some one who feels like it, to start up a little, mild, good-natured and careless laugh.
To start up something careless even for a minute, whether it laughed or not, would be practical.