When the right of suffrage was thrown open to the masses of the people in England, a great Englishman said, "Now we must educate our masters."
In this country it is not so much a question of educating our masters, the people and the people's representatives [who, moreover, would resent and refuse to tolerate for a moment any such patronizing assumption], as of getting them to know us and getting ourselves to know them.
The need for closer contact and better understanding All parties concerned will benefit from coming into closer contact with each other and becoming acquainted with each other's viewpoints.
Can we honestly say that we are doing our full share to bring about such contact and to get ourselves and what we believe in properly understood, believe in not only because it happens to be our job in life and our self-interest, but because in the general scheme of things it serves a legitimate and useful and necessary function for our country?
How many of us have taken the trouble to seek the personal acquaintance of the Congressmen or Assemblymen or State Senators representing our respective districts?
How many of us make an effort to come into personal relationship with people, both here and in the West, outside of our accustomed circles? Yet an ounce of personal relationship and personal talk is worth many pounds of speech making and publicity propaganda.
When you look a man in the face and talk to him and question him and realize in the end that he is sincere in his viewpoint, whether you share it or not, and that he is made of the same human stuff as you, "To be one of fifteen men around a table"and has neither horns nor claws nor hoofs, much animosity, many preconceived notions are apt to vanish and you are not so cocksure any longer that the other fellow is a destructive devil of radicalism or a bloated devil of capitalism, as the case may be.
I recall in this connection an incident which concerns my great friend, the late E. H. Harriman. He talked to me about his wish to be elected to a certain railroad board. I said, "I don't really see what use that would be to you. You would be one of fifteen men, of whom presumably fourteen would be against you." He answered: "I know that, but all the opportunity I ever want is to be one of fifteen men around a table."
And the result has shown that that was all the opportunity he needed.
We cannot all have the conquering genius and force of a Harriman, but every one of us, in a greater or lesser degree, every one in some degree has the power of co-operating in the vastly important task of personal propaganda for a better understanding, a juster appreciation of each other, between East and West and South, between what is termed Wall Street and the men who make our laws, between business and the people.