“Springfield, in other ways, affords so good a symbol of desirable world conditions, toward which the World Government should be, perhaps, constructed, that I would like to put the city before you in that light.
“What is the ultimate citizen of Springfield? Already the race strains that have mixed, have made an elastic, resilient type, that is one with the city’s suddenest moves.
“Of course, one event or festival pleases the Italians most, another seems to be in the Scandinavian mood, though both events represent Springfield. Every new song or event or new idea goes echoing through the various temperaments, and has a resonance that a thought cannot have when it is echoed in only one kind of a corridor.
“And Springfieldians, for all their marvelous intermarriages, are not mongrel. They have a special Springfield sense of the sacred mystery of race, that keeps the great pronounced race types like the Japanese and others in honored separation, while within one general type or kindred tradition, there is much intermarriage.
“We Michaelites say to each other, and you will forgive a family allusion, that the Springfield soul, which is so elastic, is like the sword evolved by the Iron Gentleman, which can be coiled like a ribbon from the side but, when cutting straightforward, can go through granite without losing edge anywhere.
“As for the versatility and elasticity, the Irish grandmother of my pet enemy will keep him in city hall politics, and one Russian great-grandmother keeps him in the music department of the University, as one of the leading composers. Or so we are accustomed to tracing out family lines in this town.
“Another man is quite sure that his Portuguese great-grandfather gives him the voice to be one of the city’s principals in local opera, and his Scotch great-grandfather, at least in his own eyes, explains the fact that he is an expert accountant.
“The mystery of race is first of all a sex mystery, and with endless subtleties settled by instinct, on which no man can dogmatize, though they have caused jealous Othello to misunderstand and kill Desdemona, and Jessica to understand and wed Lorenzo, from the beginning. If race is first of all a sex mystery, it is next a religious mystery, which is more easily expounded, from the standpoint of politics, and touches, perhaps more clearly, our theory of World Government. The prayers at our family altars differ in tone and accent. The races with a turn for sectarianism, like the Scotch, are still working in our blood while others are the mainstay of the Cathedral. All phases of the race—the religious mystery, moving in harmony, cleanness, and self respect are not only a part of Springfield’s total personality, but of Springfield’s government, in the midst of apparent mob-law.
“For instance, the fact that the Catholics have remained for these one hundred years worshipping in their incense-haunted Churches in the Springfield atmosphere, means that Springfield people, married before Springfield Catholic altars, have become a special kind of dreaming Catholics. Therefore, they have given us miracle-working, vision-seeing saints, like Saint Scribe of the Shrines, to help unify our mood. And we all worship in season at the Cathedral, and half of us are followers of St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, whatever our religious belief.
“I say the Christian Science Church of Springfield has a most noble history. It is made up largely of heretic Jews and proselytes from the old Congregational New Englanders. This would not be so if the doctrine were a pure abstraction appealing to all men equally. It is mixed in some incalculable way with the mystery of race and the mystery of the past, or it would not appeal so definitely to these two race traditions, and so little to all others.