The crowd ceased to cheer, awed and self-convicted now.
"Oh, I do not say this with any bitterness," the speaker went on; "for the first thing I would insist upon in the new Edgewater is a spirit of charity, of brotherliness, where men at opposite poles of thought, like Jim Gaylord and Adolph Salzberg, can each recognize that the other has a point of view. Not that I am going to be mushy. Deliberate criminals must be punished, of course. I am not one who would line a murderer's cell with flowers, nor wash him with sentimental tears. I would send the flowers to the grave of his victim and reserve my tears for those bereft by his bloody hand. I would, as Roosevelt said once, 'rather seem hard in the heart than soft in the head.' But our crimes must be measured by the circumstances that created them. Our punishments must do justice and not injustice."
Again the audience was breathless, drinking down the thought—accepting it as authoritative from the man who had earned the right to speak with authority.
"And now let me tell you, my friends, that our most immediate duty is to be hopeful. There's hope in most any situation if you'll look for it. Today, instead of owning the ground you stand on, the Salisheuttes are your landlords; yet there's hope even in that."
But the mental attitude of the crowd was instantly changed and up from the face of it came a sort of mass groan; but Henry challenged this by going on stoutly:
"You will have to make your terms with them. They are not absentee landlords. They are here. I see them about me on the steps—curious spectators of a scene
