ical longing within us, the enthusiast who thinks it will come in the
form of a millennium, those who see it established by the strong arm of
a hero, are not those who have comprehended the vast truths of life.
The actual Justice must come by trained intelligence, by broadened
sympathies toward the individual man or woman who crosses our path;
one item added to another is the only method by which to build up a
conception lofty enough to be of use in the world."
This schoolgirl receipt has been tested in many later experiences,
the most dramatic of which came when I was called upon by a manufactoring company to act as one of three arbitrators in a perplexing
struggle between themselves, a group of trades-unionists, and a nonunion employee of their establishment. The nonunion man who was
the cause of the difficulty had ten years before sided with his employers
in a prolonged strike and had bitterly fought the union. He had been
so badly injured at that time, that in spite of long months of hospital
care he had never afterward been able to do a full day's work, although
his employers had retained him for a decade at full pay in recognition
of his loyalty. At the end of ten years the once defeated union was
strong enough to enforce its demands for a union shop, and in spite of
the distaste of the firm for the arrangement, no obstacle to harmoniousrelations with the union remained but the refusal of the trades-unionists to receive as one of their members the old crippled employee,
whose spirit was broken at last and who was now willing to join the
union and to stand with his old enemies for the sake of retaining his
place.
But the union men would not receive "a traitor," the firm flatly refused to dismiss so faithful an employee, the busy season was uponthem, and every one concerned had finally agreed to abide without
appeal by the decision of the three arbitrators. The chairman of our
little arbitration committee, a venerable judge, quickly demonstrated
that it was impossible to collect trustworthy evidence in regard to the
events already ten years old which lay at the bottom of this bitterness,
and we soon therefore ceased to interview the conflicting witnesses;
the second member of the committee sternly bade the men rememberthat the most ancient Hebraic authority gave no sanction for holding
even a just resentment for more than seven years, and at last we all
settled down to that wearisome effort to secure the inner consent of all
concerned, upon which alone the "mystery of justice" as Maeterlinck