Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/223

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nor Civic Associations. Down in their hearts these are not what the people want. What they want is a life that is fuller, more beautiful, more splendid and, above all, more human. And nobody can prepare it and hand it over to them. They must get it themselves; it must come up through them and out of them, through long and toilsome processes of development; for such is democracy.

"That man's program will take a thousand years!" Lincoln Steffens had said in despair that day I introduced him to Jones. Yes—or a hundred thousand. But there is no other way.



XXXV


The most efficient executive of which there is any record in history is clearly that little centurion who could say: "For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers; and I say unto one, go, and he goeth; and to another, come, and he cometh; and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it."

In my experience as an executive I learned that it was easy to say "Go," but that the fellows did not go promptly; I could say "Come," and he came—after a while, perhaps, when I had said "Come" again, and that sometimes, having said "Do this," I had to go myself and do it, or leave it undone.

Executive ability is a mysterious quality inhering in personality, and partaking of its mysteries.

I had gone into the mayor's office feeling that I