Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/17

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FOREWORD
ix

wholly sordid accumulation. There must be fruitage and interchanged ideas and customs. There must follow mental development.

Man if alone on the ground is below the brute. He is slave to the soil, which will yield him food only by the sweat of his brow. Then he must store it and cook it and clothe and shelter himself. Nature clothes and shelters all other animals and satisfies their taste with raw food. Why so cruel to man? Only to be kind.

Man must work. God works; angels work; devils work. There is no redemption for man, there is no progress for man or woman, except by labor — labor of heart, mind and hand. Labor of the hand must be first; it purifies the blood coursing through brain and heart. Labor of the mind must follow that the hand may be directed; and labor of the heart must come in that hand and mind, by commerce and thought, may rightly touch its fellow. Only thus mutually can there be health, help, and progress.

No other animal has luxury, better food, or better shelter, whether there are thousands or millions more. But man may have progress by every other man. The more thousands the better each may be, and the more millions in humanity the greater and the more important the