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WHY I AM AN INFIDEL

popularly supposed to have hinted that his friend went too far.

"Not in the least," he says disdainfully. "Jordan is one of my best friends, and thinks as I do."

And, in fact, though the language is a little more diplomatic, Jordan's pronouncement is, substantially, Agnosticism. Mr. Burbank did not believe in knocking a man down when it is not good for him to stand up. He provided a chair. Dr. David Starr Jordan is inclined to provide a feather bed. There are physicians who think a wooden chair the most healthful seat. Anyhow, there is no Millikanism or Osbornism about either of these two fine American gentlemen.

"Bryan—a great friend of mine, by the way—had a Neanderthal type of head," Burbank says. "As to Riley, he has not even the oratorical skill of Bryan. The whole movement is based on the poor whites of the south."

I remind him of the ten million religious colored people of the United States.

"Yes, another big element in the movement," he assents. "And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis."

I almost felt at times as though I were talking to Darwin, and I expected some deprecation of my vigor and lack of diplomacy, such as Dar-