As a matter of fact, you do not have time
to think in a city. It takes time to think. You can get what you call
opinions by contagion in a city and get them very quickly, but you do
not always know where the germ came from. And you have no scientific
laboratory method by which to determine whether it is a good germ or a
bad germ.
There are thinking spaces in this country, and some of the thinking done
is very solid thinking indeed, the thinking of the sort of men that we
all love best, who think for themselves, who do not see things as they
are told to see them, but look at them and see them independently; who,
if they are told they are white when they are black, plainly say that
they are black--men with eyes and with a courage back of those eyes to
tell what they see. The country is full of those men. They have been
singularly reticent sometimes, singularly silent, but the country is
full of them. And what I rejoice in is that you have called them into
the ranks. For your methods are bound to be democratic in spite of you.
I do not mean democratic with a big "D," though I have a private
conviction that you cannot be democratic with a small "d" long without
becoming democratic with a big "D.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221