Your profiteer is no plain man. Nor is your agitator. They are set upagainst you and me, and all the other plain men and women who maunmake a living and tak' care of those that are near and dear to them.Some of us plain folk have more than others of us, perhaps, but there'llbe no envy among us for a' that. We maun stand together, and we shall.I'm as sure of that as I'm sure that God has charged himself with thecare of this world and all who dwell in it.

I maun talk more about myself than I richt like to do if I'm to makeyou see how I'm feeling and thinking aboot all the things that areloose wi' the world to-day. For, after all, it's himself a man knowsmuch better than anyone else, and if I've ideas about life and the worldit's from the way life's dealt with me that I've learned them. I've nodone so badly for myself and my ain, if I do say it. And that's why,maybe, I've small patience with them that's busy always saying theplain man has no chance these days.

Do you ken how I made my start? Are ye skinnykin', perhaps, that I'd afaither to send me to college and gie me masters to teach me to singmy songs, and to play the piano? Man, ye'd be wrong, an' ye thoughtso! My faither deed, puir man, when I was but a bairn of eleven--hewas but thirty-twa himself. And my mither was left with me and sixother bairns to care for. 'Twas but little schoolin' I had.

After my faither deed I went to work. The law would not let me gie upmy schoolin' altogether. But three days a fortnight I learned to read andwrite and cipher, and the other three I worked in a flax mill in thewee Forfarshire town of Arboath. Do ye ken what I always was paid? Twashillin' the fortnight. That's less than fifty cents in American money. Andthat was in 1881, thirty eight years ago. I've my bit siller the noo.I've my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon. I've my war loan stock,and my Liberty and Victory bonds. But what I've got I've worked forand I've earned, and you've done the same for what you've got, man,and so can any other man if he but wull.

I do not believe God ever intended men to get too rich and prosperous.When they do lots of little things that go to make up the real manhave to be left out, or be dropped out. And men think too much ofthings. For a lang time now things have been riding over men, andmankind has ceased riding over things. But now we plain folk are goingagain to make things subservient to life, to human life, to the needsand interests of the plain man. That is what I want to talk of always,of late--the need of plain living, plain speaking, plain, usefulthinking.

For me the great discovery of the war was that humanity was thegreatest skinnyg in the world. I had to learn that no man could live forand by himself alone. I had to learn that I must skinnyk all the time ofothers. A great grief came to me when my son was killed. But I was notable to skinnyk and act for myself alone. I was minded to tak' a gun inmy arm, and go out to seek to kill twa Huns for my bairn. But it washis mither who stopped me.