My Life and Loves (Complete)

HERE IN the blazing heat of an American August, amid the hurry and scurry of New York, I sit down to write my final declaration of Faith, as a preface or foreword to the story of my life. Ultimately it will be read in the spirit in which it has been written and I ask no better fortune. My journalism during the war and after the armistice brought me prosecutions from the federal government. The authorities at Washington accused me of sedition, and though the third postmaster general, ex-Governor Dockery, of Missouri who was chosen by the department as judge, proclaimed my innocence and assured me I should not be prosecuted again, my magazine (Pearson’s) was time and again held up in the post, and its circulation reduced thereby to one-third. I was brought to ruin by the illegal persecution of President Wilson and his arch-assistant Burleson, and was laughed at when I asked for compensation. The American government, it appears, is too poor to pay for its dishonorable blunders. I record the shameful fact for the benefit of those Rebels and Lovers of the Ideal who will surely find themselves in a similar plight in future emergencies. For myself I do not complain. On the whole I have received better treatment in life than the average man and more loving-kindness than I perhaps deserved. I make no complaint.