THE TURNING-POINT A BRIEF consideration at this point of a certain permanent tendency of Father Hecker's mind will be of present and future value to the student of his life.

It has been said already that he never changed the principles he had adopted as a lad among the apprentices and journeymen of New York; principles which, for all social politics, he summarized in the homely expression, "I am always for the under dog." Thus, in the article quoted in the preceding chapter, he had the right to say of himself and his associates: "We were guileless men absorbed in seeking a solution for the problems of life.

Nor, as social reformers at least, were we given over to theories altogether wrong.

The constant recurrence of similar epochs of social agitation since then, and the present enormous development of the monopolies which we resisted in their very infancy, show that our forecast of the future was not wholly visionary.

The ominous outlook of popular politics at the present moment plainly shows that legislation such as we then proposed, and such as was then within the easy reach of State and national authority, would have forestalled difficulties whose settlement at this day threatens a dangerous disturbance of public order." We dwell on his political consistency, however, only because it affords an evidence of that unity of character which was always recognized in Father Hecker by those who knew him best.