Editorial July 22, 1944 Issue

His Steps Shall Not Slide

Paul Stark Seeley

This morning at a busy traffic intersection, I watched the traffic officer at his pivotal location. He was actively alert, fearless, confident, eager to serve intelligently the needs of all. With a slight movement of his hand, or sometimes just the motion of a finger, he gave the law's permission to move ahead, or with an open palm conveyed the law's command to stop.

No one refused to obey. No one tried to force his way contrary to the officer's well-reasoned judgments. What was active here? Law. The officer was, in a sense, the embodiment, or representative, of the law of the Commonwealth. This enabled him to act with authority and assurance. The law had chosen him to assert it.

Motorists and pedestrians concurred and obeyed, because in their thought too was a sense of the law. The law was as much theirs as his, only he was representing them all in implementing it. I was impressed by how quietly, easily, effectively, and beneficially it worked. And the reason the law worked so well was that all concerned were thinking the law. It was a mental force controlling them and their actions. Hands, feet, bodies, cars, all were controlled by this mind-force.

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