The daily journal. (Salem, Or.) 1899-1903, 1902-09-13

unhinching willingness to meet danger
at need. hope to see all of ourr peo.
pie develop the softer, gentler virtues
! to an ever-increasing degree. but |
hope never to see them lose the
sterner virtues that make men. Cap
plause)
81 feel that the profession of rail
reading is a fine anti-scorbutic; that
ii does away with the tendency to.
wards softness. believe man is
not going to be a fireman or an eugi.
neer or serve well in the other ca.
patity, in long railroad life. To
speak technically, II he has a streak
Of yellow in him, you are going to find
il cut and he is going to be painfully
conscious of II very soon. II is fine
thing for our people that we should
have those qualities in evidence be-
fore us in the lifework of big group
Of our citizens. In America citizens
bower can succeed permanently only
upon the basis of standing shoulder to
shoulder working i'm association-by
organizatlon--each working for ALL
yet remembering that we need each
% so shape things that each man can
ievlop to best advantage all the forces
and powers at his command In your
organization you can accomplish
much by means of the brotherhoods,
)ut you accomplish II by means of the
men who go to make up that brother
lood, If you had exactly the organi.
zation, exactly the laws. exactly the
system, and yet were yourselves a
Door set of men, the system would
lot save you | will guarantee that
from time to time you have men go
N to try to serve for the nine months
who prove that they do not have the
stun in them out of which you can
make good men, You have got TO
have the stuff in you, and If you have
got the stuff, you can make out of II
much finer man by means of the
association. but you have got to have
the material out of which to make t.
The country's Greatest Need.
so IL is in citizenship. We need
good laws, we need a good funda
mental law of the type that we call
the Constitution; but back of it all
lies the need--for the lack of which
nothing else can supply-the need for
a higher average of individual citizen
ship. That we have got to have. Il
is just as II is in war, when we went
into the Spanish war a lot of our
National Guards were armed with
black.powder muskets-a weapon
which makes the crossbow rather re-
cent by comparison, II always irri.
,ates me to see any of our troops armed
with such weapon. | Uc-t 80 sec
each man have the best weapon. but
( the man is also poor creature. no
matter how good his weapon is, he
will be beaten by a good man with
club. want the best type of weap-
on, but | want the man behind the
gun. It Is so in our civic life in citl.
zenship.
II want to see good framework
of labor organized. | want to see
good framework under wise laws Il
corporate organization; ! want 10 see
good laws on the statute books, for
all of us. | want TO see our admirable
Constitution, whenever the need
comes, rendered still more admirable
even II II is necessary to amend It.,
But remember the importance of all
that. my friends, what | hope we will
never forget Is that, in the last re-
sort, the problem Of good citizenship
is the problem of producing good men
and women. That is the fundamental
problem. All the organizations in the
world. the best development OF broth
erhood, will not make a coward or
shirk a good engineer or a good fire
man, and the best law, the best con.
stitution will work but poorly II We
have not in the average citizen that
which counts more than intellect aud
stands far above mere brute strength
character. character that is com.
posed OF elements of honesty, courage
and hard common sense"