The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-09-07

manently good for any class must also
be good for the nation as whole, and
legislation which does injustice to any
class is certain to work harm to the ma
ton. Take our currency system for ex-
ample. This nation is on a gold basis.
The treasury of the public is in excellent
condition. Never before has the per
capita of circulation been as large as it
is this day, and this circulation, more
over, is of money every dollar of which
is at par with gold. Now, our having
this sound currency system is of benefit
to banks, of course, but it is of infinitely
more benefit to the people as whole,
because of the healthy effect on business
conditions.
| In the same way, whatever is advis
able in the way of remedial or corrective
currency legislation-and nothing revo-
lutionary is advisable under present con-
ditions-must be undertaken only from
the standpoint of the business commun-
ity as a whole, that is of the American
! body polite as a whole. Whatever Is
done, we can not afford to take any
step backward or to cast any doubt
upon the certain redemption in standard
coin of every circulating note.
Among ourselves we differ in many
qualities, of body, head and heart; we
are unequally developed, mentally as
well as physically But each of us has
the right to ask that he shall be pro-
Itected from wrongdoing as he does his
work and carries his burden through
/ lie. NO man u66QS sympathy because
/ he has to work, because he has burden
to carry. Far and away the best prize
| that life offers is the chance to work
hard at work worth doing; and this is a
prize open to every man. for there can
| be no work better worth doing than that
done to keep in health and comfort and
with reasonable advantages those i'm
mediately dependent upon the husband,
the father, or the son.
There is no room in our healthy
| ma 70 or l.ox
man or the woman whose object it is
throughout life to shirk the duties
! which life ought to bring. Life can
mean nothing worth meaning, unless its
prime aim is the doing of duty, the
achievement of results worth achieving.
A recent writer has finely said: After
all, the saddest thing that can happen
to man is to carry no burdens To be
bent under too great a load is bad; to be
crushed by it is lamentable; but even
in that there are possibilities that are
glorious. But to carry no load at all
there is nothing in that. No one seems
to arrive at any goal really worth
reaching in this world who does not
come to it heavy laden.'
Surely from our experience each one
of US knows that this is true. From
the greatest to the smallest. happiness
and usefulness are largely found in the
same soul, and the joy of life is won in
4 its deepest and tTuest sense only by
those who have not shirked life's bur-
dens. The men whom we most delight
to honor in all this land are those who
in the iron years from 81 to '65, bore on
their shoulders the burden of saving
the Union. They did not choose the
easy task. They did not shirk the diff
cult duty. Deliberately and of their
own free will they strove for an IDEAL
upward and onward across the stony
slopes of greatness. They did the hard
est work that was then to be done; they
bore the heaviest burden that any gen
Grafton of Americans ever had to bear;
and because they did this they have
won such proud JOY as it has fallen to
the lot of no other men to win, and
have written heir names forevernore
on the golden honor roll of the nation
AS it is with the soldier, so it is with
the civilian. To win success in the bus
mess world, to become a first-class me-
lchanic, a successful farmer. an able
lawyer or doctor, means that the man
has devoted his best energy and power
through long years to the achievement
of his ends. So it is in the life of the
family upon which in the last anal
rests The man or woman who as bread
winner and home maker, or as wife and
mother, has done all that he or she can
do, patiently and uncomp1aining1y, is
to be honored; and is to be envied by
all those who have never had the good
fortune to feel the need and duty of
doing such work The woman who has
borne. and who has reared as they
should be reared, a family of children,
has in the most emphatic manner de-
served well of the Republic Her bur-
fden has been heavy. and she has been
able to. bear is worthily only by the
lpossesszop of resolution, of good. sense:
of conscience. and of unseldshness. But