The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-06-29
ROOSEVELT ON VALUE OF EDUCATION President That College Men Face Gaver
 responsibilities Than Those Less Fortunate

spend every ounce there was in him in me eHort to win, provided only he does II III honorable and manly fashion Rtt thlnk our effort should be to minimize rather than to increase that kind of love of athletics which manifests itself.
 not Tn Joining in the athletic sports, but In crowding by tens of thousands to see other people indulge in them. Is is a far
 better thing for our colleges to have the average student interested in some form
 Of athletics than to have them all gather
 in a mass to see other people do their
 athletics for them.
 So much for the undergraduates. Now
 for the alumni, the men who are at work
 out in the great world. Of course the
 mans first duty is to himself and to those immediately dependent .upon him. un- less he can pnll his own weight he must be content to remain a passenger all his life. But we have a right to expect that the men who come out of Harvard will
 do something more than merely pull their own weight. We have a right to expect
 that they will count positive forces for the beterment of their fellow-coun- trymen; and they can thus count only if
 they combine the power of devotion to a lofty ideal with practical common sense
 in striving to realize this ideal.
 This nation never stood in greater
 need than now of having among it's leaders men of lofty ideals. which they
 try to live up to and not merely to talk of. We need men with these ideals in public life, and we need them just as much in business and in such profes- ' sion as the law. We can by statute es- | tablsh only those exceedingly rough i lines of morality. the overpassng of
 which means that the man is in jeo- pardy of the constable or the sheriff. But the nation is badly off if in addition to | t1h h fara standard of conduct a standard impos- sibe effectively to establish by statute, but one upon which the community as
 whole. and especially the real leaders of the community, insist Take such dues- tion as the enforcement of the law. IL
 Is, of course, elementary to say that this is the first requisite in any civilization
 at all. But great many people in the ranks of life from which most college men are drawn seem to forget that they should condemn with equal severity those
 men who break the law by committing crimes of mob violence. and those who evade the law, or who actually break 1t,
 but so cunningly that they can not be discovered, the crimes they commit be- ing not those of physical outrage, but those of greed and craft on the largest scale.
 The very rich man who conducts his
 business as if he believed that he were
 a law unto hmSelii tneFepS IiihSh9eiS
 increases the difficulty of the task of up-
 holding order when the disorder IS
 menace to men of property; for If the
 community feels that rich men disregard 1 the law where 1t affects themselves, then | the community Is apt to assume the dan
 gerous and unWholesome attitude Of con- l doning crimes of violence committed
 against the interests which in the popu- | lar mind these rich men represent. This
 last attitude is wholly evil; but so Is i the attitude which produces 1t. We have
 right to appeal to the alumni of liar
 yard and to the alumni of every institu-
 ton of learning in this land, to do their ! part in creating public sentiment which shall demand of all men of means. and especially of the men of vast fortune, 1 that they set an example to their less
 fortunate brethren by paying scrupnlous heed not only to the letter but to the
 spirit of the laws, and by acknowledging
 in the heartest fashion the moral obliga- tions which cannot be expressed in law,
 but which stand back of and above all
 laws. It is far more important that they should conduct their business affairs de- centlv than that they should spend the
 surplus of their fortunes in philanthropy. Much has been given to these men and we
 have a right to demand much of them in return Every man of great wealth who runs his business with cynical contempt for those prohibitions Of the law which by hired cunning he can escape or evade, is a menace to our community and the community Is not to be excused if it does not develop a spirit which actively
 frowns on and discountenances him. The great profession of the law should be
 that whose members ought to take the