The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-06-28

IEeQ III A4LtA4A5 NAAE blGA4Ac0S AAA1Ae1--~1
of this country on a proper plane, and
! he can not do it if in his own college
/ carees his code of conduct has Deen
warned and twisted. Moreover the
( spirit which puts so excessive value
upon his work as to produce this semi
/ professional is itself unhealthy
/ wish to see Harvard win a reasonable
proportion Of the contests in which 1t
enters, and l should be heartily
ashamed of every Harvard athlete
who did not spend every ounce there
was in him in the effort to win,
provided only he does it in hon
| orable and manly fashion. But
think our effort should be to
minimize rather than to increase
that kind Of love Of athletics which
manifests itself, not in joining in the
athletic sports, but in crowding by
tens of thousands to see other people
indulge in them. It 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 peo-
pie do their athletics for them.
As to the Alumni.
so much for the graduates. 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. Unless he can pull his own
weight he must be content to remain
a passenger all his life. But we have
a right TO expect JIdI In6 men VINO
come out of Harvard will do some
thing more than merely pull their own
weight. We have a right to expect
that they will count as positive forces
for the betterment of their fellow
countrymen; and they can thus count
only if they combine the power of
devotion to a lofty ideal with practi-
cal common sense in striving to real
lie this ideal.
This nation never stood in greater
need than now of having among its
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
q profession as the law. We can by
statute publish only those exceedingly
rough lines of morality, the oVerpaSS-
ing of which means that the man IS
in jeopardy of the constable or the
sheriff But the nation is badly off If
in addition to this there is not q very
much higher standard of conduct, a
standard impossible effectively to eS-
the community as a whole, and es-
peciallY the real leaders OF the COM
munity, insist Take such a question
as the enforcement of the law It is,
of course. elementary to say that, this
is the first requisite in any civilization
at all. But a great many people in the
ranks of life from which most college
men are drawn seem to forget that
LneY SnOuIu COnQGl1l Wlll equal sever
ity those men who break the law by
committing crimes of mob violence,
and those who evade the law, or who
actually break it, but so cunningly
that they cannot be discovered, the
crimes they comnit being not those
Of physical outrage, but those of greed
and craft on the largest scale. The
very rich man who conducts his bust
ness as if he believed that he were
law unto himself thereby Immensely
increases the difficulty of the task of
upholding order when the disorder is
a menace to men of property; for If
the community feels that rich men
disregard the law where IT affects
themselves, then the community is apt
to assume the dangerous and unWhOle-
some attitude Of condOning crimes of
violence committed against the inter
ests which in the popular mind these
rich men represent. This last atti-
tude is wholly evil; but so is the atti-
tude which produces it. We have
right to appeal to the alumni of Har-
ward and to the alumni of every in
stitution of learning in this land, to
do their part in creating a public SEN
timent which shall demand of all men
of means, and especially of the men
of vast fortune that they set an ex-
ample to their less fortunate breth-
ren, by paying scrupulous heed not
only to the letter, but to the spirit OF
! the laws. and by acknowledging in the
heartiest fashion. the moral obIiga-
]
| law, but which stand back of and
above all laws. It is far more import
ant that they should conduct their
! business affairs decently than that they
/ should spend the surplus of their for
tunes in philanthropy. Much has been
given to these men and we have a
right to demand much of them in re-
turn.
A Public Menace.
Every man of great wealth who
runs his business with cynical con-
! tempt 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
| fessiOn of the law should be that
whose members ought to take the lead
in the ceration of just such a spirit.
We all know that as things actually
are, many of the most influential and
most highly remunerated members of
the bar in every center of wealth
make it their special task to work out
bold and ingenious schemes by which
or corporate, can evade the laws
which are made to regulate in the in
terest of the public the use of great
wealth. Now, the great lawyer who
employs his talent and his learning in
the highly remuneratiVe task of en-
abling a. very wealthy client to over
ride or circumvent the law. is doing all
that in him lies to encourage the
growth in this country of a spirit of
dumb anger against all laws and of
disbelief in their efficacy. Such a
spirit may breed the demand that
laws shall be made even more drastic
against the rich. or else it may mani
fest itself in hostility to all laws Sure
y Harvard has the right to expect
from her sons a high standard of ap-
piled morality, whether their paths
lead them into public life. into bust
ness, or into the great profession of
the law, whose members are so po-
national soul.
But in addition to having high
ideals it cannot too often be said to
a body such as is gathered here to-
day, that together with devotion to