The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-06-30

lily those men who break tile law by
committing crimes Of mob violence.
and those VIC avaGe the law. or who
actually break 1T, but so cunningly that
can not be discovered. the crimes
they commit being not those of physi-
cal outrage, but those of greed and
craft on the largest scale. The very
rich man who conducts his business as
II he believed that he were ii law unto
himself. thereby immensely increases
the difficulty Of the task of UNFOLDING
order Ensn the disorder Is II menac
II men OF property: for il h COM
munity feels that rich men disregard
tho law where it affects themselves.
then the community Is apt To assume
the dangerous and unwhoiesome atti-
tude OF condoning crimes Of violence
committed against the interests which
In II popular mind these rich men
represent. This last attitude is wholly
evil: but so is the attitude which pro-
duces IT. We have a right TO appeal
to the alumni of Harvard, and to the
alumni OF every institution of learning
liz this land. to Go their part in Great
ing Il public sentiment which shall de-
mand of all men of means. and eSpe-
cially OF he men of vast fortune, that
they set an example to their less for
tunate brethren, by paying scrupulous
heed not only to the letter, but to the
spirit OF the laws, IL by acknowledge
ing in he heartieSt fashion the moral
obligations which can not be expressed
IL law, but which stand back of and
o all laws. 1t is far more imDor-
tant that they should conduct their
business affairs decently 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 re-
turn. 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
d!ScOuntenanceS him. The great pro-
feSSiOn of II law should he that
who's members ought 10 take the lead
III the creation of just such Il 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 ask to work out
bold II ingenious schemes by which
their very wealthy clients, individual
or corporate, can evade the laws which
are made to regulate in the interest 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 enabling
a very wealthy client to override or
clrcumvent the law is doing all that in
him lies to encourage the growth in
this country of a spirit of dumb an
ger against all laws and of disbelief in
their efficacy. Such a spirit may
breed demand that laws shall be made
ever more drastic against the rich, or
else it may manifest itself in hostility
to all laws. Surely Harvard has the
right to expect from her sons a high
standard of applied morality, whether
their paths lead them into public life.
into business, or into the great profes
sion of the law. whose members are so
potent in shaping the growth of the
national soul.
But in addition to having high ideals
it can not too often be said to a body
such as is gathered here today, that
together with devotion to what is
right must go practical efficiency in
striving for what is right. This is a
rough. wOrkaday, practical world, and
II in it we are to do the work best
worth doing, we must approach that
work in a spirit remote from that of
the mere visionary, and above all re-
mote from that of the visionary whose
aspirations after good find expression
only in h shape of scOldinS and COM
planning. 1t shall not help us if we
avoid the Scylla of baseneSs of motive.
only to be wrecked on the Charybdis
Of wrong-headedness, of f%eebleness
and inefficiency. There can be moth
ing worse for the community than to
have the men who profess lofty ideals
show themselves so foolish, so narrow,
SO impracticable, as to cut themselves
off from communion with the men who
are actually able to do the work of gov
erning, the work of business. the work
of the professions. 1t is a sad and evil
thing if the men with Il moral sense
group themselves as impractical zeal
OTIS, while the men of action grad
ually grow to discard and laugh at all
moral sense as an evidence of imprac
teal weakness. Macaulay, whose emf
nently sane and wholesome spirit re-
vOlted not only at weakness, but at the
censorious folly which m~asquerades as
virtue, describes the condition of Scot
land at h end of the seventeenth cen
fury in a passage which every sincere
refOrmer should keep constantly be-
fore him.
1t is a remarkable circumstance
that the same country should have pro.
duced in the same age the most won-
Gerful specimens of both extremes of
human nature. Even in things indif.
ferent the Scotch Puritan would hear
of no compromise: and he was but too
ready to consider all who recommends
ed prudence and charity as traitors TO
the cause of truth. On the other hand,
the Scotchmen of that generation who
made a figure in Parliament were the
most dishonest and unblnshing time
servers that the world has eyer seen.