The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-04-24

 ceived With an OvatiOn-IntrOduced by President Hadley-Address Upon the Duties If Citizenship of the Re- cent College Graduate.
 Last night in Hendrie hall, the Hon. William H. Taft, Yale '78, gave the first of the four of his lectures upon The Duty of the Citizen,' in the Dodge lec- ture course.
 When President Arthur T. Hadley came to the crowded lecture hall with the famous secretary of war, they were received with a spontaneous, rousing cheer.
 President Hadley introduced the speaker
 Secretary Tafts specific subject for last evening was upon the Duties of the Citizen" viewed from the stand point of the recent college graduate. He said in part:
 There are few minds more exalted than those of the average college sen for. After graduation he takes step downward into active life, where he finds actual conditions somewhat diff ferent than he had expected. The truth is that the young man of wealth has more to contend with, and needs more fortitude to work out his salvation than the young man who finds it absolutely necessary to grapple with actual con- ditions from the start.
 There is no thing that the young man who is wealthy enough to fear nothing for the support of his family can find more inspirating than the talk ing of an active interest in politics.
 The poor young man is apt to take greater interest in politics during the first ten or fifteen years of his profess sional life, when he is single, and when he properly has time to devote to the active duties of citizenship. When I graduated from college, the latssez faire doctrine ruled, and 1t was thought that everything possible should be left to private enterprise. We then looked upon the postoffice department with suspicion, as savoring of paternal- ism
 When man who should not have had college education, and has not really gotten one, but has merely learn ed enough to become ''parlor social ist," enjoying carriages and servants, and all the luxuries of civilizas sion, and at the same time cries out against the injustice of the hardships of the poor, he is not one to have any patience with.
 The institution of private property, with all the incidents that go with 1t, is what has made possible all our ma terial progress and Accumulation of wealth. Men now recognize that for one to enjoy the fruits of his labor, he is to so conduct himself as to permit his neighbor to do so.
 As to the duties of citizenship of the recent college graduate, the first thing he must learn is where his polling place Is in the ward
 Granting the advisability of popu- lar government, how is this to be ae- complished with S0,000,000 people and an electorate of 14,O00,O00?
 To have popular government we must necessarily have parties, in order to have solidarity of action. The trouble in France to-day is that the people are broken up into too many small groups, so that no steady, definite ac- tion can be carried out; but instead the government Is constantly changing. Real progress must be made along par ty lines. All the good in the world can not be attained in one breath. Advance must be made gradually step by step. Having selected his party, having found out where his polling place is, the recent college graduate must then earn who the ward and precinct lead CTS are. He should learn the conditions existent in his community. He often has as much to learn from the warling man as the working man has to learn | from him. He must learn the politics of his community in their every phase
 The change and simplification that has gone on during recent years in the commercial world has also worked into the political world, and especially into city politics.
 I wish then to impress upon the men of Yale to learn the exact polit- ical conditions, and to affiliate themselves with some political party and take an active part in the duties of citizenship. The speaker was tumultu- ously applauded.