The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-21
NW HAVEN COURIER WEDNESD 2 19o7

S%1 liONEu Gt lllOSC COL pOIdllODS. Action was taken by the congress last year limiting the number of hours that railway employees should be em- ployed. The law is a good one; but if in practice it proves necessary to strengthen it, it must be strengthened. We have now secured a national em- ployers' liability law; but ultimately a more far-reaching and thorough going law must be passed. It is monstrous that a man or woman who is crippled in an industry, even as the result of taking what are the neces- sary risks of the occupation. should be required to bear the whole burden .of the loss. That burden should be distributed and not placed solely upon the weakest individual, the one least able to carry it. By making the employer liable the loss will ultimate ly be distributed among all the bene- f1ciaries of the business.
 The Public Health.
 also hope that there will be legis- lation increasing the power of the National government to deal with cer- tain matters concerning the health of our people everywhere; the Federal authorities, for instance, should join with all the State authorities in war ring against the dreadful scourge of tuberculosis Your own State govern ment, here in Massachusetts, deserves high praise for the action it has taken in these public health matters during the last few years; and in this, as in some oethr matters, I hope to see the national government stand abreast of the foremost State governments.
 The Square Deal.
 I have spoken of but one or two laws which, in my Judgment, it is ad- visable to enact as part of the general, scheme for making the interference of the national government more effec- tive in securing justice and fair dealing as between man and man here in the United States Let me add, however that while it is necessary to have leg islation when conditions arise where we can only cope with evils through the joint action of all of us, vet that we can never afford to forget that in the last analysis the all-important fae- tor for each of us must be his own individual character. It is a necessary thing to have good laws, good institu- tions; but the most necessary of all things is to have high quality of individual citizenship.
 This does not mean that we can af- ford to neglect legislation. It will be highly disastrous if we permit ourselves to be misled by the pleas of those who see in an unrestricted individualism the all-sufficient panacea for social evils; but it will be even more disastrous to adopt the opposite panacea of any so- cialistic system which would destroy all individualism, which would root out the fiber of our whole citizenship. Tn any great movement, such as that in which we are engaged, nothing is more necessary than sanity, than the refusal to be led into extremes by the advo- cates of the ultra course on either side
 Those professed friends of liberty who champion license are the worst fees of liberty and tend by the reac- tion their violence causes to throw the government back into the hands of the men who champion corruption and tyr amy in the name of order So 1t is with this movement for securing justice toward all men, and equality of oppor- 1 tunity so far as it can be secured by
 s,yr,, oo4;a.,i ma ,.; o1 ,,,ov ,,,t, o with hard arrogance declines to consid- CT the rights and the needs of those who are less well off, and the poor man who excites or indulges in envy aud hatred of those who are better off, are alike allen to the spirit of our na- ] tional life. Each of them should learn to appreciate the baseness and degra- dation of his point of view, as evil in the one case as in the other, There eX- | ists no more sordid and unlovely type of social .,evelopment than a plutocra- , cy, for there is peculiar unwhole- someness in a social and government ideal where wealth by and of itself Is held up as the greatest good. The materialism of such a view, whether it finds it's expression in the life of man w,o aecumulatee a vast fortune in ways that are repugnant and of fair dealing, CT whether it finds it's ex- preSsion in the vapidly useless and self-indulgent life of the inheritor of that fortune, is contemptible in the eyes of all men capable of a thrill of lofty feeling Where the power of tho law can be wisely uw to prevent or to minimize the acquisition or business | employment of such wealth and to- make it pay by income or inheritance tax it's proper share of the burden of ] government, I would invoke that power without moments hesitation,
 But while we can accomplish some- thing by legislation, legislation can never be more than a part, and often no more than small part, in the general scheme of moral progress; and crude or vindictive legislation may at any time bring such progress to a halt. Certain soeialistic leaders pro- pose to redistribute the worlds goods by refusing to thrift and energy anu i industry their proper superiority over folly and idleness and sullen envy
 Such legislation would merely, in the words of the president of Columbia University, wreck the worlds efIicien- 1 cy for the purpose of redistributlng the worlds discontent." We should all work heart and soul for the rcal and permanent betterment which will lift our democratic civilization to a higher level of safety and usefulness. Such betterment can come only by the slow, steady growth of the spirit
 which metes q generous, but not a sem