The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-04-26

that the children who come after us
may feel that we too have done our
duty.
We can not afford to forget the
maxim upon which Washington in
sisted. that the surest way to avert
war is to be prepared to meet it.
Nevertheless the duties that most con-
Germ US OF this generation are not
military. but social and Industrial
Each community must always dread
the evils which spring up as attend
ant upon the very qualities which give
1t success. We of this mighty west
ern republic have to grapple with the
dangers that spring from popular self
government tried on scale incom-
parably vaster than every before in
the history of mankind, and from an
Astounding material prosperity great
er also than anything which the world
has hitherto seen.
AS regards the first set of dangers,
1t behooves us to remember that men
can never escape being governed.
Either they must govern themselves
or they must submit to being govern
ed by others. If from lawlessness or
fickleness, from folly or self-indulg-
ence. they refuse to govern them
selves, then most assuredly in the
end they will have to be governed
from the outside. They can prevent
the need Of government from without
only by showing that they possess
the power of government from within.
A sovereign can not make excuses for
his failures; a sovereign must accept
the responsibility for the exercise of
the power that inheres in him; and
where, as is true In our republic. the
people are sovereign, then the people
must show sober understanding and
sane and steadfast purpose If they
are to preserve that orderly liberty
upon which as a foundation every
republic must rest.
In industrial matters our enormous
prosperity has brought with it GER
tain grave evils. 1t is our duty to
try to cut out these evils without at
the same time destroying our we'll
being itself. This is an era of COM
bination alike in the world of capital
and in the world of labor. Each
kind OF combination can do good, and
yet each, however powerful, must be
opposed when it does ill., At the
moment the greatest problem before
us is how to exercise such control
over the business use of vast wealth,
individual, but especially corporate. as
will insure its not being used against
the interest of the public, while yet
permitting such ample legitimate
profits as will encourage individual
Initiative. 1t is our business to put
stop to abuses and to prevent their
recurrence, without showing a spirit
OF mere vindictiveness for what has
been done in the past. In John Nor
ley's brilliant sketch of Burke he lays
especial stress upon the fact that
Burke more than almost any other
thinker or politician of his time realiz-
ed the profound lesson that in poll
tics We are concerned not with barren
rights but with duties; not with alb
stract truth, but with practical moral
ity. He especially eulogizes the way
in which in his efforts for economic
reform, Burke combined unsuitable
resolution in pressing the reform with
a profound temperatures of spirit
which made him, while bent on the
extirpation of the evil system. refuse
to cherish an unreasoning and vindic-
tive ill will toward the men who had
OOASHSCN ny ~. OAHU DuIhc, IL L
can not reform with equity, l will
not reform at all. There
is a state to preserve as we'll as a
state to reform"
This is the exact spirit which this
country should move to the reform of
abuse of corporate wealth. The
wrongdoer. the man who swindles and
cheats. whether on big scale or a
little one. shall receive at our hands
mercy as scant as. if he committed
crimes of violence or brutality. We
are unalterably determined to pre-
vent wrongdoing in the future; we
have no intention of trying to wreak
such an indiscriminate vengeance for
wrongs done in the past as would con-
found the innocent with the guilty
Our purpose is to build up rather than
to tear down. We show ourselves the
truest friends of property when we
make it evident that We will not toll
crate the abuses of property. We are
steadily bent on preserving the insti-
tuition of private property; We combat
every tendency toward reducing the
people to economic servitude; and We
care not whether the tendency is due
to sinister agitation direct against
all property, or whether it is due to
the actions of those members of the
predatory classes whose anti-social
power is UNNECESSARILY increased be-
cause of the very fact that they pos
sess wealth.
Above all, we insist that while fac
ing changed conditions and new prob
lens we must face them in the spirit
which our forefathers showed when
they founded and preserved this re-
public. The cornerstone of the repub-
lie lies in our treating each man on
his worth as a man, paying no heed to
his creed, his birthplace or his occu-
patton, asking net whether he is rich
or poor, whether he labors with head
or hand; asking only whether he acts
decently and honorably in the various
relations of his life, whether he be-
HAYES we'll to his family, to his Neigh
bors, to the state. We base our re-
gard for each man on the essentials
and not the accidents. We Judge him
not by his profession, but by his deeds;
by his conduct, not by what he has ac-
Quired of this worlds goods. Other
republics have fallen because the citi-
zens gradually grew to consider the
interests of a class before the interests
of the whole; for, when such was the
case, it mattered little whether it was
the poor who plundered the rich or
the rich who exploited the poor. In
either event the end of the republic
was at hand. We are resolute in our
purpose not to fall into such a pit.
This great republic of ours shall never
become the government of a plutocra-
cy and it shall never become the gov
arnmont of q r,ch God WILLING #