The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-11

walk of life, and their beging good or baddoes not depend upon whether they have or do not have large bank ac- counts. Yet this elemental fact, this fact which we all accept as self-evident. when we thing each of us of the people whom he himself knows in his business and social relations, Is often completely ig- nored by certain public men and certain public writers. The men who thus ignore 1t and who attack wickedness only when found in particular class are always unsafe, and are sometimes very danger ous, leaders Distrust equally the man who is never able to discover any vices of ricn men to attack and the man who confines himself to attacking the sins and shortcomings of rich men,
 Class Prejudice.
 "It is a sure sign of moral and mental dishonesty in any man if in his public assaults upon iniquity he is never able to see any iniquity save that of q particular class and this whether he IS able only to see the crimes of arrogance anl oppression in the rich or the crimes of envy and violence in the poor. He is no true American if he is a respecter of persons where right and wrong are concerned and if he fails to denounce the demagogue no less than the corruption ist to denounce alike crimes of organ lZeu greed ana tflultS pl bl hAhl NApi'hN'f There is equal need to denounce the wealthy man who swindles Investors or buys Legislatures or expresses wageWork- CTS, and the needy man who intames class hatred or incites mob violence. We need to hold the scales of justice even, and to weigh them down on one side is as bad as to weigh them down on the other.
 Two Great Movements.
 I t... t... in your capacity of holders and guides of public thought. In addition I want to speak to you on two great movements in our public life which l feel must nec- essarily occupy no inconsiderable part of the time of our public men In the near future. One of these Is the ques- ton of, in certain ways, reshaping our system of taxation so as to make It bear most heavily on those most capable of supporting the strain. The other is the question of utilizing the natural resouces of the nation fin the way that will be of most benefit to the nation asa whole.
 Nations Resources.
 Tn utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the nation the one charac- terlstic more essential than any other is foresight. Unfortunately, foresight Is not usually characteristic of young and vigorous people, and 1t Is obviously not a marked characteristic of us in the United States. Yet assuredly 1t should be the growing nation with Q future which takes the long look ahead; and no other nation is growing SO rapidly as ours or has a future so full of prom ise. No other nation enjoys so wonderful a measure of present prosperity which can of right be treated as an earnest of future success. and for no other are the rewards of foresight so great, so certain, and so easily foretold. Yet hith- erto as a nation we have tended to live with an eye single to the present, and have permitted the reckless waste and destruction of much of our natural wealth.
 The conservation of our natural re- sources and their proper use constituto the fundamental problem which underles almost every other problem of our na tional life Unless we maintain an ade auate material basis for our civilization, we can not maintain the institutions in which we take so great and so just pride; and 10 waste and destroy our nat ural resources means to undermine this material basis. During the last five years efforts have been made in several new directions in the government service to get our people to look ahead, to exer- else foresight, and to substitute planned and orderly development of our resources in the place of a haphazard striving for immediate profit. The effort has been made through several agencies.
 Western Irrigation.
 "1n 1902 the reclama ton service began to develop the large opportunities of the western half of our country for irrigation. The work includes all the states from the