The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1907-04-18
The Submerged Individual
BY JUSTICE JOHN WOODWARD, Of
the Appellate Division of the Su.
preme Court of New York.

preme Court OF New York.
1t is undeniable that the despot, IL
he be benevolent, can accomplish
more good than the divided and
myriad minded many. An unwise
and precipitate democracy can, on
the other hand, degenerate into that
worst of despotisms, an irresponsible
and selfish oligarchy which appro-
pirates all of the benefits and denies
every burden.
And such, It must be confessed, is
the present attitude of many of our
overgrown corporations. They have
been intrusted with the welfare of the
people, and have abused their trust.
They have become pirates, where they
should have remained beneficators.
They have destroyed competition till
with monopolistic greed they have
robbed the public for their own en-
richment. They have desecrated the
law, which is the conscience of the
State. They have not remembered
what they should never have forgot
ten, that old admonition still to be
seen on church in Venice: Around
this temple let the merchants law be
just, his weights true and his COW
enants faithful"
1t is we'll, then, that they should
be controlled and regulated. 1t is
time to drive the money changers out
of the temple and to substitute for
the worship of gold the worship of
character.
On whom, then, shall our saliva
tion depend, II not upon the indi-
vidual? The many will never make
the attempt to regain their lost rights
unless they are led by man.
And the man will come. Comes
the crisis, he will not be found want
ing. There is always the great per-
sonality who shall lead his people out
of the wilderness to the promised
land. He may not be one of the
shining intellectuals, he may not be
one of those subtle and brilliant ad-
vocates that stand arrayed in behalf
of private interests against the cause
of the people; but he will have that
quality of manliness which inspires
confidence.
Beware of those that provoke the
storm that they may reap the rain
bow.
If, then, those corporations which
have sprung like mushrooms from
the decay of public virtue. reveal such
appalling defects, can we expect that
the State, when 1t shall have become,
as many desire, a universal corpora
tion, will prove otherwise? Is not
the danger in proportion to the size
of the mononoply? Will not such a
solution tend to crush that sense of
individuality and that civic conscious
ness which is our sole refuge?
Society owes to each his oppor-
tunity. 1t is the supreme duty of the
State to inspire ambition. To thwart,
to limit, or to exclude by legislation
the enterprise of the individual, is to
deaden the worlds capacity for pro-
gress. To quench the spark of per-
sonality is to impoverish the whole
social organization.
To attempt by law, therefore, to
limit all men, irrespective of skill,
endeavor or attainment, to a common
wage would be as fatuous as 1t is
unjust. Personality, indeed, can be
subject only to the laws of nature
Needless to say, the souls of men are
not amenable to statistics. You may
measure material results; you can
never calculate the aspirations of the
mind.
To bring about the readjustment
of social conditions many fastastic
remedies are proposed; but there
can be no panacea for political ills.
The law never rises higher than its
source. Our hope, then, is in the edu-
cation of the public through the in
| dividual.
1t is for you and for me to decide
whether public opinion shall become
despotism. The aim of democracy
is, take 1t, equality before the law.
and to guarantee to each his personal
liberty - the liberty to be himself.
When upon this shall be superim-
| posed burden of restrictions, hedg-
| ing the individual about with "thou
shalt" and thou shalt not" then
surely democracy will exist only in
name. Every law, therefore, which
encroaches upon your personal pre-
rogative as man and as a citizen is
usurpation of your individuality.
To submerge the identity of the per-
son in the mass is to destroy all pos
Bibility for progress. This applies to
us all. The ordinary man. indeed,
may posses qualities far greater than
those of the same nature in his more
distinguished brother, yet 1t is to the
exceptional faculties of the few that
the world must look for its advance
ment.
To give encouragement to person
ality, to kindle by opportunities for
reward the incentive to labor, and to
nourish tenderly the progressive in
tellect, this should be at least one of
the chief functions of government,
Power In a Snowflake.