The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-21

IN any way subordinate e1IOrI 10 ease
who would teach the people not to prize
as the greatest blessing the chance to
do any work, no matter how hard, If II
becomes their duty to do it To the sons
of the PuritahS it is almost needless to
say that the lesson above all others
which Puritanism can teach this nation
is the all-importance of the resolute per-
Torrance of duty. If we are men We Will
pass by with contemptuous disdain alike
the advisers who would seek to lead us
into paths of ignoble ease and those who
would teach US to admire successful
wronFdoing: Our ideals should be high.
and yet they should be capable OF
achievement in practical fashion; and we
are as little to be excused if we permit
our ideals TO be tainted with what is sor-
did and mean and base, as if we allow
our power of achievement TO atrophy and
become either incapable of effort or ca
pable only of such fantastic effort as to
accomplish nothing of permanent good
The true doctrine to preach to this ma
ton. as to the individuals composing this
nation, is not the life of ease, but the
life of effort. If it were in my power to
promise the people of this land anything.
L would not promise them pleasure. L
would promise them that stern happiness
which comes from the sense of having
done I'm practical fashion difficult work
which was worth doing.
Individuality of Puritans.
The Puritan owed his extraordinary
making it the foundation for social life
of ordered liberty primarily to the fact
that he combined in a very remarkable
degree both the power of Individual initi-
alive, of individual self-help, and the
power of acting in combination with his
fellows; and that Furthermore he Joined
TO a high heart that shrewd common
sense which saves a man from the be-
setting sins Of the visionary and the doc
trinaire. He was stout-hearted and hard
headed. He had lofty purposes. but he
had practical good sense, too. He could
hold his own in the rough Workaday
world without clamorOus insistence upon
being helped by others. and yet he could
combine with others whenever it became
necessary to do a job which could not be
as wei done by any one man individu-
These were the qualities which enabled
him to do his work, and they are the very
qualities which we must show I'm doing
our work today. There is no use in our
coming here to pay homage to the men
who founded this nation unless we first
of all come in the spirit of trying 10 do
our work today as they did their work in
the yesterdays that have vanished The
problems shift from generation to genera
ton, but the spirit in which they must be
approached, if they are to be successfully
solved, remains the same. The Puritan
tanned the wilderness, and built up a free
government on the stump-dotted clear
ings amid the primeval forest. His de-
scendants must try to shape the life of
our complex industrial civilization by
new. devices. by new methods, so as to
achieve in the end the same results of
justice and fair dealing toward all. He
cast aside nothing old merely for the
sake Of innovation. yet he did not hest
tate to adopt anything new that would
serve his purpose When he planted his
commemorative on this rugged coast he
faced wholly new conditions and he had
to devise new methods of meeting them.
So we of today face wholly new condi-
oil Il rarT-
should certainly not adopt any new
scheme for graphing with them merely
because 1t is new and untried; but we
cannot afford to shrink from graphing
with them because they can only be Crap
pied with by some new scheme.
Fought for the Right.
The Puritan was no Laodicean, no
laissez-faiTe theOrist. When he saw con-
duct which was in violation of his rights
of the rights of man. the rights of God,
as he understood them-he attempted to
regulate sjNch conduct with instant. IN
questioning promptness and effectiveness.
If there was no other way to secure con-
smOte down the transgressOr with the
iron OF his wrath. The spirit of the Pur-
itan was a spirit which never shrank from
regulation of conduct if such regulation
was necessary for the public veal; and
this is the spirit which we must show to-
day whenever it is necessary.
The utterly changed conditions of our
national life necessitate changes in GER
tain of our laws, of our governmental
methods Our federal system of govern
ment is based upon the theory of leav-
ing to each community. to each state,
the control over those things which af-
feet only its own members and which
the people of the locality themselves can
best grapple with, while providing for
national regulation in those matters
which necessarily affect the nation as a
whole. 1t seems to me that such ques-
tions as national sovereignty and states
rights need to be treated. not empiricalIy
or accidentally, but from the standpoint
of the interests of the people as a whole
National sovereignty is to be upheld in
so far as it means the sovereignty Of
the people used for the real and ulti-
mate good of the people; and states
rights are to be upheld in so far as they
mean the peoples rights. Especially is
this true in dealing with the relations
of the people as a whole to the great
corporations which are the distinguish
ing feature of modern business condi-
tons
Experience has shown that it is nee
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