Los Angeles herald., 1907-08-21

islation increasing the power of the
national government to deal with GER
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 csourge of
tuberculosis. Your own state govern
ment, here n-Massachusetts, deserves
high praise for the action II has
taken in these public health matters
during the last few years; and in this,
as in some other matters, hope to
see the national government stand
abreast of the foremost state govern
ments.
Good Character
I have spoken of but one or two
laws which, in my judgment, it is ad-
visable to enact as part OF the gen.
eral scheme for making the interfer-
ence of the national government more
effective in securing Justice and fair
dealing as between man and man here
in the United States. Let me add,
however. that while 1t is necessary to
have legislation when conditions arise
where we can only cope with evils
through the joint action of all of us,
yet that we can never afford to for
get that in the last analysis the all
important factor for each OF us must
be his own individual character.
1t is a necessary thing to have good
laws, good institutions; but the most
necessary of all things is to have
high quality of individual citizenship
This does not mean that we can afford
to neglect legislation. 1t 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 1t will be even more disastrous to
adopt the opposite panacea of any
socialistic system whcih would de-
stroy all individualism, would root
out the fiber of our whole citizenship.
In any great movement, such as thet
in which we are engaged, nothing is
more necessary than sanity than the
refusal to be led into extremes by the
advocates of the ultra course on either
side. Those professed friends of liberty
who champion license are the worst
foes 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 tyranny in the name. o. order.
Demands Simple Justice
OO IL 10 Will llii5 movement IOE &C.
curing justice toward all men, and
equality of opportunity so far as 1t
can be secured by governmental
action. The rich man who with hard
arrogance declines to consider the
rights and needs of those who are less
well off, and the poor man who eXcites
or indulges in envy or hatred of those
who are better off, are alike alien to
the spirit of our national life.
Each of them should learn to ap-
preciate the baseness and degradation
of his point of view, as evil in the
one case as in the other. There exists
no more sordid and unlovely type of
social development than a plutocracy,
for there is a peculiar unwholesome-
ness where wealth by and of itself is
he'd up as the greatest good.
The materialism of such a view,
whether it finds its expression In the
life of a man who accumulates vast
fortune in ways that are repugnant
to every instinct of generosity and of
fair dealing, or whether 1t finds its
expression in the vapidly useless and
self-indulgent life of the inheritor of
that fortune, is contemplate in the
eyes of all men capable Of thrill of
lofty feeling.
Would Tax Incomes
Where the power of the law can
be wisely used to prevent or to mini
mize the acquisition or business en-
ployment of such wealth and to make
1t pay by income or inheritance tax
Its proper share Of the burden of gov
ernment, I would invoke that power
without a moments hesitation.
But while we can accomplish some
thing by legislation, legislation can
never be more than part, and often
no more than a small part, in the gen.
eral scheme of moral progress; and
crude or vindictive legislation may at
any time bring such progress to
halt. Certain socialistic leaders pro-
pose to redistribute the worlds goods
by refusing to thrift and energy and
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 eff
cheney for the purpose of redistribut-
ing the worlds discomfort"
We should all of us work heart and
soul for the real and permanent bet
terment 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 a generous
but not sentimental Justice to each
man on his merits as a man, and
which recognizes the fact that the
highest and deepest happiness for the
individual lies not in selfishness, but
in service.