Los Angeles herald., 1908-04-14
BEvERIDGE CALLS
STUDENTS TO DUTY
SENATOR SAYS THE COUNTRY
NEEDS YOUNG LEADERS
Ind anan Addresses Harvard Men,
Urging Them to Enter Public
Life and Combat
Wrongs

By Associated Press.
CAMBRIDGE. Mass, April l3.-Ihe
Harvard Union hall was thronged with
students tonight to hear an address by
Senator Beveridge of Indiana. Earlier
in the evening Senator Beveridge was
dined by members of the Harvard In
diana club III the Trophy room Of the
union.
The subject of Senator Beveridge
was The Obligations Of Public Office.
He said in part:
ITO serve the people YOU must-be oil
the people--this is the first obllgdtion
OF public office. No man knows What
is good for the people better IMAM the
thought is truer than individual
thought He who thinks himself too
good to mingle with the masses is in
reality too bad to represent their re-
public
Being one of the people docs not
narrow you-it broadcus YOU. ManV
American farmers have larger outlook
and broader human sympathies tllah tllI5
some of the statesmen of Europe Ihe
American masses are not ignorant and
dull.
Present-Day Public Man
THE present day American public
man not only must study the nation $
problems!he must master them. Dur
ing the last generation tho country de-
veloped the politician rather than the
statesman because. on the one hand,
most of the best minds of the country
were absorbed with the physical max
ing of the nation and because on the
other hand the work our public men
had to do was chiefly national house
keeping.
these politicians gave little time
and less study 10 public questions and
much time and more attention to po-
litical manipulations. Their purpose
was to keep themselves In public po-
sition and TO secure victory for their
party.
within the last ten years problems
have multfplied which need the ablest
statesmauEhip. Labor and capital. ter
ritorial expansion. new and nation
wide abuses. the changing methods of
business and trade have developed rid
dies moro difficult than the republic
has seen since the days before the con-
stitution was adopted. Only the stu
dent statesman with fearless heart and
pure character can deal with them.
Only the man who believes that he
should give the best that Is i'm him is
fit to do the work of these swift and
complex times.
To Round Out Career
"The politician who is looking after
his personal machine cannot do that
work-he cannot even comprehend 1t.
The man who Is more interested in
patronage than in craftsmanship cam
not do it or even understand it. The
man who has spent his best years get
ting wealth for himself and who would
nj In.
giving the nation the fag ends of his
failing strength, is too feeble for this
mighty task.
above all, the man who stopped
thinking decades ago and who there
fore believes that all questions are
spurious except those about which he
was thinking in his prime but which
have been settled long ago. cannot even
grasp the meaning of public life today.
Indeed the latter is real obstacle to
the solving of our present day prob
lens Such a public man forgets that
every year a full million young men
and young women come of age whose
minds fresh and strong, are thinking
new thoughts today just as his now
obsolete mind thought fresh thoughts
in his day Such a public man does
not understand that the constantly re-
newed intellect of the nation is yeast
ing with new ideas, born of new con-
ditions; and so he thinks that all new
questions are really no questions at all
and would dismiss them altogether if
he could
Serpentine Public Men
public men must take their stand on
public questions While those questions
are up for decision. not after they are
decided The public man who has
no views is more dangerous than the
demagogue. The man who utters
pleasing genoralties instead of taking
definite positions on public questions is
either coward or a deceiver of the
people and usually he is both
1T is better to be honestly wrong
than to be dishonesty vague: for the
man who is honestly in the wrong will
frankly say so when he sees the right.
But the man who is dishonesty vague
will champion neither the right nor the
wrong, but only that which he thinks
will be successful for the moment, and
thus serve his personal ambition. But
no public man has any right to con-
| slider htG private advantages; he must
consider only the general good.
"The public man who avoids all
present issues because he has no con-
Victions on any, or because he fears to
| offend this or that group of voters, is
a menace.
National, Not Local Ideal
1T is an obligation of American pub
| lie office to look upon all legislation
| from the national viewpoint instead OF
the local and provincial viewpoint;
from the viewpoint of the good of all
! the people instead of the selfish ad-
vantage Of few Of the people. That
/ legislator who does not consider every
! general measure as a law Of the whole
| American people, for the welfare, COM
| fort and progress of the entire nation
is all incompetent to make laws fol