The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1909-06-04

and prosperous but have commanded
the respect OF others because we re-
spected ourselves. In so far as we
have denied II, In so far as there Is
anywhere special privilege or an un-
equal restriction, any decree of legal
governmental favoritism whatever, we
have changed the government of the
fathers and turned backward toward
the old, evil traditions whose trail of
blood and oppression runs through all
history.
ut needs heroism, 1t involves the
shaking off of ostentatious follies that
have already warped our earlier ideals,
1t may even require a considerable re-
adjustment of our whole industrial
system and a reform in our very con-
ception of the relation between a
government and its citizens before the
severe standard of absolute equality
before the law can be restored. 1t
demands a new standard of economy
in both our public and private expendi-
ture.
1T demands the repeal of many laws
and the suppression of many of the
bills presented to state and federal
| legislatures. So many are there franz
ed to give to one an undue advantage
or take away from another fair field
and an equal judgment. 1t demands
the abolition of that most hateful and
corroding element In a republic that
| is called class consciousness. To steer
the ship of state anent thees shifting
and conflicting currents, now full
speed ahead and now full speed as
tern, Is task of extraordinary diff
Guilty. Yet, unless we can follow the
course of equal justice laid down on
the chart, shipwreck lies somewhere
ahead.
Frequent use of the phrase, our
complex civilization, creates vague
impression that simplicity has been
banished necessarily from the modern
world by kind of natural evolution.
Whereas 1t remains now, as always,
/ the normal rule of wholesome national
life. Do we gain by passing from the
period when Benjamin Franklin, in
plain dress, commanded the homage
of the most frivolous and most decora-
tive capital in Europe to the period
when a man cannot accept without
humiliation foreign ambassadorship
unless he has large income? The
life of those who do the work of the
world, whether in the high places or
the low, is usually a simple thing
1--WE have complicated our educa-
tional system and made it superficial.
The just complaint everywhere is that
there is no thoroughness, no whole
some mental discipline for the young.
"We have complicated our social
life until natural human intercourse
| is overlaid with thick stratum of
vulgar prodigality, luxury, display and
insincerity.
1--WE have complicated our lawmak-
ing until, despite the high standards,
the unimpaired traditions and the con-
tinued labors of the courts, the ad-
ministration of justice is difficult and
sometimes uncertain.
1--WE have complicated our financial
system until it encourages the widest
speculation at one moment and at an
other sinks into business collapse.
| 1--WE have complicated our indus
trial organization at both ends of the
scale until the great middle class,
which represents labor uncombined, a
fine energy and modest accumulations
of capital, finds many of it's rights
invaded or destroyed.
"And we complicate all these COM
plications by necessarily passing more
laws about them. Simplicity in gov
erning methods, in character and in
conduct must be fixed quality of the
state that survives those changes of
the centuries in which all others have
vanished.
'Inseparably connected with equal
ity and simplicity is economy. Nation
ally considered, it has become almost
a forgotten term"
| Mr.. Hill declared this to be the
most wasteful country On earth in it's
| administrative features as well as in
| it's treatment of natural resources, and
said that at the discarded standard
of economy in it's affairs must be re-
| stored.
''The curtailment of federal ex-
penses by one-fourth would assist not
only efficiency in the departments,
but reforms now postponed by the
| task of raising and the rage of spend
| ing great sums that should be left in
the pockets of the people.
Last and noblest conception of all
born from the associated life of man.
kind is justice. The nation must be
| true to that abstract and impartial
justice which is the fountain of no.
bility, the patent of heroes and the
final test of any state. Upon occas-
ion the law-making power has been
invoked not to punish guilt, but to give
one man an unfair advantage at the
cost of another; to distinguish be-
tween activities by discriminating
laws. The tendency is by no means
universal, but its presence is palpable
and too dangerous to be ignored. If
hatred, greed or envy instead of JUS
tice ever becomes a formative power
in public affairs, then, no matter who
may be the victim, the act is treason.
For no state ever enjoyed tranquility
or escaped destruction if it ceased to
maintain one equal and infieXible stan
dard of justice. The greatest service
to the nation, to every state and city
today would be the substitution for
term of years of law enforcement for
law-making, Get the laws fairly tried,
weed out those improper or impracti-
cable, curtail the contempt of law that
now flourishes under the American
system of reinforcement, and make
the people understand that govern
ment means exact and unsparing JUS
tice, instead of a complex game. This
is the only safeguard If respect for
and confidence in the governing sys-