The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1910-06-09
Judge Grosscup Sees in Economic
Questions Tests of Self
Government
MUST meet The SITUATION
In Address Before Augustana College
Chicago Judge Declares We AS
Nation Need the Spirit of In
tellectual Honesty.

Rock Island, ILL.,. June 9.-In the
course of a commencement address at
Augustana College and Theological
Seminary, today Judge Grosscup of
Chicago, said:
"We have not reached, here i'm
America, the supreme test of wheth-
er government of the people, by the
people, can endure. We have not yet
been put TO the test of dealing with
great economic questions at the cost
of distinct disaster in case they are
wrongly dealth With. Thus far. the
surplus of our soil, sold to the world
each year. has made good our econo-
mic and political mistakes a surplus
so great that, no matter what, during
the year, our mistakes may have been,
at the end of the year the bank ac-
count has been made good again. But
the day is coming when this insurance
against logical consequences will be
cut off. Every census shows that the
growth of population lis in the towns
and cities-that the men and women
who bear no relation to the soil and
its products except that of consumers,
are rapidly outnumbering those who
till the soil. And when that day fully
comes-.when we are no longer a peo-
Pile with a constantly recurring sur
plus, but have become a people who
each year eat up what they produce
the consequences of political and
economic mistakes will make them
selves felt.
This solving of our problems by
spiral stairway will not last--every
Increase of expense bringing on In
crease of prices and wages; every in
crease of prices and wages bringing us
back to increased expenses; the en-
tire movement i'm circles. at each turn
little higher up than we were before.
And il is when that limit Is reached
and return TO solid ground begins
when we have to meet and solve po-
litical and economic questions that re-
quire the nice balance of one mans
interest against anothers. and the in
terest of the whole, ais distinguished
from the interest of each individual
that the supreme test of whether the
people can govern themselves will be
upon us.
'Will that test be successfully met?
Are we capable OF meeting and solv-
ing the complex questions of the flu
ture as we have met and solved the
simpler moral questions of the past?
What will equip us to meet this test?
What power more than anything else,
will hold us to our course as a people
capable of self-go government? Without
doubt there must be personal honor
and personal honesty in politics, as
personal honor and personal honesty
is affected by money; but financial
dishonesty is always individual, never
general and Is quickly overtaken and
unarmed. without doubt the public
conscience must be kept quickened;
but our American conscience is not
hard to reach and quicken.
"The one force i'm this universe.
without which the test cannot be sue
cesfully met-the one force, more than
anything else, that as a nation we
must acquire before we are equipped
TO successfully meet the complex
problems before us is what | may call
the spirit of intellectual honesty; the
spirit that hears before II decides; the
spirit that yields itself to genuine
conference, the spirit that is not play
4 - tt.t. x.at hot
so often makes up the atmosphere
through which we look at the interest
of others: above all, the spirit that
will hold our leaders OF public opin-
ion accountable, as men who give out
money coin of the country are held
accountable, that thought given out ON
public questions contains nothing in 1t
that Is not the real thought of the
mind behind Il; that spirit that will
not, i'm the interest of political or per-
sonal expediency tolerate the passing
Of counterfeit opinion.
Nothing. indeed, is so insidious as
an Intellectual counterfeit; nothing so
pervasive: nothing SO hard TO over
take or so hard TO overpower when
i overtaken; and nothing so hurtful and
dangerous. Upon intellectual coun-
terfeits. political leaders often -four
ish. In the end the people always suf-
fer. Here Is the work, greater a
thousand times than mere knowledge
Impaired. that the universities and
colleges OF America, the schools OF
America. and the teachers of Ameri-
ca owe to the day that will test the
question whether government of the
people, by the people, can endure
intellectual character building. as well
as moral character building that will
leave. I'm the men who go out into the
. world the abiding conviction that II
| Is just as mean to pass counterfeit;
thought i'm public affairs as to pass
ooupterfeit money"