The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-01-06
Individual Responsibility.
Col. Roosevelt says :

There are plenty of apostles OF
discomfort; there are plenty of men
who will try to teach you that our
social and industrial conditions are
all wrong and must be completely ov-
erset. There is urgent need for bet
terment in great many of our con-
ditions; there is urgent need that We
should each of us resolutely do our
part in helping to solve the great
problems of the day-the problems
that need governmental action.
But we never can afford to forget
that the most important factor in the
success of this country is the factor
of individual citizenship. 1t do not
care if you had the most perfect laws
that could be devised by the wit Of
man, E. they would not amount TO
anything if the average man was not
a pretty decent fellow, and ! base my
firm belief in the future of this coun-
kry because l believe the average
american is a pretty decent fellow.
dividual factor of the average mans
quality and character, his industry,
his energy, his thrift, his decency, his
determination to be good man in
his own home, a good neighbor, and a
good citizen in his relations to the
State. OF all men distrust most the
man who tries to set one set Of
Americans against another set OF
Americans"
There are thousands of these "apos-
ties of discomfort" who neglect the
factor of individual citizenship IN
bemourning the knotty problems Of
an entire body of citizens. One Is
forever encounterng the man whose
doctrine is whats the USE" the kind
of individual who takes delight in
informing you that your personal
effort and his personal efforts are
not a straw to the efforts of the re-
mainder of the world, that your ex-
istence and his existence are short
lived things and, once blotted out,
the public will travel the same fa-
miliar pathway, supremacy and bliss
fully forgetful that you and he ever
trod this vale of sin and sorrow
It's a pessimistic, wretched doctrine
and it has made more than one
struggling individual recklessly or
hopelessly miserable. 1t has been and
is, today, responsible for much of
the inertia and apathy which cramps
the energies of men who might
achieve, otherwise, splendid things.
Salesgirls. shopclerks, earning a
slender pttance, have listened to its
teachings, and have gone about their
work with tagged step and dulled
eye. Business men pushed hard BY
hustling competition have needed it
and their rich red blood has become
anaemic. xEverywhere, men and wo-
men, ambitious, trifle over-ambi-
tiOus, perhaps, to make a big red
mark in the worlds annals, have ia
ken this erring doctrine to themselves
and have turned aside, despairing, to
the performance of petty things
which waste the capacities fitted to
greater tasks
And the flaw in that doctrine is
this:
Its exponent, instead of resolving
the community, the State, the nation.
in fact, the world into individual fac
tors, struggling with adversely, re-
joicing at prosperity, toiling, achiev-
ing, Borrowing, men like himself, and
considering himself as one of the fac
tors, not very conspicuous, perhaps,
but as important, at least as hun
dreds upon thousands of others-sets
himself apart, contrasting his puny
strength, his limited capacities with
the horded resources, the unhoriZon-
ed possibilities of a world of men, a
composite wall of infinite strength
and height against which he hurls
himself with the effect of tiny peb-
BILE No wonder he is affrighted
hopeless, when he thinks of himself
as one man, isolated, thing apart,
struggling against a wall of men
banded against him, or, at least, COM
peting with him with inevitable fail
ure resultant to his efforts against
such odds.
81 do not care if you had the most
perfect laws that could be devised by
the wit of man-they would not
amount to anything if the average
lan were not a pretty decent fell
low" That crisp statement from the
lips Of the representative of the
strenuous life is full of hope. over
flowing with inspiration for the av-
erage citizen, man or woman. That
little drop of water tiny grains of
sand" idea is not half bad. A screw
in the machinery, a spoke in the
wheel, thread inthe tapestry,-how
many times has the individual effort
been compared to these intimate re-
lationships of material things, and
how often has the crooked thread
the broken spoke, the loosened screw
been pointed out to the unbeliever
and the disastrous effect upon the
whole proved incalculable.
Just as long as you go about your