Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1910-04-23

have the assent Of all of you present
when i add that more important still
are the commonplace, everyday quail
tiles and virtues.
.'Such ordinary, everyday qualities
include the will and the power to work,
to fight. at need, and to have plenty of
healthy children. There are a few peo-
pie in every country 50 born that they
can lead lives of leisure. These fill a
useful function if they make it evident
that leisure does not mean idleness
But the average man must earn MS
own livlihood. He should be trained to
do so. and he should be trained to feel
that he occupies a contemplate posi-
ton if he does not do so; that he is
not an object of envy if he is idle, at
whichever end of the social scale he
stands, but an object Of contempt, an
object of derision
Good Man is Brave.
TN the next place, the good man
sh hould be both a strong and a brave
man; that is, he should be able to
fight, he should be able to serve his
country as a soldier if the need arises.
There are we'll meaning philosophers
who declaim against the unrighteous-
ness of war They are right only If
they lay all their emphasis upon the
unrighteousness. War is dreadful
thing, and unjust was is crime
against humanity But it is such
crime because it is unjust, not because
1t is war. The choice must ever be
in favor of righteousness, and this
whether the alternative be peace or
whether the alternative be war. The
question must not be merely, Is there
to be peace or war? The question
must be, Is the right to prevail? Are
the great laws of righteousness once
more to beSfulflled? And the answer
from strong and virile people must
be, Yes whatever the cost.
Raps Race Suicide.
FINALLY even more important than
ability to work, even more important
than ability to fight at need, is it to
remember that the chief of blessings
for any nation is that it shall leave
its seed to inherit the land. 1t was the
crown Of blessings in biblican times;
and it is the crown of blessings now.
The greatest of all curses is the curse
Of sterility, and the severest of all con-
demnations should be that visited upon
wilful sterility. The first essential in
any civilization is that the man and
the woman shall be father and mother
of healthy children, so that the race
shall increase and not decrease. If this
is not so, if thru no fault of the society
there is failure to increase, it is
great misfortune. If the failure is due
to deliberate and wilful fault, then 1t
is not merely misfortune, it is one OF
those crimes of ease and self-indul- :
gence, Of shrinking from pain and ef-
fort and risk, which in the long run
nature Furnishes more heavily than
any other If we of the great repub-
lics II we, the free people who claim
to have emancipated ourselves from the
thraldom Of wrong and error, bring
down on our heads the curse that
comes upon the wilfully barren, then
it will be an idle waste Of breath to
prattle of our achievements, to boast
OF all that we have done. No-rehne-
msnt of life. no delicacy Of taste, -ale
naeerial progress, no sordids heaping up
OF riches, no sensuous development OF
art ana literature, can IN any way com
pensate for the loss Of the great funda-
mental virtues; and Of these great
fundamental virtues, the greatest is the
races power to perpetuate the race