The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-08-11
Public Responsibilities.

The average man refers frequently
to the long suffering public" in con-
nection with the depredations of
greedy corporate interests, fraudulent
enterprises, trusts and combines
which push the weak to the wall, but
there is another obligation of the pub
lie itself After all this public" to
which we refer so frequently, is simp-
ly an aggregation of individuals like
you and me, distinctly peculiar in
their inclinations and needs and term
ed the people" for matter of con-
venience as we term several cattle a
herd" though one may be lean and
one may be plump, one starved, an
other we'll nourished.
We depend more fully than we
ought and more fully than we realize
upon our performances as a public, to
accomplish our obligations as indiv-
iduals when the long and short of it
is that public performances depend
absolutely upon individual action and
that each man must work out his own
salvation, reliant upon himself and
not his neighbor and by this method
alone can the public welfare be work
ed out to its Utopian possibilities.
I'VE preachers cannot save the
world" says the clergyman but we re-
ly upon him to gain mercy for our
souls when they stand at the door of
the next world. I'VE lawyers cam
not keep laws" says the legislators
and the lawyer but we look
to legislatures to make
law" at every visitation of
inconvenience or encroachment upon
our rights and for the lawyer to Sc
cure us justice in the enforcement of
that law when it is not so much the
making of the laws by legislative
bodies and the prosecution of cases
by lawyers as it is the keeping of the
law by the public, as individuals,
which makes for local and national
respect for peace and justice.
I'VE doctors cannot keep you WE'LL"
says the physician but we break the
laws of Nature and we trifle with the
regulations of health hourly and look
to the medical profession to make us
well. You will burn your finger"
says the mother to the child, but the
child places its finger on the hot stove
and cries, See, ! am hurt. Make it
WE'LL" and confidently expects its
mother 20 work the miracle that will
ease the pain.
Popular education is the slogan al
all professions today. Give the peo-
pie to understand that the saving OF
] their souls rests with their own eff
forts alone" says the clergyman, and
there will be little need of interces-
sion on our part"
Give the people to understand that
it has the keeping of the law in its
own hands," says the lawyer, land it
viii, drive me out of business"
Give the people to understand that
it is for the public, and not the ply
stefan, to keep the laws of health,
says the doctor, land ] shall be I'M
able to buy my children Shoes
For, contend these men of intelli-
gence who advocate the theory of
popular education, we are not dealing
with a stupid people but an ignorant
one. Once it knows its own posi-
bilities and, what is greater, its own
responsibilities, it will look well to
the saving of its soul and the obedi-
ence of it's mind to public law and
the freedom of its body from unnec-
essary parasitic encroachment.
OF course, it is argued, the irrelig-
ious will come to understand his own
responsibility and the law breaker
his crime and the invalid his duty to
his physical self but this knowledge
will be tardy and the dear teaching OF
experience may profit nothing since
there is no opportunity for applica'
I: tion of its lesson. The time to save
mans soul is before he has lost il
and the respect for law must be en-
I forced upon the mind of the youth be-
s fore he breaks it and the sacred pu
d rity and God-given strength of the
e body brought home to him before hi
s violates the law of health. That il
: why these modern lecturers tell III
: it is so vital that the courses in pop
ular education be instilled at enc'