The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1910-04-28
oE=N
EX-PreSident Roosevelt
j Delivers q Notable Public Address |
At the Sorbonne, Paris
important still are the common plane
every day qualities and virtues.
War SOmetimes Justifiable.

important still are the common plane
every day qualities and virtues.
War Sometimes Justifiable.
In the next place, the good man
snould be both strong and a brave
man; that is he should be able to fight,
ne should be able to serve his ountry
as a soldier IL the need arises. There
are well meaning philosophers who de-
claim against the unrighteousness OF
war. They are right only they lay all
their emphasize upon the unrighteous-
ness. War is a dreadful thing. and I'M
Just war is a crime against humanity.
But 1t is such a crime because 1t is
unjust not because 1t is war, The
eousness. and this whether the alter
native be peace or whether the alter
native be war. The question must not
The question must be. is the right to
prevail? are the great laws of right
eousness once more to be fulfilled. and
f People anS must fF 6e D q strong Wba aeS vif the
cost. Every honorable effort should al
ways be made to avoid war. just as
every honorable effort should always
be made by the individual in private
life to keep out of a brawl, to keep
out of trouble; but no self respecting
individual, no self respecting nation.
ally, even more important than ability
to work. even more important than
ability to fight at need, is to remember
that the chief of blessings for any ma
ton is that it shall leave its seed to
inherit the land. 1t was the crown of
blessings in biblical times; and it is
est of all curses is the curse of sterility,
and the severest of all COMBINATIONS
should be that visited upon wilful
sterility The first essential in any
woman shall be father and mother OF
healthy children, so that the race shall
increase and not decrease. If this is
not so, If through no faul of the So
ctety there Is failure to increase, 1t is
a great misfortune. If the failure is
due to deliberate and wilfull fault then
of those crimes of ease and self indulg-
ence, of shrinking from pain and effort
and risk, which in the long run nature
Furnishes more heavily than any other.
Race Suicide a Crime.
If We of the great republics, If we
the free people who claim to have
emancipated ourselves from the thral-
dom of wrong and error, bring down on
our heads the curse that comes pom
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 refinement of life. no
delicacy of taste, no material progress,
no sordid heaping up of riches no SEN
suous development of art and litera-
ture, can in any way compensate for
the loss of the great fundamental vir-
tues; and of these great fundamental
virtues, the greatest IS the races power
to perpetuate the race.
But If a mans efficiency Is not guided
and regulated by a moral sense then
the more efficient he is the worse he
is, the more dangerous to he body
polite. Courage, intellect, all the
masterful qualities, serve but to make
a man evil, if they are used merely
for that mans own advancement, with
brutal indifference to the right of 9th
ers.s 1t speaks i'll for the community if
the community worships these quail
ties and treats their possessors as
heroes regardless of whether the quail
ties are used rightly or wrongly. 1t
makes no difference as to the precise
way in which this sinister efficiency is
shown. 1t makes no difference wheth-
er such a mans force and ability betray
themselves in the role of money maker
list or popular leader. If the man works
for evil, then the more successful he
Is the more, he should be despised and
condemned by all upright and far see
ing men: To judge a man merely by
success is an abhorrent wrong; and
If the people at large habitually so
wickedness,. because the wicked man
triumphs, they show their inability
to understand that in the last analysis
free institutions rest upon the charac-
ter of citizenship and that by such ad-
miration of evil they prove themselves
unfit for liberty.
Justice In federation.
The good citizen will demand liberty
for himself, and as a matter of pride
he will see to 1T that others receive the
liberty which he thus claims as his
own. Probably the best test of true
love of liberty in any country is the
way in which minorities are treated in
that country. Not only should there
be complete liberty in matters of re-
ligion and opinion, but complete liberty
for each man to lead his life as he de-
sires, provided only that in so doing
he does not wrong his neighbor. Per-
secution is bad because it is persecu-
ton, and without reference to which
side happens at the moment to be the
prosecutor and which the prosecuted.
/ lass hot "a 90 hnI - ianst 800
way. and without any regard to the in
diVidual who, at a given time, substi-
tutes loyalty to a class for loyalty to
the nation, or substitutes hatred
of man because they happen to come in
a certain social category, for Judge
ment awarded them according to their
same measure of condemnation should
be extended to the which
look down upon or crush any man be-
cause he is poor, and to the envy and
cause he is wealthy. The overbearing
brutality of the man OF wealth or pow
er. and the envious and hateful malice
directed against wealth or power, are
really at root merely different mani
festations of the same quality, merely
the two sides of the same shield. The
man who, If born to wealth and power,
exploits and ruins his less fortunate
greedy and violent damagague who in
plumber those who nave. OF one man
in especial. beyond anyone else, the
citizens OF a republic should beware.
and that Is of the man who appeals to
them to support him on the ground
that he Is hostile to other citizens of
the republic, that he will secure for
those who elect him in one shape or
another, profit at the expense Of other
citizens of the republic. 1t makes no
difference whether he appeals to class
hatred or class interest, to religious
or anti-religious prejudice. The man
who makes such an appeal should al
ways be presumed to make IL for the
sake of furthering his own interest.
The very thing that an intelligent and
self respecting emb of a democratic
community should not do is to reward
any public man because that public man
says he will get the private citizen
something which this private citizen
ought not to posses. Let me illustrate
this by one anecdote from my own ex-
perience:
A AnecdOte of the West.
A number of years g l was en-