The Vinita daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1902-1913, 1910-04-23
Speech at Sorbonne One of Most important
EUents Of Distinguished Americans Visit to
France--His Subject Was Citizenship in
Republic Cabinet Members and
Many Students in Audience--Success
or Failure Due to the Way Duty
Is Performed By Each Citizen

F, portant still are the commonplace.
everyday qualities 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
few people in every country so born
that they can lead lives of leisure.
These fill a useful function il they
make 1t evident that leisure does not
mean idleness But the average man
must earn his own livelihood He
should be trained to do so, and should
| be trained to feel that he occupies a
contemptible position If he does not
do SO; that he is not an object Of
envy If he is idle. at which ever end
of the social scale he stands, but an
object of contempt, an object of de-
rision,
I'm the next place, the good man
should be both strong and 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 well-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 a dreadful
thing, and unjust war is crime
against humanity. But it is such a
crime because it is unjust, not be-
cause it 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 ques-
ton must be. Is the right to prevail2 ?
Are the great laws of righteousness
once more to be fulfilled? And the
answer from strong and virile peo-
pie must be, Yes whatever the cost.
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. It was
the crown of blessings in Biblican
times; ard it is the crown of blessings
now The greatest of all curses is the
curse of sterility, and the severest of
all condemnations should be that visit
ed upon wilful sterility The first
essential in any civilization is that
the man and the woman shall be
father and mother of healthy chill
dren, so that the race shall increase
and not decrease. If this is not SO,
\ if through no fault Of the society
there is failure to increase, it is a
great misfortune If the failure is due
to deliberate and wilful fault, then it
/, is not merely misfortune, it is one
Of those crimes of ease and self-indul-
gence, of shrinking from pain and
effort to risk, which in the long run
Nature Furnishes more heavily than
any other. If we of the great repub-
lies, if 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
refinement of life, no delicacy of taste,
no material progress, no sordid heap
ing up of riches, no sensuous develop
ment of art and literature, can in any
way compensate for the loss of the
great fundamental virtues; and Of
these great fundamental virtues, the
greatest is the races power to per-
petuate the race.
In short. the good citizen in re-
public must realize that he ought to
possess two sets of qualities, and that
neither ayails without the other He
must have those qualities which make
I for efficiency; and he must also have
those qualities which direct the eff
fciency into channels for the public
good He Is useless If he is inefiici-
lent There is nothing to be done with
that type of citizen Of whom all that
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