The Republican journal., 1912-06-06

Millionaires are plentiful in the State of
Maine. How has it been brought about?
Into the hands of the few vast accumu-
lations have been gathered. How can
men become miilionaires in free and
Independent country? What the rich
get comes from somewhere. No man
by his individual labor can gather, in an
ordinary lifetime, more than a COM
petence. 1t must be that the system of
government is wrong; that too much
power is given to capital and too little
remains in labor.
Now there is remedy for this in the
hands of the people themselves. You
can in some way adjust the difficulty and
keep the Ship of State upon an even keel,
steering safely between the Charybodis
of capital on one side, and the Scylla of
labor upon the other. Many of our
statesmen are honest in their attempt to
regulate this evil. They pass laws to
dissolve the trusts, and still trusts exist
and the very laws enacted to destroy
them have sometimes increased their
power. But we should not be disheart-
ened. We are passing through trans
formation age in this respect. Let US
believe in the honesty of human nature
and the intelligence of the American peo-
pie; and that the time will surely come
when this evil will be remedied by the
people themselves.
Great problems require exceptional
ability to solve them, and above all, they
require time to be satisfactorily worked
out. Let US keep our faith pure in the
people, and remember that those who
wrote the Declaration of Independence
and founded our government, and those
who saved our country in the days of 81
and carried US safely through the dark
days after the war, are the ancestors of
our people today and that the same in
telligence and blood and power and earn
estness and integrity of purpose exists
today as it has always existed in the
American Republic. Let US preserve the
ideal of a government for all and not for
the many, confident in the basic intelli-
gence of our people to work out the So
luton of this mighty problem.
3. Of all the lofty ideals that our peo-
Pile have striven to live up to, that OF the
education of youth has been the loftiest.
What tremendous strides we have made
in educational advantages in the last few
decades! Our magnificent public school
system offers to every boy and girl
chance to be educated and trained for
the duties of life. Higher education has
been provided for by innumerable semi
naries, colleges, Institutes and universe
ties. The time was, even when | was
boy, that boy who went to college from
a country town was rarity and was
envied for his opportunity. Now, scores
of boys are attending our universities
where one twenty-five years ago used to
go.
One thing has been kept free from
political debasement, and that is our
school system. 1T is true, in some cases,
that politics have crept into our public
school management, but the men and
women of this country today insist upon
the purest and best system of education
for their children. Our people as peo
pie were never so we'll trained for the
battle of life or so we'll educated in re-
gard to everything that makes them
capable of earning their way and enjoy
ing their lives they are today. Com
pulsory school laws are grand thing.
Child labor laws are working out the
salvation of the laboring class.
There is no reason why children, little
boys and girls, should grow up in igno-
rance and begin before they are twelve
years of age to work in our cotton and
wooden mills and other Industries. The
strong arms Of the government should
step in with the most effective and pow
erful laws that we can make and say to
everybody that the child must be educat
ed and trained and disciplined, and that
no one under certain age shall be al
lowed to throw away the chances OF an
education simply because their parents,
In their ignorance or Indifference, would
take them from school to contribute to
the means of livelihood for the family.
If the foreign population, increasing at
the rate, by immigration. of million
year, does not recognize this principle,
it must be taught by drastic measures.
Their children are of greater value than
the wages that they draw on Saturday .
night.
When the time comes that every child |
N America up to the age of sixteen years
has been kept in our public schools, or
las been instructed by a course of study !
prescribed by our public school system,
then Socialism will be eradicated and the !
government will be placed upon so stable
a foundation that it cannot be over
thrown by prejudice or passion or vio- !
ence or envy. Education is the founda-
ton of every virtue and the support OF
every enduring government. 1t is one
Of the loftiest ideals to be achieved by |
the coming generations.
4. If you should ask wherein was the |
strength of the government of the United
States, and upon what its future success
and prosperity most depended, / should |
say to you that, above everything else,
it depended upon the American home.
1t is the people who acquire home who
have most at stake in the prosperity of
our land. When man has home, he
is independent; it is his castle. He can
look the world face to face and defy at
tack. Beyond its portals no enemy can
come and within its portals friends are
always welcome.
In many ways the farmer is the hap
piest man on the face of the globe, and
that because he has home, something
that he has the control and management
of, and in which he is supreme. 1t is for
that reason, l think, more than any
other, that the farmers of our country
are its backbone; and when you unite the
farmers with the great middle class of
people, those who work in our mills and
factories and save enough to found their
little homestead in which they rear their
families, these home-owners are the bull
wark of American liberty. The man
who is kind husband and good father,
who rears his children in the fear of God
and with the love of country in his heart,
L. L l,<