Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1912-10-31

of character among the average men
and women. the plain people, the hard
working, decent-living, right-thinking
people who make up the great bulk Of
our citizenship | know my country
men. | know that they are of this
type. But it is in civil life as it is in
war. In war, it is the man behind the
gun that counts most, and yet he can
not do his work unless he has the
right kind Of gun. In civil life, in
the every day life of our nation, it is
individual character which counts
most; and yet the individual character
cannot avail, unless in addition there
to there lie ready to hand the social
weapons which can be forced only by
law and by public opinion operating
true and operated upon by law.
Again, friends, do not forget that
we<are proposing no new principles,
the doctrines we preach reach back to
the golden rule and the sermon on the
mount. They reach back to the COM
mandments delivered at Sinai All
that we are doing is to apply these
doctrines in the shape necessary to
make them available for meeting the
living issues of our own day. We de-
cline to be bound by the empty little
philosophers, useful once perhaps, but
useless now. Our purpose is to
shackle greedy cunning as we shackle
brutal force and we are not to be
diverted from this purpose by the ap-
peal to the dead dogmas of dead
past We propose to lift the burdens
from the lowly and the weary, from
the poor and the oppressed. We pro-
pose to stand for the sacred rights of
and womanhood. Nay,
more, we propose to see that man
who toll, by excessive hours of labor,
by under payment, by injustice and
oppression. When this purpose can
only be secured by the collective ac-
ton of our people through their gov
agencies, we propose so to
secure it. We brush aside the argu-
ments of those who seek to bar action
by the repetition of some formula
about states rights or about "the
history of liberty being the history of
the limitation of governmental
Iuft nT he
courts finally to determine the mean
ing of the constitution. We are for
human rights, and we intend to work
for them in efficient fashion. Where
they can be best obtained by the ap-
plication of the doctrines of states
rights, then we are for states rights.
Where in order to obtain them it is
necessary to invoke the power of
the nation, then we shall invoke to it's
uttermost limits that mighty power.
We are for liberty. But we are for
the liberty of the oppressed, and not
for the liberty of the oppressor to
oppress the weak and to bind burdens
On the shoulders of the heavy laden
It is idle to ask us not to exercise the
power of the government when only
by the power of the government can
we curb the greed that sits in high
places; when only by the exercise of
he government can we eXalt the low !
" and give heart to the humble and
he down-trodden. We care for facts !
and not for formulas. We care for
leeds, and not for words. We recog-
1ize no sacred right of oppression.
We recognize no divine right to work |
injustice. We stand for the constitu-
ion. We recognize that one of it's |
most useful functions is the protection I
If property But we will not consent /
@ make of the constitution a fetish
or the protection of fossillized wrong.
We call the attention of those who .
hus interpret it to the fact that in |
hat great instrument of justice, life
and liberty are put on a full level with
property; indeed, are enumerated
lhead of it in the order of their i'm
)ortance. We stand for an upright
judiciary. But where the judges claim
he right to make our laws by finally
Interpreting them; by finally deciding
whether or not we have the power to
make them, then We claim the right
ourselves to exercise that power. We
orbid any men, no matter what their
,fficial position may be, to usurp the
light which is ours; the right which
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