The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1913-03-13

be through the fundamentally of science
taken directly to the farm, or afforded the
facilities of credit best suited to its practi-
cal needs; water courses undeveloped,
waste places unreclaimed, forests untend-
ed, fast disappearing without plan orpros-
pect of renewal, unregarded waste heaps
at every mine.
We have studied as perhaps no other
nation has the most effective means of
production, but we have not. studied cost
or economy as We should either as organ
izers of industry, as statesmen or as lndl-
viduals.
Nor have we studied and perfected the
means by which government may be put
at the service of humanity, in safeguarding
the health of the nation, the health of its
men and its women and its children, as we'll
as their rights in the struggle for existence.
This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis
of government is justice, not pity. These
are matters of justice. There can be no
equality or opportunity, the fret essential
of justice in the body polite, if men and
women and children be not shielded in their
very vitality, from the consequences Of
great industrial and social processes which
they cannot altar, control, or singly cope
with. Society must see to it that it does
not itself crush or weaken or damage its
own constituent parts. The first duty of
law is to keep sound the society it serves.
Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws
determining conditions of labor which in
viduals are power]ess to determine for
themselves are intimate parts of the very
business of justice and legal efficiency.
These are some of the things we ought
to do, and leave the others undone, the old
fashioned, never-to be neglected, funda-
mental safeguarding of property and of
individual right. This is the high enter
prise of the new day; to lift everything
that concerns our life as nation to the
light that shines from the hearth fire of
every mans conscience and vision of the
right. 1t is inconceivable that we should
do this as partisans; it is uncomfortable we
should do it in ignorance of the facts as
they are or in blind haste.
We shall restore, not destroy. We shall
deal with our economic system as it is and
as it may be modified, not as it might be if
we had clear sheet of paper to write
upon; and step by step we shall make it
what it should be, in the spirit of those who
question their own wisdom and seek coun-
sci and knowledge, not shallow self-satis-
faction or the excitement of excursions
whittier they cannot tell. Justice and only
justice shall always be our motto.
And yet it will be no cool process of mere
science. The nation has been deeply STIR
red, stirred by solemn passion, stirred
by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost,
of government too often debauched and
made an instrument Of evil. The feelings
with which we face this new age of right
and opportunity sweep across our heart
strings like some air out of Gods own
presence, where justice and mercy are
reconcled and the judge and the brother
are one.
| We know our task to be no mere task of
politics, but a task which shall search US
through and through. whether we be able
to understand our time and the need of our
people, whether we be indeed their spokes-
men and interpreters, whether we have the
pure heart to comprehend and the rectified
will to choose our high course of action.
This is not day of triumph; it is day
of dedication. Here muster, not the forces
of party, but the forces of humanity. Mems
hearts wait upon US; mems lives hang in
the balance; mems hopes call upon US to
say what we will do. Who shall live up to
the great trust? Who dares fail to try?
summon all honest men, all. patriotic, all
forward looking men, to my side. God
helping me, l will not fail them, if they will
but counsel and sustain me!