The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1913-03-06

out for themselves. We had not for
gotten our morals. We remembered
we'll enough that we had set up
policy which was meant to serve the
humblest as we'll as the most power
full, with an eye single to the stand
ards of justice and fair play, and re-
membered it with pride. But we were
very needless and in a hurry to be-
great.
Things to Be Altered.
Wn have come now to the sober
second thought. The scales OF heed
lessness have fallen from our eyes.
We have made up our minds to square
every process of our national life
again with the standards we SO proud
ly set up at the beginning and have
always carried at our hearts. Our
| work is work Of restoration.
We have itemized with some degree
Of particularly the things that ought
to be altered and here are some OF
the chief items: A tariff which cuts
US off from our proper part in the
commerce of the world, violates the
Just principles of taxation, and makes
the government a facile instrument IN
the hands of private interests; a bank
ing and currency system based upon
the necessity Of the government to
sell it's bonds fifty years ago and per-
fectly adapted to concentrating cash
and restricting credits; an industrial
system which, take it on all it's sides,
| financial as we'll as administrative,
holds capital in leading strings, re-
stricts the liberties and limits the op
portunities Of labor, and exploits with
out renewing or conserving the nat
ural resources of the country; a body
of agricultural activities never yet
given the efficiency of great business
undertakings or served as it should be
through the fundamentally of science
taken directly to the farm, or afforded
the facilities of credit best suited to
it's practical needs; water courses un-
developed, waste places unreclalmed,
forests INTENDED, fast disappearing
without plan or prospect 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 organizers of industry, as states
men, or as individuals.
Government for Humanity.
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 it's men and it's women
and it's 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
first essential of justice in the body
polite, if men and women and chill
dren be not shielded in their lives
their very vitality, from the conse
y quences of great industrial and social
) processes which they cannot alter
| control, or singly cope with. Society
: must see to it that it does not itself
t crush or weaken or damage it's owr
l constituent parts. The first duty o.
! law is to keep sound the society j
, serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws
, and laws determining conditions o
labor which individuals are poWerlesE
G to determine for themselves are init
d mate parts of the very business of jus
$ tice and legal efficiency
;. These are some of the things W.
f ought to do, and not leave the Others
J. undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be
Jc 81 vii 1,r
q of property and of individual right
:. This is the high enterprise of the new
n day: to lift everything that concerns
Il our life as a nation to the light tina
d shines from the hearthfire of ever.
v mans conscience and vision of th
h right 1t is uncomfortable that w
should do this as partisans; it is il!
conceivable we should do it in ignol
g ance of the facts as they are or il
n blind haste. We shall restore not dc
j. stroy. We shall deal with our ecol
l. omic system as it is and as it ma
It be modified, not as it might be If "
q had a clean sheet of paper to writ
a. upon; and step by step we shall max
l. it what it should be, in the spirit c
!, and seek counsel and knowledge, no
r. shallow dissatisfaction Or the excite
If ment of excursions whittier they car
q not tell. Justice, and only justice
t. shall always be our motto.
t, Nation Deeply Stirred.
r. And yet it will be no cool process
T. of mere science. The nation has bee
e deeply stirred, stirred by a solem
n passion, stirred by the knowledge c
If wrong, of ideals lost, of governmen
20 too often debauched and made an il
il strJment of evil. The feelings wit
"a which we face this new age of rigl
@, and opportunity sweep across on
g. art-strings like some air out {
"a Gods own presence, where justice al
a. mercy are reconciled and the jude
~ and the brother are one We kno
ys our task to be no mere task of polite
* but task which shall search u
~ through and through, whether we /