The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-03-05


gotten our morals. We remembered
well enough that We had set up a
policy which was meant to serve the
humblest as well 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 q hurry to be
great.
Things to Be Altered.
We 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 q 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 of from our proper part in the
commerce of the world, violates the
just principles of taxation, and makes
the government facile instrument in
the hands Of private interests; bank
ing and currency system based upon
the necessity Of the government to
sell its 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,
ii a
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 instrumentality of science
taken directly to the farm, or afforded
the facilities of credit best suited to
its practical needs; water courses I'M
developed, waste places unreclaimed,
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 well 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-
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
crush or weaken or damage it's own
constituent parts. The first duty OF
law is to keep sound the society 1t
serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws,
and laws determining conditions of
labor which individuals are powerless
to determine for themselves are init
mate parts of the very business of JUS
tice and legal efficiency.
These are some of the things we
ought to do, and not leave the others
undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-
neglected, fundamental safeguarding
of property and of individual right.
This is the high enterprise of the new
day; to lift everything that concerns
our life as a nation to the light that
shines from the hearthfire of every
mans conscience and vision of the
right. 1t Is inconceivable that we
should do this as partisans; it is in
conceivable we should do it in ignor-
ance of the facts as they are or in
blind haste. We shall restore, not de-
stroy. We shall deal with our econ
omic system as it is and as it may
be modified, not as 1t might be If we
had clean 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 counsel and knowledge, not
shallow dissatisfaction or the excite
ment of excursions whittier they can
not tell Justice, and only justice,
shall always be our motto.
Nation Deeply Stirred.
And yet it will be no cool process
Of mere science. The nation has been
deeply stirred, stirred by solemn
passion, stirred by the knowledge of
wrong, of ideals lost, Of government
too often debauched and made an in
strument 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 reconciled 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 in
deed their spokesmen and interpre-
tiers, whether we have the pure heart