Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1913-03-06
PRESIDENT WILSON
FOR JUSTICE ONLY,


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tvr1es ana out OF every nome wnere
the struggle had It's intimate and IA.
millar seat With the great govern
ment went many deep secret things
which we too long delayed to look
into and scrutinize with candid, fear.
less eyes. The great government we
loved has too often been made use Of
for private and selfish purposes, and
those who used It had forgotten the
people.
At last a vision has been vouch
safed us Of our life as a whole. We
see the bad with the good, the de
based and decadent with the sound
and vital. With this vision we ap-
proach new affairs. Our duty is to
oi5abse, &c reconsider, 10 restore, y,
correct the evil without impairing the
good, to purify and humanize every
process of our common life without
weakening or sentimentalizing it.
There has been something crude and
heartless and unfeeling in our haste to
succeed and be great. Our thought has
been Let every man look out for him
self, let every generation look out for
Itself while we reared giant machin.
cry which made it impossible that any
but those who stood at the levers of
control should have a chance to lock
out for themselves. We had not for.
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 we're
very needless and in a hurry to be
great.
Chief Items in Program.
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 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; 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 1t on all its 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 instrumentality Of science |
taken directly to the farm, or afforded |
the facilities of credit best suited to |
its practical needs; water courses un-
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.
Matters of Justice.
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 its 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 1
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,l
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 1t does not itself
crush or weaken or damage it's 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
L. H.. ...LIoL .Il..la...I. -. .......--I.--I