Semi-weekly herald., 1913-03-06
fering, and set the weak in the wa,

crnment, which has stood through a
long age as in many respects model
for those who seek to set liberty upon
foundations that will endure agains.
fortuitous change, against storm and
accident. Our life contains every
great thing, and contains it In rich
abundance.
But the evil has come with the good,
and much fine gold has been corrodeJ
With riches has come inexcusapie
waste. We have squandered great
part of what we might have used, and
have not stopped to conserve the ex.
ceeding bounty of nature, without
which our genius for enterprise would
have been worthless and impotent
scorning to be careful, shamefuI'y
prodigal as well as admirably eff
cient. We have been proud of our
industrial achievements, but we have
not hitherto stopped thoughtfuiiy
enough to count the human cost, the
cost of lives snuffed out, of energies
overtaxed and broken, the fearful
physical and spiritual cost to the men
and women and children upon whom
the dead weight and burden of it all
has fallen pitilessly the years through.
The groans and agony of it all had
not yet reached our ears, the solemn,
moving undertone of our life, coming
up out of the mines and factories and
out of every home where the struggle
had its intimate and familiar seat.
With the great government went many
deep secret things which we too long
delayed to look into and scrutiniae
with candid fearless 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 vision has been vouch-
safed us Of our life as a whole. We
see the bad with the good, the debased
and decadent with the sound and vi
tai. With this vision we approach new
affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to
reconsider, to restore, to 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 himself, let
every generation look out for ITSELF"
while we reared giant machinery
which made it impossible that any but
those who stood at the levers of con-
troll should have chance to look
out for themselves. We had not for
gotten our morals. We remembered
well enough that we had set up pol
icy which was meant to serve the hum
blest as well as the most powerful,
with an eye single to the standards
of justice and fair play, and remem-
bered it with pride. But we were
very needless and in hurry to be
great.
We have come now to the sober sec
ond thought. The scales of heedles-
ness 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 de-
gree 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 facile instru-
ment in the hands of private interests !;
banking and currency system based
upon the necessity of the government
to sell its bonds fifty years ago and
perfectly adapted to concentrating
cash ami restricting credits; an in
dustrial system which take it on all
its sides. financial as well as ad-
ministrative, holds capital in leading
strings, restricts the liberties and
limits the opportunities of labor, and
exploits without renewing or conserv-
ing the natural resources of the coun-
try; 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; wa
tercourses undeveloped, waste places
unreclaimed, forests untended, 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 in
dustry, as statesmen, or as individuals.
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 ma