Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1913-03-07

in its moral force Nowhere else in
the world have noble men and women
exhibited in more striking forms the
beauty and energy of sympathy and
helpfullness and counsel in their eff
forts to rectify wrong, alleviate suffer-
ing and set the weak in the way of
strength and hope. We have built
up, moreover, great system of gov
eminent, which has stood through a
long age as in many respects a model
for those who seek to set liberty upon
foundations that will endure against
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
corroded. With riches has come mex
cusable waste. We have squandered
great part of what we might have
used, and have not stopped to con-
serve the exceeding bounty of nature
prise would have been worthless and
impotent, scorning to bel careful,
shamefully prodigal as well as admi-
rably efficient. We have been proud
of our industrial achievement, but we
have not hitherto stopped thought
fully enough to count the human cost,
the cost of lives snuffed out, of en-
ergies overtaXed and broken, the fear
full 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 ia
miliar 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 debased
and decadent with the sound and vital.
With this vision we approach new af-
fairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to re-
consider, to restore, to correct the
evil without impairing the good, to
purify and humanize every process of
our common life without weakening or
sentamentalizing it. There has been
something crude and heartless and
unfeelng 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
troll should have chance to look out
for themselves. We had not forgotten
our morals. We remembered well
enough that we had set up policy
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 remembered
it with pride. But we were very heed
less and in hurry to be great.
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 proudly set
up at the beginning and have always
carried at our hearts. Our work is a
work of restoration.
EVILS TO BE CORRECTED.
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 princi.
Piles of taxation, and makes the govern
ment facile instrument in the hands
of private interests; a banking and
currency system based upon the neces-
slty of the government to sell its bonds
fifty years ago and perfectly adapted to
concentrating cash and restricting
credits; an industrial system which,
take it on all its sides, financial as well
as administrative, holds capital in lead
ing strings, restricts the liberties and
limits the opportunities of labor, and
exploits without renewing or conserving
the natural resources of the country; a
body of agricultural activities never yet
given the efficiency of great business
undertakings or served as it should be
/ 4 i. 4