Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1913-03-13

LHe HOube OF representatives -DeCdHle
democratic by decisive majority. II
has now been completed The senate
about to assemble will also be demo
cratic. The offices of president and
vice president have been put into the
hands Of democrats. What does the
change mean? That is the question
that is uppermosG in our minds today
That is the question / am going to try
to answer, in order, if / may, to inter-
pref the occasion.
1t means much more than the mere
success Of a party. The success of a
party means little except when the
nation is using that party for large
and definite purpose. No one can mis-
take the purpose for which the nation
now seeks to use the democratic party.
1t seeks to use it to interpret change
in its own plans and point of view.
Some old things with which we had
grown familiar, and which had begun
to creep into the very habit of our
thought and of our lives, have altered
their aspect as we have latterly looked
upon them, with fresh, awakened eyes;
have dropped their DISCUSSES and shown
themselves alien and sinister. Some
new things, as we. look frankly upon
them, willing to comprehend their real
character, have come to assume the as
pect of things long believed in and ia
miliar, stuff of our own convictions
We have been refreshed by new in
sight into our own life,
We see that in many things that life
is very great. Its incomparably great
in its material aspects, in its body If
wealth, in the diversity and sweep of
its energy, in the industries which have
been conceived and built up by the
genius of individual men and the limit
less enterprise of groups of men 1t is
great, also, very great, in its moral
force. Nowhere else in the world have
noble men and women exhibited in
more striking forms the beauty and
the energy of sympathy and helpless
ness and counsel in their efforts to rec
tify wrong, alleviate suffering, and set
the weak in the way Of strength and
hope. We have built up, moreover,
great system of government, which has
stood through long age as in many
respects model for those who seek to
set liberty upon foundations that will
endure against fortuitous charge.
against storm and accident. Our life
contains every great thing, and con-
tains it in rich abundance
But the evil has come with the good.
and much fine gold has been corroded
With riches has come inexcusable
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, shamefully
prodigal as we'll as admirably efficient
We have been proud Of our Industrial
achievements. but we have not hither.
to stopped thoughtfully enough TO
count the human cost, the cost of lives
snuffed out, of energies overtaxed and
broken. the fearful physical andzspirit-s
ual cost to the men and women and
children upon whom the dead weight
and burden of it all has fallen pitiless-
ly the years through. The groans and
agony of il 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 scrutinize with candid,
fearless eyes. The great government
we loved has too often been made use
of for private and selfish purposes,
and those who had used it had forgot
ten the people.
At last vision has been youchsafed
us of our life as whole. We eethe
bad with the good, the debased and de-
cadent with the sound and vital. With
this vision we approach new affairs.
Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider,
to restore, to correct the evil without
imparing the good. to purify and human
ize every process of our common life
without weakening or sentimentaIizing
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 mach
inery which made it impossible that any
but those who stood at the levers Of
control should have chance to look
out for themselves. We have not for
gotten our morals. We remembered
well enough that we had set up policy
which was meant to serve the humblest
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 we're very needless and
in hurry to be great.
We have come now to the sober sec.
ond thought. The scales of Needless
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 proudly 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