The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1913-03-15
WILSON'S INAueuRAI ADDRESS
Continued from page one.)
very needless and in a hurry to be

Il
/ 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 t.
square every process of our nation
al life again with the standards We
SO proudly set up at the beginning
and have always carried at oul
| hearts. Our work is work Of re
| storation.
We have itemized with some de
gree of particularly the things thai
ought to be altered and here arc
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 tax
alton, and makes the government q
facile instrument in the hands OF
private interests; banking and cur.
rency system based upon the ne.
| cesslty of the government to sell its
bonds fifty years ago and perfectly
| adapted to concentrating cash and
| restricting credits; an industrial sys-
| tenn which, take it on all it's sides,
financial as well as administrative,
J
stricts 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 through the instrument
ality Of science taken directly to the
farm, or afforded the facilities of
credit best suited to its practical
needs; Watercourses hndeVeloped
waste places unreclaimed, forests un-
tended fast disappearing without plan
or prospect of renewal, unregaTded
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.
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
ton, the health OF it's men and its
women and its children, as well as
their rights in the struggle for exist
ence. This is no sentimental duty,
The firm basis of government is
justice, not pity. These are matters
Of justice. There can be no equality
of opportunity, the first essential of
justice in the body polite, if men
and Womgn and children be not
shielded ii their lives, their very
vitality, from the consequences 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 constitu-
ent parts. The first duty of law is
to keep sound the society it serves.
Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and
laws determining conditions of labor
which individuals are poWerless to
determine for themselves are in
innate parts of the very business of
justice 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, q fundamental safeguarding
L.
This is the high enterprise Of the
new day: to lift everything that con-
Germs our life as nation to the light
that shines from the hearthfire Of
every mans conscience and vision Of
the right. It is inconceiyab1e that
we should do this as partisans, it
is inconceivable we should do it in
ignorance of the facts as they are or
in blind haste. We shall restore, not
destroy. We shall deal with our
economic system as it is and as it
may be modified, not as it might be
It we had a 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 self-satis- |
faction Or the excitement of excur-
sions whittier they cannot tell. JUS
ttce, and only justice, shall always
be our motto.
And yet it will be no cool process
Of mere science: The nation has been
deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn
passion, stirred by the knowledge of
wrong, of ideals lost, of government
too often debauclled and made an
instrument 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
.fae need of our people, whether we
De indeed their spokesman and inter-
prefers, whether We have the pure
leart to comprehend and the recti-
led will to choose our high course of
action.
This is not q day Of triumph; it is
l day Of dedication. Here muster,
aot the forces of party, but the forces
II humanity, Mems hearts wait up-
IN US; mems lives hang in the bal
anees; mems hopes call upon us to
'ay what we will do Who shall live