The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1913-03-08


The Fearful Human Cost
Nowhere else in the world have noble men
and women exhibited in more striking forms
the beauty and the energy of sympathy and
| helpfullness and counsel in their efforts to
rectify wrong. alleviate suffering. and set the
weak in the way of strength and hope. We
have built up, moreover, a great system Of
| Government, which has stood through a long
age as in many respects a mode 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 inexcusable waste. We have
squandered a great part of what we might
have used, and have not stopped to conserve
the exceeding bounty of nature, without which
our genius for enterprise would have been
worthless and impotent, scorning to be care
full. shamefully prodigal as well as admirably
efficient.
We have been proud of our industrial
achievements, but we have not hitherto stop
ped thoughtfully 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 mea and women and
children upon whom the dead weight and
burden of it all has fallen pitilessly the years
through.
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The groans and agony of it all had not yet
reached our ears, the solemn, moving under
tone of our life, coming up out OF the mines
and factories and out of every hons 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
the people.
Something Crude and Heartless
At last a vision has been vouchsafed 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 affairs. Our duty is to cleanse. to recon.
slider, 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 heart
less and unfeeling 10 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 control
should have 3 chance to look out for them
selves.
Come to Sober Second Thought
We had not forgotten our morals. We re-
membered well enough that we had set up a
policy which was meant to serve the humblest
ss 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 needless and in a hurry to be great.
We have come now to the sober second
thought. The scales of heedlessness have
fallen from our eyes. We nave 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.
The Government and Private Interests
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 of from our proper part
in the Of the world, violates the
just principles OF taxation, and makes the
Government Q facile instrument In the hands
of private interests; a banking and currency
system based upon the necessity Of the Gov
eminent to sell its bonds 80 years ago and
perfectly adapted to concentrating cash and
restricting credits; an industrial system
which, take it on all It's sides, financial as
we'll as administrative holds capital in lead
ing strings, restricts the liberties and limits
the opportunities of labor. and exploits with.
out renewing or conserving the natural re-
sources Of the oountryj q body of agricultural
activities never yet given the efficiency of
great business undertakings or served as it
should be through the instrumsntality of
science taken directly to the farm. or afforded
the facilities OF credit best suited to its practi.
cal needs; watercourses undeveloped, waste
places unreolaimed. forests INTENDED. fast
disappeari' z without plan or prospect Of re-
newal. unregarded waste heaps at every mine.
Government Should Serve Humanity
We have studied as perhaps no other Ma
tion has the most effective means of produc-
tion, but we have not studied cost or economy
as we should either as organizers of industry.
as statesmen, or as individuals.
Nor have we studied and perfected the means
by which Government may be put at the SER
vice Of humanity, in safeguarding the health
of the Nation. the health Of its men and its
women and it, children, as well as their rights
in the struggle for existence. This Is no sen.
timental duty. The firm basis of government
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