Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-03-05


ed Inland familiar, stuff of II own con-
victions. We have been refreshed by
a new insight into our W life.
We see that in many things that
life lis very great. 1t S i~ncomparably
great in its material aspects. In its
body of wealth, in the diversity and
sweep OF it's energy, in the industries
which have been conceived ana
built up by the genius Of individual
men and the lim.tless 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 helpfulness and council
in their efforts to rectify wrong, ali.
eviate suffering, and set the weak In
the way of strength and hope. W.
have built up, moreover, a great sys-
TEN of government, which has stood
through a long age as in many re-
spects a model for those who seek to
set liberty upon foundations that will
endure 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 cor.
roded. With riches has come ineXcus-
able waste. We have ~squandered a
great part Of what we might have
used. and have not stopped to con-
serve the exceeding bounty of nature.
without which our genius for enter
Prise would have been worthless and
impotent, scorning to be careful,
shamefully .prodigal as we'll as adj
mirably efficient. We have been
proud of our industrial achievements,
but we have not hitherto stopped
t%houghtfully enough to count the hui
man 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 up
on 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 factor
les 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
~ ND ~1lfycl ,N,IV,,0cnc 0n1 fh0cr who
used it had forgotten the people.
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 at
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
sentimentalizing it. There has been
something crude and heartless and un-
feeling 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 control
should have a chance too look out for
themselves. We had not forgotten
our morals. We remembered we'll
enough that we had set up a 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 a hurry to be great.
We have come now to be 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.
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 st princi-
pies Of taxation, and makes the gov
eminent a facile instrument in the
hands Of private interests; a banking
and currency system based upon the
necessity of the government to sell its
bonds fifty years ago and perfectly ad-
apter to concentrating cash and re-
strictiEg credits; ar industrial sys-
TEN which, take 1T on all sides, finan-
cial as we'll as administrative, holds
capital in leading strings, restricts the
liberties and limits the opportunities
of labor, and exploits without renew
ing or conserving the natural resources
Of the country; a body of agricultural
activities never yet given the efficien-
cy of great business undertakings or
served as it should be through the in,
|gtrumentality of science taken directly
to he farm, or afforded he facilities of
credit best suited to it's practical needs
warehouses undeveloped, vase places
unreclaimed, forests INTENDED, fast dis.
appearing without plan or prospect OF
renewal, unregarded waste heaps at
every mine. We have studied as per-
haps no other nation has the most
effective means of production, but we
have not studied cost OF economy as
we should either as organizers of in
dustry. as statesmen, or aus individuals
Nor have we studied and perfected
the mean by which government may
be put at the service of humanity. in