Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1913-03-04

There has been a change of govern
ment. 1t began two years ago, when the
house of representatives became demo
cratic by a decisive majority. 1t has
now been completed. The senate about
to assemble will also be democratic. The
offices of president and vice president
have been put into the hands of the
democrats. What does the change mean?
That is the question that is uppermost
in our minds today. That is the question
l am going to try to answer in order, if
1 may, to interpret the occasion.
1T means much more than Tie mere
success of a party. The success of a
party means little except when the ma
ton is using that party for 4 large and
definite purpose. No one can mistake the
purpose for which the nation now seeks
to use the democratic party. 1t seeks
to use it to interpret a change in its own
plans and point Of view. Some Old
things with which we had grown famil.
lar, and which had begun to creep into
the very habit of our thoughts and Of our
lives, have altered their aspect as we
have l~atterly looked critically upon
them, with fresh, awakened eyes; have
dropped their DISCUSSES and shown them
selves alien and sinister. Some new
things, as we look frankly upon them.
willing to comprehend their real char
acter, have come to asSue the aspect of
things long believed in and familiar.
stuff Of our own convictions. We have
been refreshed by a new insight into our
own life.
I'VE have seen that in many things
that life is very great. 1t is incompar-
ably great in its material aspects. in its
body of wealth, in the diversity and
sweep of its energy. in the industries
which have been conceived and built ND
by the genius of individual men and the
limitless 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 helpfulncSs and coun-
sci in their efforts to r%ectify wrong, al
, leviate 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 model for
those who seek to set liberty upon found.
atoms that will endure against fOrtuit-
Gus 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 boun
ty of nature, without which our gpnius
for enterprise would have been worth
less and impotent. scorning to be careful.
shamefully prodigal as well as admir-
ably efficient. We have been proud of
our industrial achievements, but we
have not hitherto stopped 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 men and women and
upon whom the dead weight
and burden of it all has fallen pitilessly
the years through. The groans and
agony of it al has 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 famil-
lar seat. With the great government
went many deep secret things which we
too long delayed to look into and scruti-
nize with candid, fearless ewes. The
great government we loved has too often
been made use Of for private and selfish
purposes, and those who used it had for
gotten 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 de-
cadent with the sound and vital. With
this vision we approach new affairs. Our
duty is to cleanse, to reconsider. to re-
store, to correct the evil without impair-
ing the good, to purify and humanize
every process of our common life with
out weakening or sentimentalizing 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 machinery which
made it impossible that any but those
who stood at the levers of control should
have a chance to look out for themselves.
we had not forgotten our morals. We