The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-03-04
WILSON INAUGURATED
BEFORE HUGE THRONG
Continued from first pagel


mirably efficient. We have been proud
of our industrial achievements, but W,
have not hitherto stopped thoughtfully
enough to count the human cost, the
cost of lives snufred out, of energies
overtaxed and broken, the fearful physi'
cal and spiritual cost to the men and
women and children upon 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, NOV.
ing 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 Sc
cret things which we too long delayed to
| look into and scrutnize with candid,
| fearless eyes. The great government we
| loved has too often been made use of
for private and selfish purposes, and
those who used it had forgotten the
people.
The Evil Discovered.
AT last vision has been vouchsafed us
of our life as 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 reconsider, to re-
store, to correct the evil without i'm
pairing the good, to purify and human
ize every process OF our common life
without weakening or sentimentalizlng
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 machin-
cry which made it impossible that any
but those who stood at the levers of
control should have chance to look
out for themselves. We had 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 were very needless and
in hurry to be great.
We have come now to the sober second
thought. The scales of heedlessness have
fallen from our eyes. We have made up
our minds to square every process OF
our national life again with the stand
ards we so proudly set up at the begin
ming and have always carried at our
hearts. Our work is work of restora
tion.
The Things To Be Altered.
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 just principles
of taxation, and makes the government
a facile instrument in the hands of pri-
waite interests; banking and currency
system based upon the necessity OF the
government to sell its bonds fifty years
ago and perfectly adapted to concen
trating cash and restricting credits; an
industrial system which, take it on all
its sides, financial as well as admins
trative, holds capital in leading strings,
restricts the liberties and limits the
opportunities OF labor, and exploits with |
out renewing or conserving the natural
resources of the country; body of
agricultural activities never yet given
the efficiency OF great business under
takings or. served as it should be
through the instrumentality of science |
taken directly to the farm, or afforded |
the facilities of credit best suited to its |
practical needs; watercourses undevel- |
oped, waste places unreclaimed, forests |
denuded, fast disappearing without plan
or prospect of renewal, unregarded 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 indus
try, as statesmen, or as individuals.
Nor have we studied and perfected /
the means by which government may be
put at the service of humanity, in safe
guarding the health of the nation, the
health of it's men and women and its
children, as well as their rights in the
struggle for existence. This is no senti
mental duty. The firm basis of govern
ment is justice, not pity. These are
matters of justice. There can be no
equality or opportunity, the first es-
,entia of Justice in the body polite,
4 men and women and children be not
shielded in their lives, their very vital
ty, from the consequences of great in
iustrial and social processes which they
,annot alter, control, or singly cope
with. Society must see to it that it
Toes not itself crush or weaken or dam
ige its own constituent parts, The first
iuty of law is to keep sound the society
Z serves. Sanitary laws, pure food
avs, and laws determining conditions
II labor which individuals are power
ess to determine for themselves are in
innate parts of the very business of
Justice and legal efficiency.
Restore and Not Destroy.
These are some of the things we ought
o do. and not leave the Others undone,
he old-fashioned, never-to-b e-neglected,
safeguarding of property
md OF individual right. This is the
Ugh enterprise of the new day: TO lift
" erything that concerns our life az a
Iation to the light that shines from the
Iearthire of every mans conscience and
ision of right. Ii is inconceivable that
We should do this as partisans; it is
that we should do il in
ignorance of the facts as they are or in
lind haste. We shall restore, not de-
troy. We shall deal with our eco
ionic system as it is and as il may ,
'e modified, not as it might be if we !
ad a clean sheet of paper to write .
pon; and step by step we shall make il .
ghat it should be, in the spirit of those
rho question their own wisdom and seek /;
ounsel and knowledge, not shallow self
20. a g /