Weekly journal-miner., 1913-03-12

aG
 facile instrument in the hands of
 private interests; banking and cur
 rency system based upon the neces-
 sity 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 1t on all its sides,
 financial as we'll as administrative,
 holds capital in leading strings, re-
 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 instruemntal-
 ity of science taken directly to the
 farm, or afforded the facilities of
 credit best suited to ifs practical
 needs; watercourses undeveloped.
 waste places unreclaimed, forests untended, fast disappearing without plan or protest of renewal, unregard-
 ed waste heaps at every mine. We
 have studied as perhaps no other
 nation has the most effective means
 of production, but we have not stud jed 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 service of humanity. in safeguarding the health of the na- tion, the health of its men and its women and its children, as we'll as their rights in the struggle for ex- istence. This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government IS justice, not pity. These are mat ters of justice. There can be no equality or opportunity, the first es- sential of justice in the body polite, ii men and women and children be not shielded in 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 1t that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constitu- ent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. | Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and l laws determining conditions of labor i which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are inti- mate parts of the very business of justice and legal efficiency.
 There are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave the others the old fashioned, never-to- be-neglected, fundamental safeguard ing of property and of individual right. This is the high enterprise of the new day; to lift everything that concerns our life as a nation to the light that shines from the hearth lire of every mans conscience and vision of the right. It is inconceiv- able 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 should restore, not destroy. We 1 shall deal with our economic system IS it is and as it may be modified, ( not as 1t might be if we had a clean 1 sheet of paper to write upon; and { ;tep by step we shall make it what { { should be, in the spirit of those . yho question their own wisdom and | eek counsel and knowledge, not hallow self-satisfaction or the ex- ! itement of excursions whither they i tell. Justice and only jus e ice, shall always be our motto T
 And yet it will be no cool process t f mere science The nation has a een deeply stirred, stirred by a sol t mn passion, stirred by the knowl- f