The Mena weekly star., 1913-03-06

| OI pdrL1culdTlly IHo thlh6S thos ON6HS 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 l just principles of taxation, and makes 1 the government 8 facilo instrument in the hands of private interests; bank ing and currency system based upon the necessity of the government to sell it's bonds fifty years ago and per l fectly adapted to concentrating cash and restricting credits; an industrial system which, take it on all its sides, financial as we'll as administrative, holds capital in leading strings, re- stricts the liberties and limits the op- portunities of labor, and exploits with out renewing or conServing the nat ural resources of the country; body of agricultural activities never yet given the efficiency of great business undertakings 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; water courses un- developed, waste places unreclaimed, forests intended, 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 industry, as states men, or as individuals.
 Government for Humanity.
 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 nation, the health of it's men and its womeA and its children, as we'll as their rights in the struggle for existence. This is no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no equality or opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body polite, if men and women and chil- dren be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the conse- quences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage it's own constituent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society 1t serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of  labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are inti- mate parts of the very business of jus tice and legal efficiency.
 These are some of the things we undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be- neglected, fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right This is the high enterprise of the new day; to lift everything that concerns our life as nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every mans conscience and vision of the right. It is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans; it is in- conceivable we should do it in ignor- ance of the facts as they are or in blind haste. We shall restore, not de- stroy. We shaK deal with our econ omic system as it is and as 1t may be modified, not as it might be if we had clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or-the excite ment of excursions whither they can not tell Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.
 Nation Deeply Stirred.
 And yet it will be no cool process of mere science. The nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of government too often debauched and made an in- strument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heart-strings like some air out of Gods own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task of politics but a task which shall search us through and through, whether we be able to understand our time and the need of our people. whether we be in- deed their spokesmen and interpre- ters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high course of action.
 This Is not day of triumph; 1t is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Mems hearts wait upon us; mems lives hang in the balance; mems hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? l summon all honest men. all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. God helping me. I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain mel
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 We grow by facing difficulties,