Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1913-03-07

tains every great thing, and contains it in
rich abundance
But the evil has come with the good,
and much fine gold has been conoded.
With riches has come inexcusable waste.
We have squandered great part of what
we might have used, and have not stopped
to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature,
without which our genius for enterprise
would have been worthless and impotent,
scorning to be careful shamefully prodigal
as well as admirably efficient We have
been proud Of our industrial achievements,
but we have not hitherto stopped thought
fully enough to count the human cost, the
cost OF lives snuffed out Of energies over
taxed and broken. the fearful physical 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, moving undertone of our life, COM
ing 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 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 and
selfish purposes, and those who used it had
forgotten the people.
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 restore. TO correct
the evil without impairing the good, to
purify and humanize every process of our
common life without weakening or senti-
mentalizing it. There has been some
thing 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 them
| selves. We had not forgotten 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 standards we
so proudly set up at the beginning and
have always carried at our hearts. Our
work is 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 of from our
proper part in the commerce of the world,
violates the just principles of taxation.
and makes the Government a facile instru-
ment in the hands Of private interests;
banking and currency system based upon
the necessity Of the Government to sell its
bonds fifty years ago and perfectly adapted
to concentrating cash and restricting cred
its; an industrial system which. take il on
all sides, financial as well as administra-
tive, holds capital in leading strings, re-
stricts the liberties and limits the opportu-
mites Of labor. and exploits without re-
newing or conserving the natural resources
of the country; body Of agricultural &C.
Invites never yet given the efficiency of
great business undertakings or served as il
should be through the instrumentality of
science taken directly to the farm, or af-
forded the facilities of credit best suited to
its practical needs warehouses; undevel-
oped, waste places unclaimed. 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
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 its
men and its women and its children, as
well 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 matters of justice. There
can be no equality or opportunity the first
essential of justice in the body polite. il
men and women and childen 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
it that il does not itself crush or weaken
or damage its own constituents parts. The
first duty Of law is to keep sound the society
il serves Sanitary laws, pure food laws,
and laws determining conditions of labor
which individuals are powerlesS to deter
mine for themselves are intimate parts of
the very business Of justice and legal eff
cheney.
These are some Of the things we ought
to do, and not leave the others undone. the
old-fashioned. never-to- be neglected. fun
damental Safeguarding of property and Of
individual right. This is the high enter
prise Of the new day to lift everything
that concerns our life as a nation to the |
light that shines from the hearthfre Of
every mans conscience and vision of the
right ltis inconceivable that we should do
this as partisans; it is inconceivable we
should do il in ignorance of the facts as
they are, or in blind haste. We shall re-
store. not destroy We shall deal with our
economic system as ii is and as il may be
modified. not as il might be il we had a