The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1913-03-14

ont for themselves. we nau not IoI
gotten our morals. We remembered
we'll enough that we had set up pol
lev which was meant to serve the
humblest as we'll as the most power
full. with an eye single to the stand
ards of Justice and fair play, and re-
membered it with pride. But we
were very needless and in hurry to
be great.
We have come now to the sober sec
ond thought. The scales of needless
ness have fallen from our eyes. We
have made up our minds to square ev-
cry process of our national life again
with the standards we so proudly set
up at the beginning, and have always
carried at out 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 off from our
proper part in the commerce of the
world, violates the just principles OF
taxation and makes the government
facile instrument in the hands of prl-
vate interests; a banking and cur
rency system based upon the necessity
of the government to sell it's bonds So
wears ago and perfectly adapted to
concentrating cash and restricting
credits; an industrial system which,
take it on all it's sides, financial as
we'll as administrative, holds capital
in leading strings, restricts the liber-
ties 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 in
strumentality of science taken directly
to the farm, or afforded the facilities
of credit best suited to its practical
needs; water courses undeveloped,
waste places unreclaimed, forests UNI
tended, 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 produc-
ton, but we have not studied cost or
economy as we should, either as organ
izers 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 wealth of the ma
ton, the health of its men and its wo-
men and its children, as well 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 of opportuni-
ty, the first essential of justice in the
body polite, if men and women and
children are not shielded in their lives,
their very vitality, from the conse-
quences of great industrial and social
processes which they cannot alter, con-
troll, or singly cope with. Society
must see to it that it does not itself
crush or weaken or damage its own
constituent parts.
These are some of the things we
ought to do, and not leave the others
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 hearthfre of every
mans conscience and vision of the
right. 1t is inconceivable that we
should do this as partisans; it is incon-
ceivable we should do it in ignorance
Of the facts as they are or in blind
haste. We shall restore, not destroy.
We shall deal with our economic sys-
tenn as it is and as it may be modified,
not as it might be if we had a 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,
dissatisfaction or the excitement OF
excursions whittier they cannot tell.
Justice, and only justice, shall always
be our motto.
And yet it will be no cool process OF
mere science. The nation has been
deeply stirred by a solemn passion,
stirred by the knowledge of wrong, OF
ideals lost, of government too often
debauched and made an instrument OF
evil. The feelings with which we
face this new age of right and oppor-
tunity sweep across our heart-strings
like some air out of Gods own pres.
ence, where justice and mercy are rec
onciled and the Judge and the brother
are one. We know our task to be nc
mere task of politics, but task
which shall search us through and
through, whether we be able to under
stand our time and the need of oul
people, whether we be indeed their
spokesman and interpreters, whether
we have the pure heart to comprehend
and the recti6ed will to choose oul
high course of action.
This is not day of triumph; it is 9
day of dedication. Here muster moi
the forces of party, but the forces Of
humanity. Mems hearts wait upor
US; mems lives hang in the balance
mems hopes call upon us to say what