Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1914-07-07
THE NEW INDEPENDENCE
Edward S. Martin in Youths Companio

edward s. Martin in Youths Companion
One hundred and thirty Eight years from the
day celebrate, behold stretching out fumbhng
hands for different independence.
Precisely what that independence is, very few
of us could define, but desire for it the
ception of it seems be owing sentiment that
our old independence has become impaired-not
regards foreign governments, for fear nothing
from Them but in particulars that concern GER
tain inaenable rights, life liberty, the pur
suit of happiness
There is very widespread sentiment that some
of those rights have been, and being fiched
away from some OF In country where the
means of living abound they have never before
in history abounded for like numbers have
a rising tide of murmuring discomfort. The span of
average life long now, but there
is complaint that the conditions of living and of
labor cheat too many of the fulness of their
years. 1t is a grievance that liberty unduy
abridged by the eXactions of tasks that the workers
cannot escape. The pursuit of happiness is dent-
fled with the pursuit of money, and from the
and from the west there everywhere rises the
plant that in that race the field has been distanced,
and that the stronger and luckier competitors get
far great share of the prizes
The desire for different independence is born
Of wish to aay all that reasonable these
complaints, and of hope to do so by enacting laws
restrict the powers and privileges of great
binatons of capital and regulate the railways and
to diminish the protective tariff and transfer
government some powers, thought to be dangerous,
that had Injured to the bankers and to protect work
people in their dealings with employers, and by
and inheritance taxes to put a larger share of
the costs of government those to whom the pro-
lection Of government has been, pecuniarily most
profitable. ~~1
These high hopes and with the effort to real
ze them there is wide sympathy. The legislative
measures they inspire will be good bad according
they comply or fail to comply with tie gres+
nomic laws that reguiate commercial and industrial
life. They will not necessarily be good because they
are well intended or because they deprive the
duly acqusitive of their gains curb the ardor
the ayaricious Neither will thew necessarily be
bad because they disarrange in some particulars for
time industrial and social machinery conflict
with notions of property and privilege that had be-
come embedded in certain minds, and constrain
part of great community rearrange its habits
of living. "a
Since fathers day life has grown complex.
The old Declaration the word of who took
it for granted that they spoke for people who ex-
pected to shape their in life and to
take care of themselves 1t the word of men
who got their living, knew how to get it, and
asked for more than access to the soil fair
protection in whatever calling they followed. Such
men made the prosperity of country, and such
men still abound in it, and must still make it pros
per- if it it is prosper But along with them have
to be millions of Others of them the less
able less fortunate scons of the old stock, many
of them newcomers from Europe, whose hope for
subsistence and that reasonable happiness which all
pursue depends in a distressing degree the
justice and good will of their fortunate fell
lows. They must find employment, must seek it
where it offers, and accept the terms of it, They
far less independent than the men our fathers
spoke for. To procure fair terms and a chance to
live should live, they must not only cult
vate and exert their own powers, but combine to
exact the terms they want, look to government
to help them.
There is wealth enough to go around. The
great question is Is there character enough?
We have need each of us, to make new Decla-
ration independence; declare ourselves free from
domination of the haste to be rich; to separate
in our minds the pursuit of happiness and the pur
suit of money, and declare that they shall not be
unduly COMPOUNDED in habits and aims. That
is the declaration that is proceeding from American
minds and American hearts today The great thing
that has happened in the last decade in coun-
try has been the decline in the homage paid to
money, great relative appreciation of other forms
of power, and the prodgious awakening of wealth
to it's responsibilities The conception of accumu-
lated money a means of escape from troublesome
obligations of life is passing away. Everywhere there
is evidence of the growth of better and soundei
sentiment; namely, that without troublesome obliga
tions, life is tasteless that wealth without service
is immoral that riches only secondary and Incl
dental Importance, and that the great use of then
is to preserve the bodies and to raise up and en-
noble the spirits of men,
She-And how did you feel when the captain
said the ship would go down in five minutes?