The Washington herald., 1915-01-30

/ - W -
service.
II have known many a man who
| gave up profit for mental satisfac-
/ tion. / know men in this city-there
| are men in the scientific bureau Of
/ this government whom 1 could cite
who could make very big salaries, but
who prefer the satisfaction Of doing
things that will serve the whole COM
! munity and doing them just as well
] as they possibly can be done. /, for
one. am proud of the scientific bu-
| reau of. this government. There are
| men in IL of the most self-sacrifcing
spirit and of the highest scientific eff
cheney who do things on a petty sal
| ary which some other men would not
do at all. because IL you have TO pay
| a man a salary to produce the best
product of his brain, then he scales
the product down to the salary. Here
are men who scale the product up to
the highest standards Of scientific
ideals,
$50 i say that IL your earning ca
pacity In the capacity TO earn the
public confidence, nobody II going to
mOIest you and you and everybody 1,
going to say, If. you earn big profits
if you have treated the people from
whom 20 unre making your profits n
they ought to be treated; II you treat
the employees whom you use In earning
those profits as they ought to be
treatedI IL your methods OF cOmpeti-
tion are clear above reprOaehI why
then, you can pile those profits as high
as the Rockies and nobody will be
jealous of it, Because you will have
earned them in n sense that Ii the
handsOmest sense of all.
Laws Express Average Character.
1T is in this spirit that we all
ought to regard the laws, that we
all ought to criticise the laws, and
that we all ought to operate in
the enforcement of the laws. Gov
ernment, gentlemen. is merely an
attempt to express the conscience
of everybody, the average con-
science of the nation, in the rules
that everybody is commanded to
obey That is all they are. II the
government is going faster than
the public conscience, ii will pres
emily have to pull up; If it is not
going as fast as the public con-
science, il will presently have to
be whipped up. Because the pub
lie conscience is going to say. We
want our laws to express our char
acter:' and our character must have
this kind of solidity underneath it.
the moral judgment of right and
wrong.
The only reason we quarrel with
reformers sometimes is because
they are or suppose that they are,
a little more enlightened than the
rest Of us and they want US all OF
sudden to be Just as enlightened
as they are, and we cannot stand
the pace. That is all that makes us
uneasy about refOrmers.
That, gentlemen, is the homely.
dare obvious lesson
which / have meant to give utter
ance to this afternoon. 1 think
that 1 understand what you are
after. hope that you understand
what we are after.
.AH I ask Is that IL anything is
being done that ought not to be done,
the fault in II be cOncIusiveIy pointed
out and the way TO correct the mis-
take be explicitly shown.
There is an old rule that ought to
obtain in politics as in everything
else and ii is expressed in very
homely way 1t is the rule Of Put up
or shut up Some one said, II you
wish me to consider you witty. must
really trouble you to make a joke
II you wish me to consider you WISE
/ must really trouble you to show the
goods; to show how the thing can De
done; to show how it can be better
done.
Ready for Original Ideas.
'The market for ideas is highly
competitive market, and the rules OF
competition are necessarily fair. There
is only one test for an idea, and that
is is il good? You may, for the time
being, dress II with such rhetoric that .
it will look good, and the best thing
that is characteristic of countries like
our own is that every man who has
an idea is constantly invited to the
platform And there is nothing better
for an idea by way Of test than expo
sure to the atmosphere. II you let
people hear it stated often enough, 1t
will certainly seek its proper level.
That is the reason l believe in free
speech. ! have been subjected to free
speech myself and it is hard to endure
sometimes. because the office of the
President seems to be the clearing
house for original ideas. / am brought
more original ideas per diem.
dare say, than any other person in
the country, and therefore pay the
penalty of freedom of speech, Perhaps
my mind does not register original
ideas readily enough, because some
of them do not register at all. l am
perfectly willing 10 admit that that is
the fault of the register, not the fault
of the idea. All have to say is that
il you have ideas, the register is en-
tireIy at your service