The labor advocate. [volume] (Cincinnati, Ohio) 1912-1937, 1916-03-04

tile fundamentals OF national and inter-
national life. When we see the tests
that other nations have been made to
endure, when we see the terrible conse-
quences of failure to think out the best
plans and policies for a nation and to
have some sustained ideal of all the
various relations of national life and
development, we grasp the necessity for
SuDJecting our own national affairs to
unfiinching scrutiny and analysis that we
may reject the unfit and make plans that
will endure the tests even of catas-
trophies and of time.
When no great catastrophe or test that
Will strain our republic our institutions
and our national ability to the uttermost
portends, we can muddle along some
how and make we'll enough do instead
OF forcing ourselves to the hard. exact
ing toll of selecting the best plans and
policies and holding ourselves rigidly to
the development of the highest ideals
and the maintenance of the best prin-
ciples of human welfare.
he developments, or rather the
events, of the past eighteen months have
proven that beautiful ideals and theories
without practical foundation or a prac-
tical plan for realizing them, are worse
than ineffective, for they create an at
mosphere of false safety and a false
hope that lull into fancied security and
inactivity and act as a barrier against
efforts to think out different and better
ways
AS result of our experiences and OBJ
servatons during the past year and
halt we, as a nation, have come to
different and wiser attitude towards
preparedness. We have come to see that
preparedness is only the wise fore
thought OF nation that has taken into
account all of the elements of human
nature, all of the possibilities and oppor-
tun1ties that may come to the nation,
and has tried to think out definite,
sustained plan that will insure to the ma
ton the development and maintenance
of their best ideals for the citizens in
dividually and for the national as
whole.
Preparedness must be the attitude of
a nation toward all relations of life
and all lines of action and development.
1t embraces knowledge of a tendency
and its effect knowledge how best to
deal with each tendency so that it may
be utilized for the best interests of the
nation, together with the practical wis
dom that will enable us to utilize all
the information and the experience
available to make our ideals realities in
daily life and in our relations with fell
loW-citizenS and with citizens of other
nations.
Preparedness in all the relations of
life is, in the ultimate analysis, an edll-
cational problem; therefore, all plans
for preparedness of any kind must CO.
ordinate with the efforts of public ed11-
cational institutions.
Public education ought to provide for
all of the needs of all of the people
Public education must include indus
trial education vocational training, phys
ical training and development as we'll as
education of cultural nature
No effort has done more for strong
er and better manhood and womanhood
than the labor movement for the shorter
workday, better working conditions and
higher wages which make possible bet
ter standards of living. The fundamen-
tai step is the shorter workday which
brings relief from long hours of bur-
densome toll, gives opportunitr for re-
cuperation of physical strength, for
pleasure and those things necessary to
sane, wholesome living and continued
Improvement
40 " thS CllSIlS VI wages upon Oul
citizenship, Major General Gorgas has
stated the case most trenchantly:
add to the laboring mans wage from
$1.25 to $3.50 day, and you will length
en- the average Americans thread of life
by thirteen years at least"
The rich are overeating. The poor
are undertaking. Both are contributing
to short lives. But where overeating
shortens the life of one person in one
hundred, undertaking shortcns that of
ninety-nine. If we are to lengthen the
average life, we must pay attention to
the poor man.
The whole purpose of education is to
develop the best men and women to
be the most high-minded, resourceful
and effective citizens of our republic.
Upon the citizens will depend the des-
tiny of the nation and its contribution
to institutions of liberty and progress
Citizens under a democratic govern
ment must be able and competent to ex-
press and maintain their ideals.
We are confronted with question
that must be answered-Can democracy
be made effective? Democracy, like
every other human and national institu-
tion, is still on trial. If a democracy