Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1924-05-24
Congressman Goldsborough
Makes Forceful Address
Continued from page 81

LII uAS course OI SOIuS llC1gdLlOH
several years ago, a certain promi-
nent manufacturer said during his
cross-examimnation that he knew
nothing of history and didn't recog-
nize the value of such knowledge.
This was either an i'll considered
statement or else was the result of
the kind of practical success along a
given line which creates in some
minds the obsession that they are
blessed with all wisdom an obsession
which interferes with the process Of
reflection.
In an address delivered at the Uni
versity OF Michigan in April, 1911, on
the study of Ancient literature, the
Hon. James Bryce, then Ambassador
to this country from Great Britain
has this to say concerning the study
Of history
1--WE can conjecture the future only
from what we know of the past, that
is to say, from what we know Of hui
man nature and the processes by
which it and human institutions
change. One who knows only his own
country and people does not really
know them, because it is only by
knowing something Of other countries
and their peoples that he can tell
which characteristics of his own peo-
pie are normal, generally present in
Ill peoples and which are peculiar to
his own. So, likewise, he who knows
only his own time does not really
know it for he cannot distinguish be-
tween characteristics that are tran
sent and those that are permanent.
This is the main use of history, be-
sides of course, the pleasure which
Ill knowledge gives. To know what
we are, we must know how we came
to be what we are, and must realize
that we shall before long pass into
something different"
The lessons of history teach of the
cycle, inevitable under our present
monetary system-expansion, infia-
lion, speculation, collapse, slow recov
Try. Sterilization, restraining ex-
.,ansion at the point Of over produc-
ion and consequent imitation, is not
only an economic problem the solu-
ION of which our people are ready to
undertake, but is clearly a direct
problem Of civilization, involving sell
restraint, and mental and spiritual
deviation.
The great body of bankers, repre-
senting as they do much of the best
Thought of our communities, are
bound to be conservative in the sense
that they shrink from political nos
srums and fundamentally unsound
economic proposals, but pure conser-
vatism is alike offensive to them, as
t means stagnation and refusal to
tote the march Of civilization.
In the language of Edward G. Ry-
an, the great Wisconsin lawyer and
Judge
"Pure conservatism is always
rong, civilization is never fixed. No
oshua has power to stay the course
# the human mind. Change is the
necessity of human history, progress
he duty of the human race. Pure
conservatism has no place in the an
nals of mankind. It comedies the
past but denies the future. It wor-
ships the actual, but mathematics
the possible. Its creed is the present
because it is the present. 1t holds
with Pope that whatever is, is right.
It is the bigot of the present, without
sympathy with the past or prophecy
of the future. Content where it finds
itself pure conservatism sits down by
the wayside, while the march of civil
ization passes by and presses on the
promised land Of the future, guided