The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1933-07-06


complishments of the past few yeal-.
Socially mans progress has not been
what it should be, but again we lose
sight of the fact that that progress
has been stupendous.
To prove this one only has to-ex-
anime the experience of millions of
men living today and still employed in
labor
A few years ago it was a common
thing for the laboring man to work
from sunrise to dark and then by
; lamp or lantern light.
Today an eight-hour day is common
everywhere and under the new in
dustrial control, labor is to be reduced
to six hours per day and the man is
to be allowed to work only five days
a week.
Contrast that with the early history
of the mining industry in America
when women worked in underground
coal mines of the eastern states and
when babies were born underground.
Days of ten and twelve hours of
hard labor were common few years
ago and many men living today have
spent years at such labor.
Today we have old age pensions,
mothers pensions, unemployment in
surance in some states, hospital care
for workers and their families, free
schools and our colleges and univer-
sites swamped by students from the
great mass of the people
And here is another highly impor-
tant social change.
Improved working and living condi-
tons mentioned here have heretofore
been attained only by fight and strug-
gle, by strikes and bloodshed Today
that has been largely done way with,
and better conditions are being OBJ
tanned by cancellation and agreement
between the laboring man and his en-
ployer
Mankind's social progress has fl
nally reached the point that America
and many of the other nations of the
world are now actually occupied in
the specialization of capital and indus
try. That is one of the most far
reaching revolutions the world has
ever known. And it all has to do viii.
mans social progress
Furthermore, never has there been
time when so much attention has been
given to general welfare and social i'm
provement Everywhere men and
women in countless numbers, among
them many Of the most brilliant minds
of the day, are devoting their lives
to welfare work and are thinking and
bordering and trying to solve the
social problems that confront the world
today. In all this striving and study,
the one aim is to do away with mans
mistakes of the past and to map out
and inaugurate better system where
by the great mass OF mankind may en-
joy happier and better life.
The oncoming generation will face
new and serious problems in the prog
ress of the race 1t will solve some
of them and it, too, will make mis-
takes and fail in many of its attempts.
II this were not SO, If the new leader
ship were to be SO superlatively good
and so superior to anything Of the past,
we would soon be stepping into the
millennium. And, Of course, no one is
so foolish as to believe that happy
state will be attained for some time
to come.
From whence comes the leadership
in this most perplexing and difficult
tine?. Do we find it among the young
and inexperienced? Not at all. Today's
leaders are--to a large extent-those
men who have been in the thick of
the fight for the past decade or more.
They are men Of experience, men OF
middle age or older, men whose years
have given them judgment and bal
ance. These are the men who today
are struggling in superhuman effort
to lead the world into a better and
happier state. They are part and parcel
Of the generation that has helped to
advance the world far both socially
and materially from what it was when
they took over direction of affairs.
So let's cheer up. Mankind's labors
have not been all foolishness and are
not all ending in chaos. Great prog
ress has been made. Things are in a
rather bad mess right now but the most
difficult problems will be solved And
after the more pressing ones have been