;j;'»«'^ >,i- . 
 
 flatriattHttt 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT STANLEY BENNETT, 
 j 
 
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Patriotism 
 
 BY 
 ROBERT STANLEY BENNETT 
 
 Published by 
 
 ROBERT S. BENNETT, 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 1913 
 
JK273 
 
 .B4- 
 
 Copyright igij by 
 Robert S. Bennett 
 
 Published May, 1913 
 
 • » » 
 
 Sidney Printing Works, 
 cincinnati, ohio. 
 
 ©CI.A34681-9 
 
T HOPE that an honesty of purpose has brought 
 forth in this writing enough of truth to war- 
 rent its publication. 
 
 I have tried always not to sacrifice principle. 
 If terminology and formalism have not been given 
 their due, it is not because I underrate their im- 
 portance, but rather that I may not have lost 
 sight of more important things in view of them. 
 
 But I am glad that this error could not 
 place one in the class with those who would use 
 a veneer as of art and the skill of technique, 
 that they might the more surely carry out a pur- 
 pose to deceive. 
 
TOPICAL REFERENCES. 
 
 Special privilege 6, 53, 55 
 
 Poetry and Religion 9 
 
 Anarchy 10 
 
 Government and natural law 10 
 
 Government and morality 11 
 
 Government, its ideal , 11 
 
 Enlightenment should identify self-interest with 
 
 general welfare 12 
 
 Interest of people and interests of property 18 
 
 Responsibility for present conditions 21 
 
 Political parties - 22 
 
 Co-operation and competition 32 
 
 Under liberty regulated by justice, self-interest is 
 
 sufficient to guide the electorate 34 
 
 Popular rule thereby possible 34 
 
 A natural course tends to simplify government ana 
 
 to support morality and Christianity 34 
 
 Government 38 
 
 War 41 
 
 Some examples of compensation 47, 68 
 
 The constitution 51 
 
 Freedom, a relative term 53 
 
 Need of men 57 
 
 v The law 57 
 
 Education and enlightenment 58 
 
 Money 63 
 
 Infidelity 67 
 
 Peace, causes contributory thereto 74 
 
PATRIOTISM 
 
 By Robert Stanley Bennett. 
 
 In the long vista of the years to roll, 
 Let me not see my country's honor fade. 
 
 — Keats. 
 
 A short time ago I examined some pamphlets sent 
 out by a United States Congressman who was cam- 
 paigning for re-election. Among them was one con- 
 taining a speech by President Nicholas Murray Butler, 
 of Columbia University, delivered before the Com- 
 mercial Club of St. Louis, November 27, 191 1, on the 
 subject, Why Should We Change Our Form of Gov- 
 ernment? The pamphlet was published at the Gov- 
 ernment printing office, Washington, D. C. 
 
 I read Mr. Butler's speech and re-read it. There 
 are in it many things significant of the times. The 
 main burden of the discussion seems to be to discredit 
 the Initiative, Referendum and Recall. Though it is 
 not my purpose here to discuss these, I look upon them 
 as natural developments by means of which the peo- 
 ple are trying to retain the government of the United 
 States in their own hands ; to apprise the officials of the 
 government that they owe allegiance, not' to irre- 
 sponsible corporate interests, but to the people whose 
 servants they are. Whatever their imperfections, I 
 think these measures are effective toward securing this 
 end, and in helping to render this a government "of 
 the people, by the people, and for the people." 
 
 All the benefits which may be enumerated as coming 
 from association and co-operation are ours because of 
 union. There will probably be few issues on which a 
 
 —5— 
 
country so large as our own, so varied in products 
 and adaptability could unite without some concessions. 
 And these are compromises to which we must accede 
 in order to enjoy the benefits of union. The fact can- 
 not be overemphasized that modern conditions render 
 it absolutely necessary that the modern statesman 
 place the general welfare first in all considerations. 
 The resultant of interests is the dynamic force in na- 
 tional affairs. This must be the case when there is 
 social and commercial intercourse; it need not be the 
 case when these do not exist. And it might be said 
 that there is now scarcely a place in the world which 
 does not demand more or less of the solicitude of 
 modern statesmanship. Yet let there be clearly under- 
 stood the difference between solicitude and exploita- 
 tion. 
 
 The real problem before our country is the one 
 which vitalizes the topics discussed in Mr. Butler's 
 speech, besides a multitude of others. The relation of 
 present issues to the general welfare is of paramount 
 importance at the present time. 
 
 The purposes of the Constitution of the United 
 States are clearly defined in the six clauses of the Pre- 
 amble. One of these clauses, to quote it literally, is 
 "to establish justice." 
 
 Where justice reigns, special privilege cannot ex- 
 ist. Inasmuch as special privilege does exist, to that 
 extent is justice thwarted. 
 
 Special privilege is a license to use power without 
 accountability ; without regard to the duty which must 
 accompany its use. Those who think that such a con- 
 dition can be permanently established in human af- 
 fairs will change their view as experience widens, and 
 
this very change of view is the result of accountability. 
 Government cannot set aside the decree of natural law, 
 that power and duty must go hand in hand. There is 
 nothing occult or mysterious about this. He who is 
 selfishly greedy for power is unable to wield it so as to 
 retain it. The bulwark behind which the power of the 
 self-seeker must intrench itself is gradually disinte- 
 grated by the expedients to which its possessor must 
 resort to perpetuate it. While he is nursing his power 
 his intrenchments disappear and, paradoxically, to 
 retain his power without them he must relinquish it. 
 But if it be recognized that duty must accompany 
 power, selfishness can no longer be a controlling force 
 and all effort is valued according to a just standard. 
 
 In Europe we have beheld the spectacle of the at- 
 tempt, through the Spanish Inquisition, to make people 
 think alike; there also we have seen the attempt to 
 prove by force of arms that the king rules by divine 
 right. Though these efforts were unsuccessful in 
 gaining the ends sought, yet they were useful, for we 
 cannot fail to see in them a proof of the fact that force 
 and strategy are absolutely inadequate to accomplish 
 certain things. Men will be a long way ahead when 
 they come generally to realize this fact. 
 
 When government would dethrone justice and try 
 by force to establish special privilege, then the hags 
 of fate meet in portentious conclave. 
 
 History shows nothing more clearly than that when 
 governments interfere with justice they pass into a 
 troubled sea where is found the profuse wreckage of 
 the past. The clashings and contentions of to-day in 
 our country are the breakers on the shoals of a dark 
 and forbidding sea ahead. 
 
 Within a short time past the civilized world has been 
 
saddened with a tragic and helpless sadness, by the 
 destruction and sinking of the great Titanic. We 
 could say nothing but It might have been; we could 
 do nothing but bow in submission. 
 
 Another Titanic is plying the sea. Apparently she 
 is attempting a speed-record. She is gorgeous, beau- 
 tiful, stately ; she is consecrated by the unselfish labors 
 of the pioneer; she is sanctified by the blood of the 
 hero, by the unstinted love and devotion of warm 
 hearts ; she bears the hope of our civilization, perhaps, 
 the hope of democracy. There are no life-boats ; all 
 must float or sink together. She is not in the midst of 
 quiet summer seas ; there are icebergs, and it is some- 
 what dark. Light is needed; for light, and devotion 
 on the part of those who guide are our only hope. No 
 one in this ship can possibly conceive his highest inter- 
 est to be other than one with the interest of all. 
 
 Shall we pass onward in the twilight toward the 
 hidden reefs, of which the light of history and our 
 own inner consciousness bid us beware? Before the 
 Syren-call, shall our country prove weaker than 
 Ulysses ? 
 
 To him who refuses to turn his face from the less 
 inviting aspects of the future, let no so-called optimist 
 say, "Oh, you pessimist ! Are you not ashamed ?" To 
 this I should reply: "No, I am not ashamed." We 
 know that real optimism is born of greatness; that 
 narrow optimism is ; the lethe of destruction, the 
 narcotic that soothes the way to death. Yet I would 
 not be severe in my answer, for even an attempt, if it 
 be sincere to emulate a love for optimism, is to me a 
 proof of the fundamental greatness of human nature. 
 
 But the danger that is seen is really not danger. 
 The reef from which a mariner turns aside is a danger 
 
 "~ *.. Q 
 
 - ?a O 
 
avoided by a very simple process. This is the result 
 of knowledge, of light gained perhaps from the wreck- 
 ing of some other vessel. To know where danger lies 
 and to turn from it is clearly the way by which it may 
 be avoided. 
 
 When we stand beside the pale remains of Greece 
 and Rome we must be struck by the fact that for some 
 reason they did not turn aside. We cannot believe 
 they are dead because they may have completed their 
 work, for their work is going on. They are dead 
 because they tried, against immutable law, to divert 
 God-given powers from progressive to narrow selfish 
 ends. Were they the ships to be wrecked that we 
 might know the reef? Here beside these let us stand 
 with uncovered heads bowed before the work of the 
 inexorable and everlasting laws of nature and of 
 nature's God. Let the business man get out of the 
 harness for once in a lifetime and ask himself, "What 
 have I been doing ? What am I doing ?" Let the legis- 
 lator, the judge, the lawyer do likewise. We must not 
 play with immutable and universal law ,or we shall be 
 punished as surely as is the child that picks up a coal 
 of fire. 
 
 Poetic imagination so far outstrips the laborious 
 efforts of the pure scientist that it is always in the 
 vanguard of progress ; and it has shown many beauti- 
 ful parallelisms between the laws regulating the phys- 
 ical world and those governing individual and social 
 welfare. To the soul and imagination of man there 
 is no unstable equilibrium in the universe; there is 
 nothing outside the domain of law and regulation. We 
 are reminded of the inability of the unaided mental 
 powers of man to cope with the ultimate problems, by 
 
 —9— 
 
the variety of reports it brings. In attempting to 
 secure its highest good through knowledge alone as dis- 
 tinct from faith, humanity can only build a Tower of 
 Babel. In poetry these things are not perceived as the 
 reign of law. To it they are the beautiful inter-rela- 
 tion and balance between the whole and its parts ; 
 between the several parts and the whole. Religion 
 also recognizing this perfect balance knows that for all 
 fundamental desires and aspirations of humanity there 
 is a satisfaction. These are two perceptions of one 
 idea which gives to man the only true repose and hap- 
 piness to be found. 
 
 Anarchy is the work of a small and unaided intelli- 
 gence. It is a belief that fundamental law can be 
 evaded with impunity. What I mean by a funda- 
 mental law (or statute) is one founded upon the great 
 and unchanging principles of our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, and of the preamble to our Federal Consti- 
 tution; upon liberty, justice, security of person and 
 property. An attempt to evade such a law shows 
 fundamentally a belief in anarchy. The most danger- 
 ous anarchist with which we have to deal is the big, 
 spectacular thief, the briber, the corruptionist, and 
 this kind has made the other class as a by-product of 
 their work. 
 
 May I say here that the conception that law and 
 consequent order reign in the world need not be in the 
 least a degrading one as compared with any other 
 ideas we may have. These laws and nature itself are 
 only instruments or agencies in the hands of an all- 
 wise Creator. Definite means to definite ends in the 
 universal way. The more we understand, the greater 
 should be our reverence. 
 
 Society is permeated and controlled by laws similar 
 
in many respects to natural physical laws. From the 
 smallest cell of life to the most complex organism, 
 natural selection works as steadily as the law of gravi- 
 tation in the physical world, leading on to a definite 
 end. The movement toward this end can be defined 
 only as progress. And there is a social progress in the 
 course defined by natural selection among nations. In 
 what direction is this social progress ? 
 
 High moral standards render a complex society pos- 
 sible; low moral standards render a complex society 
 impossible. However, it might seem that the evidence 
 of this places it beyond dispute, I wish to show that 
 the idea is not a new one. Washington, in his Fare- 
 well Address, says : "It is substantially true that vir- 
 tue or morality is a necessary spring of popular gov- 
 ernments," also: "Alas! it (the permanent felicity 
 of a nation) is rendered impossible by its (the 
 nation's) vices." Lincoln said in his Cooper Union 
 speech: "Let us have faith that right makes might 
 and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty 
 as we understand it." We have from Edmund 
 Burke: "Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the 
 truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go 
 ill together." So it is evident from principle and from 
 these statements that the progress of society is toward 
 high moral principles. 
 
 In governmental affairs this establishes the ideal of 
 liberty regulated by justice. Just in proportion as 
 these great principles are active or inactive in govern- 
 ments we find social progress on the one hand, or social 
 decay on the other. If the sum total of our govern- 
 mental activity comes to represent something opposed 
 to this ideal — of liberty regulated by justice — then we 
 must relinquish the torch of progress to that nation or 
 
 — n — 
 
race which will bear it on. Or to express this other- 
 wise, if the genius of our institutions is to persist, we 
 must conform to the conditions thereby imposed. And 
 if ever we shall have the misfortune to come into 
 effective opposition to this ideal, battleships, armies 
 and wealth, how great so ever, will be but as straws in 
 the wind against all-powerful laws. These no doubt 
 have usefulness, under present conditions at any rate, 
 when used in compliance with the laws which are based 
 upon these great principles ; but it is an absolute waste 
 and seems a mockery that they be set in opposition 
 to them. 
 
 Perhaps some evolutionist may say: "But is not 
 brute force the controlling factor in evolution?" 
 Brute force is sometimes a preserving factor and some- 
 times it is not. Were this answerable in the affirma- 
 tive, man as an evolutionary being would be below the 
 horse, the lion, and many other animals, and would 
 not be, as he really is, the king of creation. It is the 
 hand and the intellect of man working under the guid- 
 ance of his moral powers, that have given him, through 
 natural selection, his high place among creatures. 
 
 Among those things which at present require the 
 attention of our country nothing is more notable than 
 monopoly. But in a discussion of the selfish spirit of 
 monopoly there always come forward the man who 
 asks, "O! who wouldn't if he could?" and he who 
 says, "I am practical ; I do not believe in theory." It 
 is well to consider these statements here. The first 
 comes from ignorance. What the second speaker 
 means, neither do I know nor does he, but his 
 expressed sentiment is mainly the result of perverted 
 motive. 
 
 I must say that the first speaker is the real pessimist. 
 
 — 12— 
 
He does not know of his heritage from Valley Forge, 
 from Gettysburg; he does not know that the signers 
 of the Declaration of Independence, in case of failure 
 and capture, faced a mock trial and nothing less than 
 a hasty execution; he does not know of his heritage 
 from the Pilgrims who struggled and suffered and 
 toiled, but not in vain. If human nature were no 
 higher than the statement, "Who wouldn't if he 
 could?" represents it; supposing that progress might 
 have been possible before 1492, the Redskin would yet 
 roam this country, and we would be the oppressed 
 descendants of a line of peasantry in Europe to-day. 
 He who cherishes such belief stands in a well and will 
 not even look up to see the stars. He has not read of 
 Valley Forge because it did not pay; he has heard 
 of Gettysburg, but it did not pay to learn about it. 
 Here we have an example of the price that may be 
 paid for gain. Yet, there is a heroism that obeys a 
 native instinct; that knows not of Valley Forge or of 
 the Pilgrim. 
 
 Let us take another view. This man, whoever he 
 may be, has a heritage from the greatness of the 
 founders of our government. He, his family, and his 
 friends, have security of life, of person, of property, 
 of business, and security in the pursuit of their happi- 
 ness and interest. Whence this security? From the 
 high moral principles stated in our Declaration of 
 Independence, embodied in our Federal Constitution, 
 and thus incarnated in our government. Our fore- 
 fathers have left to this man and to all a beautiful 
 structure, the keystone of each arch of which is some 
 high and divine moral principle. Monopoly is 
 attempting to remove the keystone from the master 
 arch to use for no higher purpose than for a footstool, 
 
 —13— 
 
and this man standing within the building says, "Who 
 wouldn't if he could?" He wouldn't if he could, who 
 understands that when the keystones are removed the 
 building, himself, and his are a mass of ruins. All 
 that is needed here is understanding. 
 
 The hope of the republic is an even-handed execu- 
 tion of justice, whereby men are constrained to respect 
 the rights of their neighbors as well as the general 
 welfare. Disregard of justice will bring in its wake a 
 rising tide of trouble and national ills ; a tide which 
 shall culminate eventually in the dissolution of our 
 institutions if we do not grasp our present opportuni- 
 ties to remove the cause. 
 
 We are justified in the belief that men act accord- 
 ing to the idea they have of their own self-interests. 
 The idea a man has of his true interest is determined 
 by the relative value he sets upon the three parts of his 
 being, namely, the moral, mental and physical. That 
 part upon which he sets the higher valuation, will, 
 under freedom, control his actions. Real light comes 
 from control by the higher, the moral, interest. In 
 proportion as control is by either of the other two, 
 there is more or less groping in darkness. 
 
 From the statement, "I am practical ; I do not believe 
 in theory," we perceive a misconception of the mean- 
 ing of the word practical. A right or a wrong theory 
 underlies every voluntary act. In compliance with 
 sound theory right finds its justification; in non-com- 
 pliance, wrongs finds its destruction. Sound theory and 
 the practical are inseparably united. Such statements 
 as, "I am practical ; I do not believe in theory," usually 
 come from a certain class of business men, and from 
 politicians. 
 
 It is needless to say that legitimate business need be 
 
 —14— 
 
neither feared nor condemned. Such is the business 
 that stands firmest under the protection of good laws ; 
 that is consistent with honor, truth and veracity; that 
 finds it not incumbent to wear one cloak on Sunday 
 and another throughout the remainder of the week. 
 
 No political economist worthy of the name has 
 claimed that a man should not be free in the use and 
 enjoyment of his own possessions, so far as such 
 use and enjoyment does not interfere with the similar 
 rights of others. I consider it beyond question that a 
 man has a right to the fruit of his abstinence and of his 
 toil; that exceptional ability should be rewarded. I 
 consider it beyond question, "that all men are created 
 equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with 
 certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
 liberty, and pursuit of happiness." 
 
 To try to hold and maintain that which is one's own 
 is an indefeasible right. To try to get something for 
 nothing; to attempt to secure that which belongs to 
 others, singly or collectively, without rendering just 
 return, in short to try to steal hoping that immunity 
 from punishment may some way be found — this is the 
 work of greed, of anarchy. 
 
 It is sufficient if men govern their actions by real or 
 enlightened motives of self-interest. For, as is previ- 
 ously implied, all men's actions, from the hero down, 
 may, without degrading the idea, be considered as in 
 accordance with a more or less enlightened view of 
 self-interest. The hero or martyr considering rightly 
 his moral interests, his highest acts accordingly sacri- 
 ficing all others. The scientist who has suffered or 
 died in order that his discovery may be of benefit to 
 
 —15— 
 
mankind, has done likewise. To the guidance of the 
 physical and intellectual powers, by the higher qualities 
 of the soul of man, we owe, James Watts's labors 
 which made possible the steam engine ; Sir Isaac New- 
 ton's invention of the calculus, through which we are 
 enabled to use infinity itself as a common tool ; Colum- 
 bus' discovery of America, and practically all other 
 improvements and discoveries useful to mankind. 
 
 That business which can find protection only in 
 bribery of legislators and evasion of law, is an enemy 
 of free government. The business man whose (sup- 
 posed) interests must thus seek protection is attempt- 
 ing to remove the chief corner-stone from our govern- 
 ment. He is attempting, however unconsciously or 
 ignorantly, to undermine the security of his person, of 
 his property, of his business, of his family, of his 
 friends, and of the future of his children. 
 
 Allow me here to quote again from Washington's 
 Farewell Address, regarding interference by monopo- 
 lies in governmental affairs : "However combinations 
 of the above description (with the real design to direct, 
 control, counteract or awe the regular deliberation and 
 action of the constituted authorities) may now and 
 then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course 
 of time and things, to become potent engines, by which 
 cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be 
 enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to 
 usurp for themselves the reins of government ; destroy- 
 ing afterwards the very engines which have lifted them 
 to unjust dominion." 
 
 So also we find a distorted and narrow view of his 
 self-interest in the legislator who would sell a vote ; in 
 the judge who is influenced by selfish considerations in 
 rendering a decision; and in the lawyer who would 
 
 — 16— 
 
help in the miscarriage of justice. Of course these 
 things are done against the promptings of conscience, 
 that monitor of the soul, but the reaction upon the gov- 
 ernment and upon the interests of the perpetrator are 
 not so clearly seen. If the effect were seen in its 
 entirety, true self-interest would dictate that it should 
 not be done. 
 
 Only one motive remains for the doing of such 
 things : the hope that it may be possible to get away 
 with the loot, and, at the same time, be free from the 
 effects of the crime against society. Toward such 
 incapacity, and inability to use and preserve the bless- 
 ings which the past has bequeathed to all, society 
 should use that means — such as is used under similar 
 circumstances — which its best interests require. All 
 men recognize, however, that it is not so bad to make 
 a mistake, if it be rectified in the light. 
 
 Here may I quote a few words from Edward Gib- 
 bon, who viewed the facts of history from a height 
 never before his time attained by man. Let us take 
 no special credit to ourselves, if by standing on the 
 shoulders of a giant we may peer a little further ; nor 
 let us permit his twelve years of labor to count for 
 naught in the affairs of government. It may be sup- 
 posed that it is the interest, because it is usually the 
 course, of an absolute monarch to oppress, and tyran- 
 nize over his subjects. But Gibbon says : "The true 
 interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides 
 with that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, 
 their order, and their security, are the best and only 
 foundation of his real greatness. And were he totally 
 devoid of virtue, prudence might supply its place and 
 would dictate the same rule of conduct." To a clear 
 understanding the same is recognized as true of any 
 
 —17— 
 
man, in our country, whose power is great for good 
 or for evil. 
 
 Government is a means to an end. It is evident 
 that that form is best which best serves the interests 
 of the governed. If a change means only that one 
 selfish system of government is to be displaced by 
 another selfish system ; if greed and an absence of pub- 
 lic spirit are to be carried from the old system to 
 become the dominant force in the new, the change 
 would be useful in only one respect; it would be a 
 temporary discomfiture to the mightier and well organ- 
 ized forces of greed. The tentacles of greed are long 
 in entwining themselves about established institu- 
 tions. This is no doubt because greed must work in the 
 dark and by underhand methods. A change of sys- 
 tem is therefore most hateful to those who are actu- 
 ated entirely by it. Into a new system greed must 
 begin again to inject its poison little by little. The 
 more safely greed thinks itself established the nearer 
 we are to a general upheaval. When "practicality" 
 measures itself by wisdom it is quite often discredited. 
 
 For this reason, since we are gaining only a tem- 
 porary respite by inaugurating any change in which 
 the poison is carried from the old into the new form, 
 should we not temper our urgent desire and at the 
 same time heighten our hopes for final success by con- 
 sidering the vital question? Unrestrained greed in 
 whatever form is inadmissible in any government. The 
 ideal of our government is good. Its form should be 
 changed as need appears. The vital issue is the greed 
 which poisons our institutions. 
 
 Let us compare the real interests of property with 
 the real interests of people in a society. 
 
 — 18— 
 
The value of property depends almost entirely upon 
 the peace and security which result from a good gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The peace and security which result from a good 
 government depends upon the obedience of all to good 
 laws. 
 
 Therefore, the value of property depends upon the 
 obedience of all to good laws. 
 
 Thus we see the identity of the interests of property 
 with the interests of people individually and collec- 
 tively. 
 
 By the use of the limiting words "almost entirely" 
 in one of the foregoing statements, I mean to intro- 
 duce the qualification that all property, except that 
 which could be borne upon the person, or at least such 
 as could be contained within a very small compass — 
 all except such, for example, as diamonds or gold — 
 would be reduced in value to almost nothing under 
 unsettled conditions. Even such would depreciate 
 more or less in value. What I mean by a good govern- 
 ment and by good laws, is such as are founded upon 
 principles of liberty and justice. Such is the ideal of 
 our government and such is the spirit of our constitu- 
 tion. So long as a government is, in spirit and in 
 truth, anchored in these principles it is safe. 
 
 Here we might speak of the representation of prop- 
 erty in a republic. A man, no matter what his wealth, 
 needs but one vote, and that is for him as a man. He 
 is one of the people, and if the people en masse have 
 their way they will have a good government. Under 
 a good government property is perfectly secure and 
 has its greatest value because of equality of opportuni- 
 ty. Insecurity of property and consequent reduction 
 
 —19— 
 
in its value — not in its price — come from one thing — 
 unrestrained greed. 
 
 But since wealth depends for its usefulness and I 
 value upon good government, it should bear its pro- 
 portionate part toward maintaining the same. Though i 
 much interrelated, wealth owes more to society thani 
 society owes to wealth. 
 
 In all despotisms, such as Russia, there is no more; 
 common characteristic than insecurity of person and I 
 property. The same insecurity existed in France: 
 before the French Revolution; and from insecurity 
 among the masses it is only one short step to insecur- 
 ity of person and property of all. When moderation, 
 deference and respect for law, are discarded by either 
 rich or poor, then is thrown away the most precious 
 possession of both. A long, black night of anarchy 
 must necessarily precede absolutism in government. 
 
 Humanity can be engaged in no more useless or 
 hopeless task than to adopt some foolish notion or bit 
 of false pride and try to warp religion, evolution, logic 
 and common sense to fit this. Greater wisdom and 
 sagacity are expressed by the man who grasps a 
 mighty oak to wrench it from its anchorage in the soil 
 and rocks. But "each little man to his oak" is not our 
 greatest cause for apprehension. The energies of such 
 misguided people are almost wholly nullified. It 
 becomes our special care when, to certain classes or 
 bodies of men, this oak comes to be identical with our 
 institutions. Remember that there is a point at which 
 even the oak gives way. Society must treat such as 
 the maniac, that would burn the house which shelters 
 him. Such are vote-sellers and vote-buyers, and those 
 who supervise or aid that which must depend upon lob- 
 bying or traffic in votes for its existence. As the 
 
 —20 — 
 
maniac should not be maltreated, neither should these ; 
 but they should be either taught better or placed where 
 they cannot do harm to the body politic. 
 
 It is now incumbent, not only upon the plain peo- 
 ple, as is usually said to be the case, but upon every 
 citizen to help make republican government work. 
 Incidentally I shall say here that the Initiative, Refer- 
 endum and Recall are directed, and are also effective 
 toward that end. Their purpose gained, they would 
 become dead letters for want of usefulness. No more 
 do we desire to dash prematurely forward into untried 
 fields than to drop back under a less fitted form of 
 government. In perspective, under statesmanship or 
 revolution, progress is steady, step by step. If too 
 much is gained under revolution, in a short time, it is 
 relinquished in a reaction. 
 
 What is the cause of present conditions? Why do 
 we think that representative democratic government is 
 coming to discredit? Some say it is from the neglect 
 of the voter. To some extent this is true, but let us 
 not be deceived here. If a business man hires an 
 agent for good wages and then must attend to every 
 detail of the duty of this agent, we see that, in plain 
 words, the latter is no good. The people have chosen 
 in the established manner, and they have paid well, 
 officers — legislative, executive and judicial — to take 
 care of the collective interests, of the interests of all. 
 The main business of the citizens en masse is more 
 important than this ; it is to labor, and upon this labor 
 absolutely depends the sustenance and welfare of all. 
 Through dishonesty or incapacity, which are twin 
 brothers, many of the officers hired to serve the gen- 
 eral welfare, have shown themselves unworthy of the 
 trust reposed in them. The people have trusted, and 
 
 — 21 — 
 
while this was perhaps not judicious, it was natural. 
 But because people trust is no justification to those 
 who criminally betray a trust. It is no justification 
 for shoplifting, that goods are placed upon an open 
 counter for inspection. 
 
 The exaggerated importance of political parties is 
 highly deserving of attention to-day.* The selfish 
 spirit which places party first, the country to find what 
 it may, is founded upon a desire not to serve, but to 
 be served. 
 
 It is probable that popular government cannot be 
 conducted without the appearance of political parties. 
 No doubt between certain limits they have a whole- 
 some effect. Parties develop naturally. People in a 
 society find greater effectiveness by working in leagues 
 and associations. But what good thing has not cer- 
 tain limits of usefulness, beyond which it becomes of 
 no use, a disadvantage, or positively dangerous ? This 
 is true of food, of rest, of labor. So it is with political 
 parties. And I am glad that I must look no further 
 than to the Farewell Address of the Father of Our 
 Country to find proof of this. Though I cannot under- 
 stand it is quite so grave a danger as he thinks party 
 spirit is, when he says of it with reference to popular 
 governments — "and is truly their worst enemy" — for 
 I consider that it cannot dispute the field with monop- 
 oly. Perhaps in Washington's time it was so. 
 
 He says : "Let me now take a more comprehensive 
 view, and warn you in the most solemn manner 
 
 *Since the following, concerning Political Parties, was 
 written the National Republican Convention at Chicago and 
 other events have thrown upon this subject a very strong 
 light. 
 
 — 22 — 
 
against the baneful effect of party spirit generally"; 
 also, 
 
 "It (party spirit) exists under different shapes in 
 all governments, more or less stifled, controlled or re- 
 pressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen 
 in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst 
 enemy"; also, 
 
 "The disorders and miseries which result (from 
 party or faction domination) gradually incline the 
 minds of the men to seek security and repose in the 
 absolute power of an individual ; and sooner or later 
 the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or 
 more fortunate than his competitors, turn this disposi- 
 tion to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins 
 of public liberty." 
 
 But it might be said here that this is apt to occur 
 only when party domination has rendered liberty a 
 mere empty name. 
 
 The motives that lead to domination of party spirit 
 are, as I consider them : 
 
 A hope to secure some office or post of honor, profit 
 or trust, even to the presidency of the United States. 
 
 A fear that when the party boss says, "I will take 
 care of you," it means the loss of these. 
 
 A fear of the name "Mugwump." (This is almost 
 humorous.) 
 
 A fear of such charges as "ingratitude." 
 
 Politicians are men who in governmental affairs are 
 controlled by these considerations. 
 
 However great some of these prizes may be, they 
 can add no greatness to the man who obeys his inward 
 consciousness, and stands above them. To those who, 
 controlled by these motives, attain the badge of dis- 
 tinction sought, it often serves only to disprove their 
 
 —23— 
 
claim to greatness, which might never have been 
 effected had they remained in obscurity. 
 
 But everything is purchased with a price. Why 
 should a young man from the time of his first outlook 
 upon political life, poison and warp and deform his 
 higher nature, in the hope that he may, through party 
 machinery, obtain some badge of honor which has 
 been rendered empty and meaningless by the way he 
 came into possession of it? The ideals of high and 
 true statesmanship are to the mind and soul of their 
 possessor, as the beneficent sunshine and the wide 
 expanse of heaven to the flower. In contrast with this 
 environment which brings forth native vigor clothed 
 in beauty, we have partisan politics bringing forth its 
 pale, sickly weaklings of cellar growth. This is the 
 reaction upon the individual. The country suffers, but 
 it pays in kind. Those who inflict injury receive it in 
 return. The law of stability or compensation fills the 
 universe with apparent irony. Those who take for 
 naught, take from themselves. Those who give are 
 enriched. 
 
 But that word mugwump is a terrible anathema. I 
 have only the deepest sympathy for those who may 
 be fearful and apprehensive of it. As first aid to such 
 I would advise : Five minutes after you have been so 
 called examine your pulse, and if there is life there is 
 hope. 
 
 Let us not grow pessimistic in view of the character 
 of politicians who are so common to-day. There are 
 great and good men in our government, but since the 
 Civil War, if I may so express it, we have to some 
 extent been coasting. Governments, under reasonably 
 prosperous conditions, are somewhat automatic in their 
 action ; at any rate, they can bear a great deal of neg- 
 . . —24— 
 
lect. This is not to say that neglect is, in the least, 
 justifiable, for we are now paying the price of it; and 
 if such carelessness continue, we can have only worse 
 in the future. Politicians have been elected to fill 
 vacant chairs. There are vastly more men who would 
 not sell a vote or be swayed by the lobbyist than would 
 fill our legislative halls to overflowing. They have not 
 been so acutely needed for some time past till now. 
 
 To sell is to sell for a price. Would any sane man 
 who knows the value of both exchange a dollar for a 
 penny? The money is the price of a vote. What is 
 sold to secure it? The voter, insofar as his vote is 
 influential, is selling the security of his person, of his 
 property, of his liberty, of his business, of his heritage 
 in a free government. He may not think so, but this 
 is a fact. And the results are soon apparent. They 
 come upon the vote-seller, as upon all, in the high cost 
 of living, in inequality of business opportunity, in inse- 
 curity of property. He is willing for selfish ends to 
 sacrifice the rights of (himself) his friends and coun- 
 trymen. 
 
 And let me say here that the man who buys a vote 
 is doing the same thing, and is of the same stripe as 
 the man who sells. For no vote is ever sold or pur- 
 chased except to protect some crime against society. 
 The vote-seller is an amateur, a subaltern; he is not a 
 statesman. It is the work which calls the man; it is 
 the absence of pressing need for a man which breeds 
 the politician. Let us not deceive ourselves by the 
 belief that there are now no Washingtons, no Jeflfer- 
 sons. Let us not think that Cromwell and Hampden, 
 and even Bonaparte, have no counterpart in our day. 
 The suddenness with which these last might appear I 
 hope will never be the sad surprise of the American 
 
 —25— 
 
people. But the only alternative, perhaps, is, to revive 
 the quiet, wise, unselfish, noble statesmanship of 
 Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. 
 
 I cannot understand Mr. Butler's position when he 
 says in his speech (before referred to) : "If any com- 
 munity or State insists upon subjecting the ordinary 
 work of its Legislature to a general referendum, it 
 insists at the same time that it shall be served in its 
 Legislature by second-rate and third-rate men, and that 
 its representatives shall be turned into delegates." 
 Whatever may be the imperfections of the Initiative, 
 Referendum and Recall, their purpose is to get rid 
 of second-rate and third-rate men as representatives; 
 to secure a representation not of delegates, but of 
 statesmen. The logical trend of this view is toward 
 pessimism. Are we to presume that the people will 
 not acquiesce in true, sincere, patriotic statesmanship? 
 Furthermore, is it unworthy of high ability and true 
 statesmanship to blaze the trail of governmental prog- 
 ress into the uncharted future? As to these conten- 
 tions, I grant this alone, that under the developments 
 before referred to a distinct line is drawn between the 
 mercenary politician and the disinterested statesman. 
 If these protective measures on the part of the people 
 can accomplish their purpose, they will abolish the only 
 cause for their existence, and would soon become dead 
 letters for want of usefulness. No doubt the people 
 have not in these a perfect instrument. What govern- 
 mental regulation works perfectly? Perhaps to place 
 the purchase and sale of votes in the statute of treason, 
 where it really and technically belongs, would be more 
 effective till better men can be called to leadership. 
 Among the acts which are classified as admitting and 
 
 — 26 — 
 
harboring an invading enemy, we find none more 
 destructive to the general welfare than bribery, which 
 legalizes a rapacious monopoly. 
 
 This speech by Mr. Butler is, for what reason I 
 know not, an uncertain sound from Columbia Univer- 
 sity. It is to be hoped that our universities will 
 remain abreast of the times. Their help is needed. 
 We know that some are meeting the issue. Those 
 which do not enjoy this distinction are suggestive of 
 the statement of Adam Smith regarding the universi- 
 ties of the time of which he writes: "The improve- 
 ments which, in modern times have been made in 
 several different branches of philosophy, have not, 
 the greater part of them, been made in universities, 
 though some no doubt have. The greater part of 
 universities have not been very forward to adopt those 
 improvements after they were made, and several of 
 those learned societies have chosen to remain, for a 
 long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems 
 and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection, 
 after they had been hunted out of every other corner 
 of the world." Mr. Smith claims that the richest and 
 best endowed universities were the most averse, and 
 the poorer ones the most willing, to adopt needed 
 improvements. 
 
 The only university in the east with which I am in 
 some degree familiar from personal contact is Har- 
 vard. She partakes of the imperfections to which 
 human institutions are heir, but never in a critical 
 time have I known her to step aside from the path of 
 truth and progress. She is of heroic origin : Veritas 
 is in her heraldry, and this she must protect, while set 
 with it is Christo et Hcclesia. So long as she has 
 respect and reverence for these her course is defined 
 
 —27— 
 
as are the paths of the worlds launched in space, fixed 
 by mathematical law. I know it is her aim to impress 
 truth and reverence upon the minds and hearts of those 
 who pass within her halls. The student entering 
 through her gate is admonished, Enter to grow in 
 knowledge; upon departing for the active business of 
 the world, Depart to serve better thy country and thy 
 kind. 
 
 Legislators have made good laws and they have also 
 made useless laws. But good laws, if not executed, 
 are useless. The execution of good laws is now 
 greatly hindered in our courts, where the balance of 
 power seems to lay at present. Take, for example, the 
 Sherman Anti-Trust Law. This was made by a wise 
 statesman, and is a good law. Its aim is to establish 
 competition in business. 
 
 In some branches of business, as for example the 
 conducting of railroads, competition is impracticable. 
 In such cases the only logical solution seems to be pub- 
 lic monopoly or government ownership. Govern- 
 mental supervision may be a transitional development 
 toward this end, but it will prove very ineffectual 
 toward accomplishing the desired results. The advisa- 
 bility of public ownership of telegraph and telephone 
 lines is scarcely to be questioned. 
 
 Let us remember that in government ownership we 
 are tending toward massiveness and unwieldliness of 
 government. Developments in this direction could be 
 carried so far as to cause efficiency and progress to 
 suffer as they now suffer from present conditions. In 
 our attempt to avoid the extortion of private owner- 
 ship on the one hand, and the massiveness, unwieldli- 
 and tyrrany of a strongly centralized government on 
 
 —28— 
 
the other, competition must take care of a great deal. 
 
 The growth of democratic ideas tends slowly to 
 remove this danger of government centralization. 
 The most common argument against competition is 
 that of the waste which is said to result from it. But, 
 under present conditions, this brings us only to a 
 choice between two evils. 
 
 When the interests of our country are at stake we 
 should not fear the waste of competition, which is to a 
 great extent a chimera. The vital waste is to lose our 
 liberty and the ideals of our nation. This is no chi- 
 mera. This, and not the "waste," which is in truth 
 only a tribute wrung from the consumer in the form of 
 monopoly exactions, faces us for an answer. The 
 waste of competition is not felt by the consumer, and 
 never will be under monopoly, except as he pays more 
 for what he buys than perhaps he would under com- 
 petition. If monopoly can exact more, it will do so, 
 of course. Since wages is controlled by supply and 
 demand, under monopoly the laborer can feel this 
 "waste" only in reduction of wages. 
 
 Monopoly fastens its tenacles where these two con- 
 ditions exist together; namely, a great human need 
 (or desire), and a more or less complex social pro- 
 cess through which this need is satisfied. Its strength 
 or weakness is in proportion as these conditions are 
 jointly fulfilled. If either of these conditions is not 
 fulfilled in even the slightest degree, there cannot be 
 a monopoly ; if both are fulfilled perfectly, there is the 
 condition for the development of monopoly in its 
 most powerful and dangerous form. 
 
 Let us consider monopoly in its relation to a com- 
 mon useful product, iron. 
 
 In its advance society has certain definite needs, 
 
 —29— 
 
among which are metals. Iron is, no doubt, the most 
 useful of these. Perhaps we might not be so im- 
 pressed by its usefulness until we try to imagine our 
 civilization without it; and consider the far-reaching 
 effects of such a condition. 
 
 Under such circumstances transportation and man- 
 ufactures, if conducted at all, would be almost neg- 
 ligible in their effectiveness for present needs. With- 
 out manufactures we could have no convenient or 
 desirable article except such as a farmer or a herds- 
 man could readily make from what is near at hand. 
 In any ordinary discussion it is practically impossible 
 to give the least idea of what would follow the dis- 
 continuance of the use of iron (not supposing it to be 
 replaced by other metals, even if this were possible). 
 
 The vast forests of our Pacific slope would now 
 be and remain in their virgin state. The treeless 
 plains of the west would be contested between the 
 hunter and the herdsman. The valleys of the Missis- 
 sippi and of some of its tributaries toward the south 
 would probably support a considerable agricultural 
 population which would dwindle toward the north, 
 there giving way to people in a hunting or pastoral 
 state. So would it be toward the north-east. On the 
 Atlantic coast would perhaps be found a sparse popu- 
 lation, increasing toward the south. 
 
 My only aim in writing this is to show the effect 
 of an absence of the use of iron in our country and 
 the dependence of our civilization upon it. Food can 
 hardly be said to be more necessary to the human 
 body than is iron to our complex civilization. Being 
 a necessity under our state of society, we see how it 
 fills the first condition of a subject of monopoly; and 
 the various expensive and intricate processes through 
 
 — 3°— 
 
which it must go from the time it is taken from the 
 earth as ore until it forms some article of utility 
 fulfill the second condition. 
 
 By way of further illustration, nothing is of greater 
 utility to the individual than air, but owing to the fact 
 that the other condition is not fulfilled in the least — 
 that is, that is cannot be "cornered" — air is not mon- 
 opolized. 
 
 According as industries become thus vital to social 
 life they must eventually pass under social control. 
 
 An invisible pressure on the judicial department of 
 our federal government is sensed in the attempt on 
 the part of the Supreme Court of the United States to 
 invade the legislative field by injecting the word 
 "unreasonable" into the Anti-Trust Law. Some would 
 make the law more massive. Crooked business relishes 
 nothing more than these efifective injunctions pending 
 decision, while nothing holds more of discouragement 
 for straightforward business. 
 
 To suppose that a law can be made that will satisfy 
 a quibbler is to assume that wrong will not argue that 
 it is right. How many lawyers will choose only the 
 right side ? How many, after having chosen the wrong 
 side, will not argue that it is the right! There are 
 defendants no doubt who would judiciously choose to 
 confess a wrong frankly, but such have not been habit- 
 ual wrongdoers, nor would they be. 
 
 We are told that straightforward and needful action 
 must necessarily tend to disturb the confidence of the 
 business community. I do not doubt that this reason 
 is given by many in sincerity. But if the "confidence 
 of the business community" depends upon disrespect 
 for law, then our government, through delays founded 
 upon such fears, is only backing down and waiting the 
 
 —31— 
 
crack of doom. No "constructive legislation" can be 
 effective ; no "clear trail can be blazed," whereby busi- 
 ness men can stifle competition and defy the natural 
 rights of other men. These ways may be long desired 
 and much sought for, but never, so long as universal 
 law remains unchanged, shall they be found. Such 
 giving way or backing down can only encourage dis- 
 respect for law, and render government a mere name. 
 Respect for law is the hope of our country, and can 
 come only from having plain, straightforward laws — 
 not too many — and executing them. 
 
 The Anti-Trust Statute is an example of a law 
 that is based in the eternal granite of nature. Com- 
 petition is as old as evolution, as natural selection, as 
 man himself. Shall we try lightly to set aside a prin- 
 ciple which has never been rendered inactive through- 
 out the life of organic nature? Even when, through 
 government ownership, we may have succeeded, as we 
 may say, in eliminating competition; it alone, some- 
 where, must maintain excellence and efficiency or 
 these will not be found at all. Its subversion has, of 
 course, been attempted many times in the past. But 
 the results have been revolution or the dismemberment 
 of nations according as the effort has been stubbornly 
 persisted in. Inefficiency and laziness find competi- 
 tion their worst enemy. Whenever it is found neces- 
 sary to advance arguments in favor of these qualities, 
 we hear a great deal about the "waste" of competition. 
 This is especially true with reference to manufacturing 
 industries. It is not in the interest of any class that 
 we should desire competition to be invoked; it is the 
 interest of every citizen. 
 
 The spring of competition is self-interest ; the extent 
 of co-operation is determined by how we answer the 
 
 —32— 
 
question, Who is my neighbor? In attempting the 
 solution of social problems, to fail to consider the rela- 
 tion between conditions as they are and the funda- 
 mental tendencies of human nature is as destructive 
 of the possibility of success as would be the case if 
 any other essential condition were ignored. Competi- 
 tion is an ever-ready expedient. In the past we have 
 secured much from co-operation ; we hope much from 
 it in the future. Society itself and the many institu- 
 tions of civilization are built upon it as a basis. But 
 in a country of so vast extent as our own, and where 
 communication and interchange have been perfected 
 as with us, co-operation — as is even the case in smaller 
 communities for that matter — while it cannot advance 
 beyond, must keep pace with the development of ideas 
 and ideals. Please note that this cannot be said of 
 competition, which has been one of the immediate fac- 
 tors in evolutionary development from the beginning. 
 
 In a community of limited extent and fixed native 
 population it will almost invariably be found that the 
 standards of morality are quite good. Each estab- 
 lished member has a reputation which it is his interest 
 to preserve. So long, as these communicate only 
 among themselves, there is a good basis for beneficial 
 co-operation. When, however, communication begins 
 to extend beyond the bounds of this distinct commun- 
 ity to the outside world which we vaguely term the 
 public; when, for example, its members begin to sell 
 milk, or eggs, or to manufacture articles or imple- 
 ments, all of which may be used by people whom they 
 have never seen and may never see, determining ideas 
 arise. 
 
 Co-operation may advance till it comes in contact 
 with the low monopolistic idea, that all who deal with 
 
 —33— 
 
this unknown and unsuspecting public are at liberty 
 to be parasites and blood suckers. Let it be borne in 
 mind that these developments of interechange and com- 
 munication are necessary to modern social advance- 
 ment ; also that these advances presuppose moral stand- 
 ards equally high with the common well-bred man of 
 a decent community, and much higher than those of 
 any monopolist. 
 
 A rare insight, substantiated by reasoning, led both 
 Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill to teach funda- 
 mentally that the most rational or natural course, under 
 given circumstances, is the best possible economic 
 course at the time to follow. Led on by the inspira- 
 tion of the great and by knowledge gained through 
 experience, man has chosen liberty regulated by justice 
 as the ideal for government. The individual, seeking 
 his own best course, is, under these, led, consciously 
 or unconsciously, to seek the highest interest of all. 
 Adam Smith spoke of this as "an invisible hand," that 
 through self-interest guides the individual when the 
 government seeks a natural or rational course. When 
 popular governments hold to this, their only true ideal, 
 they tend to perpetuate themselves. Under this, self- 
 interest alone is sufficient to guide the electorate. But 
 when this ideal is rejected it would seem strange to 
 the scientist if the government should not at once begin 
 to show the decay which must result in its destruction, 
 if liberty regulated by justice comes to be wholly 
 ignored. This comes about in the natural course of 
 events. When the above-named principles are defied 
 by the delegated authority, the electorate has nothing 
 to destroy. They must rebuild, and they alone shall 
 again establish real government. 
 
 There are those who say that for one reason or 
 
 —34— 
 
another the majority can not be trusted with our 
 fundamental guarantees. It is a significant fact that 
 the two greatest statesmen of our past, Washington 
 and Lincoln, said just the opposite. Opposed also to 
 this idea is the statement, so dear to all free-born men, 
 that governments derive their just powers from the 
 consent of the governed. What rights the people want 
 for themselves I, personally, am satisfied with. Of 
 course, this originates in a beleif in mankind en masse. 
 Not believing in this I would be entirely at sea. 
 Besides this, and of secondary importance, history 
 gives such abundance of proof in substantiation of the 
 belief that he who runs may read. To accept a fallacy 
 as truth we must atfmit some absurdity. They who 
 doubt the ideals of people in general are skeptical of 
 the source from which they themselves have sprung, as 
 well as the very basis and oganization of society itself. 
 Again, to argue that we are so much above our origin 
 — that is, so much above common humanity from 
 which we have sprung — we must concede that there 
 is a guiding hand outside of and greater than man. No 
 false theories can escape the great foundation truths 
 of the world. Then shall this guiding hand abdicate 
 to him who finds himself the crowning work of crea- 
 tion? Throughout history the majority directly, or 
 through its representatives, has gained, against an 
 opposing minority, all the rights that are now dear to 
 every straightforward citizen. 
 
 Science, logic and Christianity uphold belief in man. 
 The greatness of human nature cannot be doubted. 
 Examine, if you please, the great books which have 
 been preserved to us only because they are a part of 
 that kindred greatness. Great names, likewise, are 
 
 —35— 
 
heralded across the centuries because of their kinship 
 with simple human nature and with God. 
 
 People in general are trustful, therefore easily 
 deceived by lower grades of humanity, but this trust- 
 fulness only shows forth a greatness of the people. 
 Even those who would block the wheels of progress 
 appeal through false and deceptive arguments to the 
 reverence and real conservatism of the people ; to their 
 love for their Constitution, for their country, for their 
 great and revered names. The majority of the people 
 is a thing too massive for effective impulsiveness, under 
 ordinary conditions, and extraordinary conditions we 
 want to avoid in the only possible way — that of wisdom 
 and moderation. 
 
 Monopoly is an infraction of liberty. The tariff is 
 an artificial arrangement, causing an unnatural flow of 
 capital to protected industries. It does not protect the 
 laborer, and forces all consumers, including the laborer, 
 to buy, not where they can buy cheapest, but to pay a 
 tribute. If this tribute went to the government, and if 
 it were all needed and wisely spent by it, there could 
 be no objection, perhaps, as to that ; but it goes to swell 
 the needlessly great fortunes of monopolists and manu- 
 facturers. Such people degenerate through too much 
 that others may degenerate through too little. Being 
 an artificial arrangement, the tariff establishes false 
 ideals among the people. Those who possess a pri- 
 vate monopoly of any necessary article or natural 
 resource are spoiled and demoralized by the power 
 they possess to exploit their fellow men. The exploit- 
 ed are likewise demoralized by a sense of wrongs and 
 injustice to which they must submit without redress. 
 Right and honor come thus to be less and less re- 
 garded. 
 
 -36- 
 
By permitting natural opposing tendencies each to 
 hold the other in check, a natural course tends to sim- 
 plify government ; to insure symmetry and consistency 
 of growth. An unnatural course tends to massive- 4 
 ness; to the increase of one part at the expense of 
 others till the most disastrous results ensue. For 
 example, protection to the already proportionately 
 overgrown commercial life of our country brings as an 
 accompaniment continuous and expensive, but usually 
 ineffective, litigation. It makes necessary investigat- 
 ing commissions and additional governmental bureaus. 
 Each commission or bureau usually requires the addi- 
 tional appointment of two more of its kind to hold the 
 first appointed in the path of duty and efficiency. This 
 is commonly the work of "lame ducks" and others 
 similarly situated. The endless chain can easily be 
 seen. Massiveness of government is unwholesome, 
 ineffective and dangerous to the liberties of the gov- 
 erned. 
 
 The working of cause and effect through the 
 immense fabric of society is so extremely complicated 
 that it verges always on the limits of the known and 
 the unknown. Thus, as we might expect, man has 
 been givein faith to guide when experience fails. 
 These two working together, one supplementing the 
 other, define a natural course for an individual or a 
 nation. Faith in the right principles can guide the 
 most ignorant; but experience, or knowledge gained 
 therefrom, can never stand completely alone. The 
 slow working of cause and effect through a great gov- 
 ernment, combined with the fact that bad effects are 
 often completely neutralized by wholesome forces, 
 usually has caused nations to presume that they are 
 above moral law. Thus governments have followed 
 
 —37— 
 
unnatural courses for many decades, and even for cen- 
 turies apparently with impunity. For example, while 
 our country has prospered under the deleterious effects 
 of a so-called protective system, it has done so in 
 spite of the "protection" and because of our boundless 
 resources in soil, mine and forest. Under such cir- 
 cumstances labor has been exceedingly effective toward 
 rendering this latent wealth available. We should dis- 
 tinguish, here, between the production of wealth and 
 the exploitation of that which has been "produced" for 
 centuries, perhaps ages. Labor has been at the same 
 time relatively scarce. For these reasons the level of 
 wages has been comparatively higher in the United 
 States than in older and more exhausted countries, and 
 "protection" has grabbed this wage argument to use in 
 its favor. Other things being equal, a protective tariff 
 can only tend to reduce wages. It deranges the flow 
 of capital and increases the volume of unhealthy busi- 
 ness activity. Owing to the misconceptions with 
 regard to it, "protection" has been pushed so vigorous- 
 ly that now we are waking as from a happy dream to a 
 sad reality. We find that "protection" really meant 
 exaction and appropriation of natural resources. These 
 are to-day quite well exhausted. Where shall monop- 
 oly feed now? There yet remains the life blood of a 
 nation. 
 
 Government is that upon which depends the useful- 
 ness of all other growths and institutions of civiliza- 
 tion. Constructive science has not yet been applied 
 in a comprehensive way to its formation and perpetua- 
 tion. History impresses us with the fact that in the 
 past governments have been built without due respect 
 to proportion, consistency, strength of parts, equilibri- 
 
 -38- 
 
urn of opposing forces. Thus they have been permit- 
 ted to grow into shapeless and unstable masses, finally 
 to come to dissolution. Then we are ahead by this 
 only, that we know something gave way; that there 
 was not equilibrium. Should an engineer attempt, in 
 this experimental way, to build a cantilever bridge, a 
 "skyscraper," an ocean liner, or an electric light plant, 
 we should rightly judge him an impractical man, 
 attempting the possible in an impossible way. 
 
 Governments should be formed and regulated with 
 as great intelligence and care as that which attends 
 the construction and regulation of the great steam 
 engine in a modern power plant. Here is a work of 
 man which must call forth admiration. By a careful 
 study and application of the laws of nature, great 
 forces are here so perfectly controlled and neutralized 
 that there is scarce apparent effort in the free and 
 rythmic motion. 
 
 And shall we not say that the highest interest of the 
 owners of the plant is that these forces be kept in 
 equilibrium? Otherwise a mass of wreckage is the 
 result. Who but a novice within the plant would 
 remove from its place an essential bolt or bar, however 
 it might serve his own personal use. Herein we see 
 the reason for the sign, No Admittance, placed above 
 the door. This is as much meant for those who do not 
 know as for those of sinister purpose. Scarce is there 
 a greater source of danger to all concerned than 
 ignorance. It alone to its own peril would tamper 
 with a cylinder head. And we have men in our coun- 
 try who likewise, in governmental affairs, would tam- 
 per with a cylinder head, because they have never seen 
 one before. The most dangerous form of this ignor- 
 ance is that which lags of for special privilege. 
 
 —39— 
 
Nature is the great book for the study of man. The 
 poet has pointed to it from the beginning. That which 
 is according to nature is steady, quiet, irresistible. Her 
 way is to hold the most tremendous opposing forces 
 and tendencies in equilibrium. Little or no effort is 
 apparent. One-half the mass of the earth is balanced 
 by the other half. The earth itself, held in perfect 
 balance under the laws of motion, traces gracefully its 
 elliptic orbit. In perfect obedience to these laws the 
 tremendous masses of the worlds in space trace out the 
 conic sections. One removed, the orbits of all must 
 change. Each is controlled by all, and all depend to 
 a proportionate extent upon each. This is perfect 
 government. 
 
 The problem of government is to find out a natural 
 course and to apply it. As I understand it, the failure 
 of government in the past has usually been from the 
 impracticability of the attempt, where there has been 
 an attempt, to hold greed and ambition in check by arti- 
 ficial and not by natural means. Competition is greed 
 against greed and it strikes a perfect balance. (I men- 
 tion greed and not business, because legitimate busi- 
 ness will never stifle competition.) Competition seems 
 to have a disadvantage in waste, but we are assured of 
 its supreme advantage, namely, that it is the only 
 means through which a government can long be per- 
 petuated, unless it becomes paternal or extremely 
 socialistic. I am doubtful of the success of such gov- 
 ernments for one reason, their necessary massiveness. 
 However plausible a purpose may be, we can only 
 accomplish it with our feet upon the ground. To pass 
 from private monopoly to extreme massiveness of a 
 central government is perhaps to be not any the gainer. 
 It seems also that many advocates of such plans of gov- 
 
 —40— 
 
ernment presume that they can interfere with compe- 
 tition. Insofar as they attempt this in any way what- 
 ever they will meet with no greater success and will 
 no more merit approval than monopolistic control. 
 But whether it be a practical or an impractical system, 
 nothing will drive us so soon to a test of socialism as 
 unbridled monopoly. One extreme calls forth an- 
 other to balance it, otherwise the first would sweep 
 everything before it. So far as the "waste" of com- 
 petition is concerned, we shall always find it piled high 
 in private fortunes, to the happiness and welfare of 
 no one, for the tendency of such accumulations is to 
 do away with the government under which they came 
 to be. The perpetuation of government is the great 
 issue. 
 
 An artificial way for governments to attempt to con- 
 trol monopoly is by statute legislation. The natural 
 way is to establish freedom regulated by justice, and 
 monopoly falls, and competition is restored, at once. 
 Competition is as old as freedom and a co-worker with 
 it; monoply is the greatest enemy of both. In the 
 absence of this natural course of the part of govern- 
 ment, revolution or international war strikes the bal- 
 ance. 
 
 But because war has done its work in the past, it is 
 not to be accepted as inevitable. The greatness of man 
 consists in that he may by choice be a co-worker with 
 the Creator. All the forces and materials of nature 
 are at the disposal of man, to be used by him as he sees 
 fit, with the everlasting proviso, however, that in the 
 use of these he must comply with universal law. The 
 wisdom and intelligence of man has the privilege to 
 obviate war at any time. That war has established 
 equilibrium many times in the past is neither more 
 
 —41— 
 
desirable nor more justifiable, so far as man is con- 
 cerned, than the explosion of a steam boiler which 
 does the same thing. We do not take the explosion as 
 inevitable because it happened. We conclude rightly 
 to use better and stronger materials to secure a suffi- 
 cient margin of safety. If a bridge falls because of a 
 defective member used in its construction, we have no 
 reason to believe that all bridges must likewise fall in 
 the future. Such only suggests that the laws of nature 
 must be complied with. When man shall consent to be 
 guided by justice, wisdom, and moderation, he shall be 
 able to obviate war. From developments of the past 
 we must perceive that we are moving in the right direc- 
 tion, but we must at the same time concede that we 
 have not reached the goal. Furthermore, with devel- 
 opments toward unity of action in the world may come, 
 and perhaps have come, insidious developments which, 
 if not perceived and met with needful action on the 
 part of statesmen, will compromise the work of the 
 lover of peace. Modern developments must halt unless 
 they may go hand in hand with a high sense of morality 
 and personal responsibility in government. 
 
 The statesman relieves himself of many responsibil- 
 ities and escapes many undesirable tasks by placing 
 expediency before duty. And in this attitude he often 
 gives to this word, by implication, a meaning which it 
 never did possess. In tariff legislation especially this 
 has been a handy word — handy to him who is weak in 
 courage and short on resources ; handy for the grafter 
 and the mercenary official. Under the helpful tutelage 
 of this word our tariff policy has been gradually 
 swerved from its original purpose of protecting infant 
 industries, and incidentally yielding a revenue, to pro- 
 
 —42— 
 
tecting a sugar trust, a steel trust, a wool trust. These 
 last are no longer infant industries, as legislators and 
 other public officials can testify, because of the brutal 
 force they use in compelling "expedient" statesman- 
 ship. No infant has yet appeared that could use such 
 a compelling club as these use. Tariff statesmanship 
 has usually found it "expedient" to be dishonest and 
 dishonorable in public affairs. 
 
 The statesman who does nothing is doing worse than 
 nothing because the need for improvement grows with 
 every year. To be equally good with the government 
 of a decade ago, that of the present must have been 
 improved, for conditions change, and change rapidly. 
 While the standpatter cannot help but recognize this 
 change in need and condition, his attitude implies that 
 there has been no change. An absolute improvement 
 must cover the need resulting from changed condi- 
 tions and more. 
 
 Statesmen are afraid of the word free-trade, and so 
 are people in general, long after much of the cause for 
 fear of it has disappeared. Within ten or fifteen years 
 there will scarcely be any real reasons to oppose free 
 trade. For the sake of office and preferment the am- 
 bitious sit cramped in the outgrown tenement of a 
 past generation, hoping thus to gain honor through 
 the senblance of honor. This is making the purchase 
 at a bargain sale, marked-down price. 
 
 Even drastic action upon the tariff would remove 
 only a diseased growth from our commercial life. The 
 volume of unhealthy industry thus cut away would, so 
 far as labor is concerned, be effective only in trans fer^ 
 ring poorly-paid laborers from an employment disad- 
 vantageous to the country to one more wholesome and 
 comfortable to themselves and better for the country 
 
 —43— 
 
as a whole. The country would do well to take care 
 of whatever suffering this might cause. Half the 
 twenty-one hundred millions of dollars which manu- 
 facturers and monopolists are enabled, through the 
 existing tariff, to exact in one year from hard-pressed 
 consumers and poorly-paid laborers, would perhaps 
 take care of the change.* 
 
 The tariff has been an artificial stimulus to the 
 growth of our cities and those interests centering in 
 them. As a concomitant result, our rural population 
 has been depleted and the interests of the farm have 
 been discouraged. It is true that the Department of 
 Agriculture, in our general government, has had a 
 wholesome effect. But didactics can never stand 
 against powerful economic forces which lead irresisti- 
 bly in the opposite direction. The statesmanship that 
 disregards economic forces shall eventually and always 
 prove a failure. The work of the reclamation service 
 is also good." But in spite of these the population of 
 the farm districts drifts to the cities. Didactics tells 
 the young man to stay on the farm ; extraordinary pro- 
 tection to manufacturing and commercial industries 
 invite him to go and compete for a living in the cities. 
 Dazzled by the success of the great magnate, who was 
 a farm boy, economic forces control, and he goes to 
 the city, as is well proved by the census reports. The 
 effects of this system we are now feeling in the high 
 
 *While discussing this point with a gentleman who is locally 
 prominent in educational work in the north-west, and for 
 whom I have great personal regard, I recall that he asked, 
 "But where would this great sum come from?" He readily 
 agreed with my suggestion, however, that the fact that this 
 question was well founded really furnished no reason why 
 we should pay this sum annually without protest instead of 
 paying it once with a protest. 
 
 —44— 
 
cost of living and in other ways. Let commissions at 
 home and abroad investigate the tariff and the high 
 cost of living. We can better afford to pay them good 
 salaries than to commit the blunder of waiting for their 
 answer. The answer to these questions has been 
 known for ages and scientifically proved for more than 
 a century. The investigations of these commissions, 
 if honestly and efficiently prosecuted, may be of advan- 
 tage to general science ; but we can no longer afford to 
 dally with serious conditions. 
 
 We should as soon as possible remove that artificial 
 stimulus from the urban class of our industries. We 
 may secure double effectiveness for good by placing it 
 with the farmer class. A pound removed from the 
 heavy arm of balance and placed upon the lighter arm 
 has the effectiveness of two pounds toward establish- 
 ing equilibrium. Protection can be granted to strug- 
 gling industry, and if there is such in the United States 
 to-day, it is that of agriculture in its attempt to keep 
 pace with the mushroom growth of our overprotected 
 city and commercial industries. I hope it will be borne 
 in mind that I am considering the interests of the coun- 
 try as a whole. So long as the high cost of living is 
 with us, the farmer need envy no one his position. 
 But, instead of a change for the better, we have seen 
 within a few months past the attempt, through reci- 
 procity with Canada, to add weight to the already too 
 heavy side. This shows us our imminent danger from 
 ignorance, led on by greed. Apropos of this, we have 
 another instance in the removal of our former chief 
 forester, Mr. Gifford Pinchot. So far as I have been 
 able to learn, the only cause for his removal was his 
 persistence in doing his duty. 
 
 —45— 
 
People of means can do no more patriotic work 
 than, through paying investments, to place people on 
 land and to increase its productiveness in any possible 
 way. It matters not if the investment brings good re- 
 turns, it is a work of patriotism if it increases the pro- 
 ductiveness of land. It should never be our attempt 
 to discourage business which is conducted along whole- 
 some lines. This need never be the work of any man. 
 The field of legitimate business is of tremendous pro- 
 portions. There is plenty of straightforward work for 
 all straightforward men, and such work should reap its 
 profit. The idea that business must finally degenerate 
 into crookedness and theft grows from the habit of 
 mind and moral perversity of him who supposes this 
 to be the case. Such a conception of business is nur- 
 tured, not by real ability, but by a lack of originality, of 
 adaptability, of vision of the coming years. It is best 
 exemplified by the case of the chauffeur who did not 
 realize that he had failed to notice a turn in the way 
 until he found himself among the brambles in the 
 ditch. This blindness is the portent of the coming 
 years. It is now our only care. 
 
 In such work as we need now we want only that 
 philanthropy for which, according to the true defini- 
 tion of the word, the poor as well as the rich are quali- 
 fied. This word means nothing more than good will 
 expressed in sincere and honest effort, and all men are 
 qualified for this. And here may I say that the specu- 
 lator who tries to increase the price without improving 
 or increasing the productiveness of land is lined upon 
 the danger side— the unpatriotic side. The land spec- 
 ulator in general is on that side. Banks and railroads 
 can serve their country, and themselves directly 
 
 —46 — 
 
(through dividends) and indirectly (through govern- 
 mental security) by helping likewise to improve and 
 increase the productiveness of land. 
 
 However we may not judge it so, if we do not 
 effectually accomplish work along this line, manufac- 
 tures and commerce will eventually collapse as would 
 a building, the size and massiveness of which has 
 been increased beyond what the strength of its mate- 
 rials will stand. These are sometimes said to be prob- 
 lems for only the plain people, yet there is no class who 
 can stand upright in revolution better than they. In 
 these things we are dealing with cause and effect, and 
 whenever we can rob the cause of its effect, then may 
 we hope that our present course shall not produce its 
 natural result. 
 
 Cardinal Richelieu had the ability to secure an end 
 sought without being able, or willing, to choose the end 
 according to wisdom. Part of his policy was to ren- 
 der the authority of the French king absolute, his 
 method to trample all opposition under foot, and then 
 to cover all errors with his scarlet robe, being jointly 
 a prelate and a minister of state. We know now that 
 his apparent success was a failure. He took not into 
 the account the genius of the short little Corsican yet 
 unborn. This course was presumptuous. Richelieu 
 defied the Christianity he professed. We are unwise 
 not to take full account to-day. A false and narrow 
 optimism alone can lead on till the last of the lariat is 
 drawn. The world would be out of balance were not a 
 Bonaparte set against the Richelieus. 
 
 As the ages roll we see that right is practical ; that 
 wrong is impractical. In affairs of government this is 
 
 —47— 
 
far less rarely seen than in personal relations, and 
 though not clearly the case in the latter, it is often 
 doubted in the former. But if we come to believe that 
 governments are above the law, standing by rivers of 
 blood amidst the wreckage of a fair country, we shall 
 again see the untruth of our belief. All things that set 
 at naught the eternal forces of the world are, through 
 revolution, evolution, pestilence and war, cast to the 
 scrap pile. These are the vice-gerents of justice, of 
 mercy, that will not permit free, moral agents to go 
 unchecked to destruction. 
 
 The greatest mistake made by governments in the 
 past has been a belief, evidenced in action, that there 
 is one standard of morals in private and another in 
 public conduct. Under governments the large and 
 the strong cry for protection against the weak and get 
 it. Such is a protected monopoly when it crushes a 
 struggling independent industry by methods which 
 have been commonly permitted in the United States. 
 We notice here that the monopolist who "believes" so 
 strongly in protecting native, struggling industry is the 
 one who crushes it. In crying for protection the tears 
 of monopoly are shed presumably in behalf of the 
 laborer, whom it would oppress to the lowest depths. 
 The "protection" to the laborer comes through the 
 high cost of living and reduction in wages. What 
 would we think of the strongest and most ablebodied 
 man in a community crying for alms from his neigh- 
 bors? What would he be called? Yet this is recog- 
 nized and sanctioned under our own government. 
 
 If one were requested to give an example of superb 
 ignorance, he could do no better than mention govern- 
 ments as they have been run in the past and railroads 
 as they are commonly managed at present. The ignor- 
 
 - 4 8- 
 
ance is not so much in the management of details as in 
 the almost absolute lack of correlation with the forces 
 that control society. The work of the mechanical or 
 of the construction department of a railroad affords 
 good examples of applied intelligence. When an engi- 
 neer strikes a wheel with his test hammer and the tone 
 indicates a fracture, this knowledge leads either to 
 repalcement or repair of the defctive part. But to 
 many of those in general control such causes lead not 
 to such results. If a man's logic may be determined 
 from his past actions, the procedure of many of those 
 higher up would in this case be to make a collection 
 of cracked wheels and put them on the same side. 
 
 When the great Missouri of the northwest, on its 
 devious course, glides peacefully toward an upland; 
 or when the scenic Hudson rushes on her Palisades, 
 shall we suppose they will not turn? Because it has 
 been possible to follow a course in the past it does 
 not follow that we shall continue in it. Whether we 
 shall, depends upon the force of circumstances that 
 arise as time goes on. The boatman on the river does 
 not wreck or strand a boat at every turn of the stream 
 in order to be assured that there is a turning point. 
 He need look only toward the bank, or, in lieu of this 
 extremely simple way to avoid danger, he may observe 
 and follow the course of the blind and senseless water 
 which never disobeys law or necessity. Water may 
 rush and grind against the granite or the hill, but this 
 indicates only that it has come to a turning point in its 
 course. No more than can the river defy its banks 
 can man disregard fundamental law. When by a 
 statute which complies with such law the people of 
 our country have attempted to establish the peace and 
 security which come from abiding by law, some flatter 
 
 —49— 
 
themselves that this statute is only a trifle to be cast 
 aside, it will be found that this is not the case. It 
 shall be executed. The executive department of our 
 government can do this. If it does not, necessity is 
 not suspended. Infraction of law is not permitted 
 except that one take the punishment therefor. Ac- 
 cording to the attitude we take toward it, the punish- 
 ment destroys or reforms. Either is execution of the 
 law. Infraction of law comes from ignorance. Under 
 punishment, wisdom grows apace. 
 
 Why do men adopt such illogical courses of pro- 
 cedure? Why do we see the general of dividends, for 
 example, driving his army of workers before the bayo- 
 net while he professes to be a follower of the lowly 
 Nazarene ? It is because of the blindness which gradu- 
 ally darkens a man's life as greed takes a firmer and 
 firmer hold upon him. What is the reward? 
 
 Never has greed been known to contribute to the 
 real happiness of mankind. In a finely appointed 
 mansion, amidst luxurious surroundings, and upon a 
 downy pillow, greed permits its votary to lay down 
 a weary body in the attempt to rest a discontented 
 mind and restore a starved soul. It turns him from 
 a sincere belief in the Bible, in which he finds only 
 anathemas hurled against his chosen course; it turns 
 him from poetry, where he finds that by the whole 
 race of poets he is tabooed; it renders him an alien 
 to the artist, and enemy to the laborer. It permits him 
 to sit at a table filled with delicacies, with indigestion 
 as companion. It opens to him the door of the sani- 
 tarium and closes to him the pathway to the free en- 
 joyment of nature; it hands to him premature death, 
 morally and physically, along with the husks of life. 
 With his moral sense and half his mental sense de- 
 
 —50— 
 
capitated by past environment, the minion of greed 
 presses blindly on, against the admonition of wisdom, 
 prudence and moderation. 
 
 Greed has a remarkable logic and wonderful ethics. 
 It advises its adherents to teach others that black is 
 white; that to steal is gentlemanly; to labor, degrad- 
 ing; that to lie is honorable; that Christianity is fool- 
 ishness. It advises its followers to cry out, parrot- 
 like, "unconstitutional" when saner people advise that 
 they walk not into the fire ; it bears ever a false garb of 
 religion and patriotism, and ever assumes an apparent 
 love for learning and art. 
 
 To suppose that with impunity there can be infrac- 
 tion of law is to imply that anarchy reigns in the uni- 
 verse of which our country bears no greater distinc- 
 tion than that of being a microscopic point. This 
 means no discredit to my country, but I consider that 
 its greatness consists in recognizing these things and 
 in following out the purposes of God. What to me is 
 of infinitely great proportions is that ignorance and 
 presumption that would here try to set aside the spirit 
 of universal law. 
 
 It is not to be feared that we can stay the tide of 
 progress ; that we 
 
 can turn the stream of destiny, 
 
 Or break the chain of strong necessity, 
 That fast is tyde to Jove's eternal seat." 
 
 The danger lies in the punishment which we shall 
 deserve, and which we shall get, if we try to stay the 
 tide. 
 
 Civilization is always lapsing when it would place 
 
 —51— 
 
the works and tools of man above man himself. Stat- 
 utes, constitutions, institutions, are to serve the con- 
 venience and welfare of man in society, and one of 
 their first requirements for usefulness is that they keep 
 abreast of his progress. No wiser provision was 
 placed in our Federal Constitution than that which 
 delegates to the people the right to change it. Inso- 
 much as a constitution deals with details it must admit 
 of change. For this reason the contention is justified 
 that such instruments should not deal too much with 
 details. If a constitution deals only with principles 
 such as are set forth in the preamble to our own 
 organic federal law, it may never need to be changed. 
 Some principles are unchanged in their force, while 
 nations and worlds rise to maturity and pass to decay. 
 Not to admit of change a constitution would neces- 
 sarily be very short and of tremendously wide applica- 
 tion. A perfect constitution would be any accepted 
 principles which would secure the reign of morality 
 and decency in government. 
 
 The common people directly, and through the lead- 
 ership of great men, who are their direct representa- 
 tives, have fought for, and have legally established our 
 fundamental guarantees. To every straightforward 
 citizen these are dear, but the fossilized details must 
 be cast aside, while as time goes on new growths must 
 appear. Special privilege has, of course, always 
 opposed the legal establishment of the natural rights 
 of man. At present it would play upon the people's 
 reverence for these in its attempt to block the wheels 
 of progress. The standpatters hang back, presum- 
 ably in defense of principles which need no defense 
 before an x intelligent people ; the true progressive 
 attempts to bring the details of our Constitution into 
 
 —52— 
 
accord with modern requirements. Therefore such a 
 one is working in the interest of every citizen of the 
 republic, regardless of party or class. The funda- 
 mental guarantees of our federal instrument are the 
 greatest, in fact the only, argument for change of its 
 details. In lieu of change of details we may invoke 
 these. We have the precedent. The Union was pre- 
 served in the sixties by invoking one clause of the pre- 
 amble, to form a more perfect union. Lincoln, hold- 
 ing that "the intention of the law-giver is the law," 
 vitalized the preamble to the Constitution of the United 
 States. This gives us the precedent to invoke the 
 general welfare clause. Monopoly is contrary to three 
 clauses in the preamble, namely, to establish justice, 
 to promote the general welfare, and to secure the bless- 
 ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. 
 
 To all who recognize that their interests are one with 
 their country's interests, we perceive that a basis for 
 harmony may be found in a clearly defined idea of the 
 meaning of the word freedom. But special privilege 
 will find no satisfaction in this. Those who desire it 
 must choose a course which is at once opposed to 
 Christianity, evolution and patriotism. The word lib- 
 erty is a relative term. Its meaning as applied to the 
 condition of people under popular governments varies 
 with the increase of population and with the advance- 
 ment of the society toward greater complexity. The 
 individual liberty of each citizen never extends further 
 than to the like rights of others where it is either neu- 
 tralized or compromised. But for these concessions 
 there is abundant compensation in the privileges of 
 intercourse and co-operation in society. In a small, 
 isolated community these limits might be quite evident, 
 but where, as in our own country, perfection of inter- 
 
 —53— 
 
course and communication have become so highly 
 developed, the intricacies of these relations become 
 almost beyond comprehension. Yet let us walk firmly 
 and confidently here. Morality and decency always 
 stand with a ready solution. We may turn from them 
 and hasten to search for a solution among the musty, 
 secular records of the past, but the great minds we 
 there consult will point again to that from which we 
 have just turned away. When the man in Maine 
 becomes as a neighbor to the man in California the 
 problem is solved. Necessity has led our people in 
 the way of such remarkable mechanical development 
 that interchange and communication have become 
 highly perfected. With the coming of these develop- 
 ments must pass away the idea that he who deals with 
 the great public has no duty toward it. So long as we 
 call these ideas impractical we may be sure that we are 
 drifting toward that school where their truth shall be 
 driven home with merciless severity. 
 
 I have seen at a store (in the east) an exhibit of 
 eggs in which the lowest grade was marked "Fresh 
 eggs," "Strictly fresh" the next grade above, and so on. 
 Probably a good proportion of the lowest grade, 
 "Fresh eggs," was stale or rotten. Commercialism 
 would thus stretch the English language till it rips to 
 turn pennies into the money box. The shoe manufac- 
 turer has absolutely no more right to sell shoes with 
 pasteboard in the soles to some faraway and unknown 
 customer than he would have to sell them to a near 
 and confidential friend. The word shoe is not defined 
 as of such material ; custom does not recognize it as of 
 such composition. A manufacturer has absolutely no 
 right to sell poison in food, because poison is not food. 
 A man has no right to lie unless by branding himself a 
 
 —54— 
 
liar he forego the right he possesses to the confidence 
 of his fellow men. To sit in millionaire row behind a 
 brown-stone front is poor pay for such "service" to 
 society. The spirit upon which such business methods 
 are founded does not function in a complex society. 
 It is a broken pinion which renders the whole mechan- 
 ism useless. It is the parasite that would live upon 
 the life-blood of others. 
 
 These are not questions of constitutionality. Every 
 man knows the right or wrong of them. The wrong- 
 doer wants nothing more than the license of delay 
 which comes from the impracticable expedient of try- 
 ing to regulate such things specically by a constitution. 
 If we would flounder in deep water, while yet we are 
 determined that we will not swim, let us try so clearly 
 to define in a set constitution the ever-varying status of 
 our rights that we may dispense with the necessity for 
 personal responsibility and a sense of duty on the part 
 of those to whom power and authority are delegated. 
 I believe that the standards of morality are higher 
 among the commonalty than among the seekers after 
 special privilege. Let us try to get an expression of 
 these higher standards in our government. For a 
 working basis a balance on the side of right and ideal- 
 ism is sufficient. 
 
 Special privilege would arrogate to itself all that is 
 noble and worthy, unmindful that such distinctions 
 cling to those who forget them. We are great or 
 deserving because we are so, not because we proclaim 
 ourselves so. Let it be borne in mind that true great- 
 ness comes from discipline, which, with other refine- 
 ments, brings a humility and simplicity that help to 
 bear the honors and burdens which also accompany it. 
 But it brings no emasculation. Real greatness is ever 
 
 —55— 
 
ready to serve. But the littleness that says, "I am 
 great," would be served without rendering service until 
 nature, through evolution, withdraw every hope and 
 every vestige of all that is worth while in life. No 
 "royal road" can be found to the great ends which are 
 so much desired and sought for in this world. 
 
 In society we must agree to forego certain rights in 
 order that we may gain the privileges and advantage of 
 social intercourse. All great business operations owe 
 the possibility of their existence to intercourse in 
 society as it is, and to the protection which society gives 
 them. Those who are willing to reap the benefits thus 
 obtained, without rendering their return by helping to 
 support the good government, morality and decency 
 which have rendered their success possible, are both 
 blind and unworthy of intercourse in society. Then 
 how does it appear when the business corporation 
 sends its agent to lobby against good government which 
 is the foundation of society? Who will be so blind as 
 to say that such are more deserving than a Benedict 
 Arnold ? 
 
 The chasm of uncertainties before us will be bridged 
 by statesmanship or revolution. It can be done on a 
 working basis through statesmanship. If patriotism 
 lights the way of those to whom the authority is dele- 
 gated, quiet statesmanship will lead us through the 
 crisis ; but if those to whom the ship of state must look 
 for guidance in peace, permit the black purposes of 
 greed to smother patriotism, they at the same time, 
 and by that very attitude, call revolution again to the 
 scene of history. The issue is clearly drawn. Peace 
 and prosperity follow in the wake of patriotic states- 
 manship; revolution waits upon the greedy and 
 degraded politician. 
 
 -56- 
 
The self-sacrifices of the past and the destinies of 
 the future meet where we stand to-day. We cannot 
 block progress, but we can avoid being crushed. Ours 
 is no work for the man of beclouded understanding. 
 The call of the present is for the man with a clear 
 vision and a strong, warm heart; for the lover of 
 humanity and justice. 
 
 What we must have in this work is men. If a man 
 be first and always a man, then a preacher, a farmer, a 
 general laborer, a lawyer, a doctor, he shall be ever 
 useful and an inspiration to all with whom he may 
 come in contact. The lawyer who, instead of being 
 master of the law is mastered by it, can never be a 
 statesman. Blackstone was not mastered by the law. 
 Had we the honor to claim him as a contemporary, we 
 know he would now be of great service. The people 
 cannot afford to place at the helm of government the 
 man who, instead of being master of his work, is mas- 
 tered by it. 
 
 Those young men who are looking forward to work 
 in our national and state governments should know 
 that unless there be the stamina to stand for the right, 
 only dishonor shall be found. Right has its great 
 reward, but it is never chosen by the weak. 
 
 If corporation lawyers should decide to be men first 
 and always, their camp would soon bear a near resem- 
 blance to the original Deserted Village. Corporations 
 per se are not bad, but there are so many thug corpor- 
 ations that their henchmen constitute the majority of 
 corporation lawyers. What may be truly said against 
 corporations is not because they are large or powerful, 
 but because they are powerful without effective respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 Legal technicality and precedent are as a forest 
 
 —57— 
 
under cover of which depredations are being commit- 
 ted upon society. Within its shadows justice is bought 
 and sold. It beclouds the mind of the conscientious 
 lawyer or jurist, and forms a dark barricade behind 
 which the unscrupulous may pursue his sinister pur- 
 poses. 
 
 We know that in many cases justice is really and 
 virtually bought and sold. The purchase and sale of 
 justice brings insecurity of person and property. 
 Those who have studied history know to what insecur- 
 ity of person and property lead. The lawyer or judge 
 who aids, or has aided, in the miscarriage of justice is, 
 proportionate to his influence, responsible for this con- 
 dition. 
 
 We are in need of a modern Justinian — a man whose 
 vision, undimmed by this shadowy forest, shall enable 
 him to cast away the rubbish, and to preserve only 
 that which is yet animated by usefulness. The law is 
 a tool. Man was not made to afford a field for law, 
 but laws are made for his service and welfare. 
 
 Progress has no surer friend than enlightenment. 
 The aim of education should be to connect enlighten- 
 ment with the facts and experiences of life; its true 
 ideal is that the soul and mind of man jointly know, 
 and that the body be able and willing to do. To be 
 able is virtue; to be willing is humility. It matters 
 not if it be through the work of the artist as painter, 
 sculptor, musician or writer ; or through that of the 
 teacher, the artisan, the laborer in general or the busi- 
 ness man ; he who becomes the instrument of the best 
 that is in him is the true nobleman. Upon such the 
 word noble sits without a meaning full of irony. 
 Herein he joins hand with the Infinite and therefore 
 stands as the real representative of noble blood. 
 
 -58- 
 
Anything in our educational systems that tends, 
 directly or indirectly, to detract from the dignity of 
 labor is pernicious in its effects. But there are those 
 who would here hasten to take an imaginary advan- 
 tage; those, for example, who believe, It is good to eat, 
 therefore gorge; oats is good for a horse, therefore 
 turn him to the bin. To such I would say, moderation 
 is good also ; perhaps there is nothing better as a guide 
 in the affairs of life. Too much labor is degrading, 
 but it is none the less so than too little. Inasmuch as 
 it is good for one to work, it is good for all to do so ; 
 and if each do his part then none shall have to do too 
 much. Then the sallow, nervous little hands that 
 degenerate in toil in stuffy factories in order that others 
 may degenerate in idleness, would come to the bless- 
 ings of enjoyment in God's word. While greed has 
 dragged one class of our society to degeneracy from 
 too much wealth, it has cast back another into degen- 
 eracy from too much labor. One class presents no 
 greater problem to our society than the other. They 
 are concomitants existing, one because of the other. 
 I state as a fact that happiness or contentment is not 
 with either extreme. Those people whose eyes are 
 freed from the scales of custom and tradition would 
 not choose, with their necessary accompaniments, one 
 extreme above the other. All that is worth while 
 grows and thrives between. 
 
 Education has no greater field of usefulness than in 
 helping to displace distorted ideas of value by true ones. 
 In false valuations is found, perhaps, the most prolific 
 source of evils, social and governmental. 
 
 The corruptionist judge, lawyer, business man, or 
 politician believes that his work is really more dignified 
 than many other classes of employment. He argues : 
 
 —59- 
 
"Were I reduced in rank, what could I do? What 
 would people think?" If all honest effort were equally 
 esteemed this would not be the case. Consequently 
 it is deemed wiser to overstep the truth than to lose 
 the job. Thus a common false pride comes to be the 
 door of corruption. Human beings should not be too 
 hard on human nature. But when such false ideals, 
 followed in a haze of darkness, come to mean whole- 
 sale destruction to the interests of all, the issue requires 
 that we face the fact that the corruptionist, wherever 
 he may be, is a coward. He has turned his back on 
 truth and bowed to false pride. It is a privilege, more, 
 the duty, of every free-born man to fight these insid- 
 ious enemies of national liberty and decency. That 
 their shadowy forms do not apear to the many explains 
 why they exist at all. 
 
 The soul of man is his guiding star. The mind 
 deals with things nearer at hand. The soul is in direct 
 contact with the hand that rules the universe ; the mind 
 is local and subordinate. It is, so far as we can see 
 and know, impossible for the innermost feelings of our 
 nature to be wrong ; but the mind separated from these 
 flounders in chaos. 
 
 In this connection is sometimes mentioned as nega- 
 tive evidence the heathen mother, who, as a religious 
 fanatic sacrifices the life of her child. This shows 
 only the perversive power of custom or tradition, but 
 is worthy of consideration here. Such is the true jug- 
 gernaut, which only a few specially gifted men — or 
 rather open-minded men — can see in its true light. 
 Except as a perversion such instances are not found in 
 nature. We look in vain for such a mother among 
 human beings, unless, indeed, her soul has been thrust 
 
 — 60 — 
 
through by the dagger of slavery or abject poverty, 
 which is the same. That evolution would not allow 
 the persistence of those who practice a destruction of 
 the young is as evident as that a straight line is the 
 shortest distance between two points. Just in propor- 
 tion as such a custom gains acceptance, would nature 
 tend to the elimination of its blinded adherents from 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 Education should inculcate that the Golden Rule is 
 an ideal of efficiency and practicality in life, in busi- 
 ness and in the conduct of governmental affairs. 
 While an ideal is an end or limit toward which we may 
 approach, success consists in advancement toward it, 
 failure in receding from it. However, it is the real 
 interest of all to abide by the Golden Rule, the crook 
 and the thief think it their interest to overstep it, and 
 consequently do so. War and revolution come from 
 disrespect for such ideals. It is one thing to talk 
 peace, it is another to persist stubbornly in that course 
 which has never failed to bring war. Such is to pro- 
 claim righteousness in high places, while we hold to sin 
 in the ordinary affairs of life. 
 
 The destructive force of the absence of worthy pur- 
 pose may be noted also in the career of him who 
 believes that "Business is business," whatever that may 
 mean. How he who originated this meaningless sen- 
 tence must have flattered himself upon having built an 
 impregnable barricade behind which the moral code 
 should become null and void! But yet it was not so. 
 Security in property is founded on a general respect 
 for rights in property. But those who put their 
 dependence in property above everything else are 
 guilty of the glaring inconsistency of attacking the 
 rights of property. I refer to those who, in the serv- 
 
 — 61— 
 
ice of material interests, rinding Christianity and mor- 
 ality a burden, cast them aside and steal if they can do 
 it by a long and circuitous method, in a "gentlemanly" 
 or "respectable" way. That man is unworthy of lead- 
 ership who seeks wealth, fame or power, while he has 
 determined that he will not pay the price for what he 
 seeks. A part of the price turned down by men of 
 high aim, but small caliber, is simplicity, sincerity, a 
 willingness to do that which, however necessary and 
 right, is marked as commonplace and beneath the dig- 
 nity of one who is, or is to be, a big gun. Sir Walter 
 Scott said : 
 
 "Oh, what a tangled web we zveave 
 When first we practice to deceive !" 
 
 And here, again, we have an example of the inexhaust- 
 ibility of nature in the execution of her plans. First 
 come religion, justice, prudence, advising moderation. 
 If these fail, she sends an executioner of her purposes, 
 the story of the work of which appears on every page 
 of history. Those who misuse wealth and power, the 
 two great objects of greed, we soon find amidst the 
 blackened ruins of the object of their desire. While 
 those who use these as they should be used, to further 
 worthy purposes, find rightly that there is no end to 
 their power and influence. Man never finds himself 
 great until he is a co-worker with divine power. Sub- 
 mission to God is the dignity of man. This is the con- 
 dition for the grant of real power. Here the law of 
 stability or compensation reveals to us another appar- 
 ent contradiction that the humble and the submissive 
 are the powerful. This, of course, implies insubordi- 
 nation to contrary forces. 
 
 Watch the policies of him who is thoroughly con- 
 
 —62— 
 
vinced that business is business. You will see them at 
 first, perhaps, bear the glaring letters SUCCESS, 
 but after a few years this sign in the natural course of 
 things grows dim and indistinct through a process of 
 change, and finally reappears in the unmistakable let- 
 ters FAILURE. 
 
 There are many misconceptions as to the importance 
 of money. The grossest of these is suggested by the 
 expression, almighty dollar. The extreme irony of 
 this phrase is seen when money sets itself against the 
 natural rights of man. Respect for these rights is 
 identical with good government, and inasmuch as 
 money is able to defeat these, it undermines good gov- 
 ernment, thereby destroying, in a proportionate meas- 
 ure, its own value. All our country's claims to great- 
 ness in the past have come from respect for these 
 rights. These rights are well defined in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence and implied in the Preamble to 
 the Constitution of the United States. Disrespect for 
 them lies at the bottom of the high cost of living in 
 Europe and in America, and causes thrones and gov- 
 ernments to totter to-day. 
 
 Money is only a standard of value or a representa- 
 tive of wealth. It must be borne in mind, therefore, 
 that in proportion as all who are in the race for it attain 
 their aim, it depreciates in value, compromising the 
 struggle. For it is evident that if each had all the money 
 he might need or want no one would exchange for it 
 anything of value or labor to secure it. In other words, 
 under such circumstances, money would have no value 
 except that of its usefulness as a metal or as a bit of 
 paper. Then where would value be? We are not to 
 suppose from this that it would be non-existent. 
 
 -63- 
 
Value would be found in the power to produce by 
 labor those things which are useful and necessary to 
 the existence and welfare of mankind. This includes, 
 of course, things of beauty and inspiration since the 
 physical needs of man are no more deserving of atten- 
 tion than the mental and moral. When traced to its 
 ultimate source, value comes to be almost identical in 
 meaning with that of the old Roman word for virtue; 
 namely, active quality of power; property capable of 
 producing certain effects ; strength, force, efficiency. 
 
 Down in the bedrock of practicality, virtue is 
 national wealth. In the solemn records of the past we 
 find that the Roman Empire was once for sale — virtue 
 the consideration — and it went to the Barbarians. The 
 controlling forces of the Empire, of course, thought 
 that the consideration was armies, navies, wealth, 
 craft. The same blind and beaten trail is open to us 
 to-day. The Barbarians were not overburdened with 
 virtue, but their stock in muscle, brawn, in a rugged 
 respect for morality and dedency was greater than that 
 which vitalized the massive body of the great decaying 
 Empire. We should be as learners before such deci- 
 sions of the Infinite. 
 
 As in diseases of the physical body nature attempts 
 to restore a normal and healthy condition, so does she 
 in the case of social disorders. It will be well here to 
 consider how she works to diminish the accentuated 
 difference between the condition of the very rich and 
 the very poor. 
 
 Two factors which are beyond the control of our 
 government tend to disentegrate large fortunes as well 
 as smaller ones. 
 
 I. The possession of much wealth removes the 
 
 — 64 — 
 
motive of the struggle for existence. This being 
 absent, only the exceptional individual will engage 
 himself in any wholesome employment. The degen- 
 eracy which natural law, or evolution, inflicts as a pun- 
 ishment for idleness ; and that force, destructive of the 
 mental, moral and physical qualities of the owner, 
 which is rendered active by the unwise dissipation of 
 wealth, both tend strongly, if not irresistibly, to the 
 elimination from society of the possessors of great 
 wealth. On the other hand, the poor man and those 
 who constitute the poorer class, free from these evo- 
 lutionary handicaps (not by their own will, however, 
 but free just the same,) are by the same force of nat- 
 ural selection continually and irresistibly drawn toward 
 leadership and influence in society. The poor boy is 
 usually the influential man of the future ; but the sword 
 of an Alexander or a Charlemagne falls from the 
 weaker hands of his descendants. Environment con- 
 trols all ordinary individuals and thus evolution brings 
 these things about. Here we may note that real self- 
 interest prompts to moderation in the accumulation of 
 wealth, as in all other things. 
 
 II. Division among descendants will tend to the 
 disintegration of great fortunes. While to have few 
 descendants would tend to hold the fortune intact, it at 
 the same time tends to the extinction of the line. 
 Mere persistence requires a considerable margin. 
 Besides the natural resources which alone have made 
 possible the greatest fortunes in our country are, to 
 say the least, no longer in profusion. The tariff would 
 never have been permitted these many years past had 
 not the burden of its rapacious system been borne, to 
 a great extent, by appropriation of these resources. 
 
 The evolutionary regulations before mentioned are 
 
 —65— 
 
beyond the reach of men or nations. They suggest to 
 us what is part of the price paid for the use and enjoy- 
 ment of wealth. We must bear in mind always that 
 everything is purchased with a price, and as to 
 whether we are any ahead by the exchange depends 
 upon the comparison between the purchase price and 
 the value of what is purchased. It is very probable 
 also, as might be inferred from the foregoing, that 
 after the collectors of these great fortunes have passed 
 away there never again will be among their descend- 
 ants such combination of aptitude and opportunity, 
 though men of equal power will appear outside as com- 
 petitors for the wealth of the descendants. 
 
 I claim that a man's belief determines his actions. 
 If the eye tells a man there is a brick wall or a tree in 
 front of him he believes and turns aside. If, in passing 
 on, he should find that the eye had deceived him, then 
 belief in it would be shaken and its next intimation he 
 would question. Inasmuch as so-called belief is inef- 
 fective upon the lives and actions of men, it is really 
 disbelief. There is no better way to judge of the 
 classification of a thing than by the fruit it bears. 
 Shall we believe the conventionalist when he tells us 
 that the orange lying upon the table grew upon an 
 apple tree? Such claims are set forth by those who 
 consider truth a hindrance, because they have chosen a, 
 wrong ideal which leads them in an unworthy course, 
 neither of which they are willing to change.. 
 
 Do we believe that truth and virtue are all-powerful 
 and eternal? 
 
 Do we believe that vice is the principal agent of its 
 own destruction? 
 
 Do we believe the poet when he says : 
 
 —66— 
 
"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
 The eternal years of God are hers, 
 While Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
 And dies among his worshipers"? 
 
 Do we believe in the teaching of Jesus Christ? 
 
 These are eternally true, yet regardless of what we 
 profess, our actions show that many of us believe dif- 
 ferently. 
 
 Why have some come to disbelieve? Faith is a pri- 
 mordial tendency in human nature. The cause lies 
 in an attempt to depend upon mere intelligence, not 
 knowing how far it may be trusted. A Newton, a 
 Kelvin, a Spencer, a Darwin, a Bacon, never made such 
 mistake. The further they passed into the unknown 
 the more firmly they held the brake, the less they found 
 they knew, the greater their reverence, and finally we 
 see them bowed before the Infinite. 
 
 But to come again to the question : Where does infi- 
 delity originate? Not being a natural tendency of 
 human nature, if it come to predominate in our nation, 
 we shall again depart from it, but through what suffer- 
 ing and bloodshed, anarchy and darkness, we know not 
 now. Men who are ever busily engaged in the service 
 of material interests, watch the progress of something 
 that is known to be wrong, for fifteen, twenty-five, or 
 perhaps for fifty years, and, to them, it seems to be 
 gaining ground. But here unseen opposing forces are 
 gaining with equal and steady progress, and the clash 
 has not yet come; thus the evidence is misjudged. 
 Some wrongs, to be righted, require only to be brought 
 to notice ; some require the making and execution of a 
 good statute; but others have, in the past, required a 
 
 -6 7 - 
 
titanic struggle such as the French Revolution, or our 
 own Civil War, or the American Revolution. 
 
 The people of the United States have come to a 
 parting of the ways. Let us stop and notice the sign- 
 board. Take the one way the rivers of our country 
 shall bear a crimson tide, and the March from Atlanta 
 to the Sea shall find a dozen counterparts. The other 
 way is that of wisdom, moderation, justice, freedom, 
 Christianity, and leads to peace, true prosperity, and 
 the highest happiness of all the citizens of our land. 
 Man's greatness consists in his power to choose his 
 own course, but with volition also comes the fiat : // 
 thou wouldst choose, thou must bear with thy choice. 
 
 As well would we walk the surface of the earth to 
 find a place where gravitation is inactive as to search 
 for that wrong which bears not its penalty. Thus is 
 universal stability secured. It is not our care that the 
 laws of the great Governor of the universe shall 
 remain unexecuted; it is a privilege granted us that 
 we may find shelter, by ourselves helping to execute 
 these laws. The only care of humanity need be to 
 remain under the protection of the Creator of alt 
 things. We need not tender our help, but humbly ask 
 the privilege of service. 
 
 A man who does the best he can, can face his mis- 
 takes, acknowledge them, and continue his course. 
 But he who willfully and habitually does wrong may 
 spend the remainder of his life trying to cover up the 
 wrong, and make even a failure of that. If wrong 
 could lie open, this would not be so. The wrong act 
 must be covered, and the cover must be covered and 
 guarded and so on ad infinitum, giving no chance for 
 better employment. And here, too, is where govern- 
 ments run on the rocks, trying to cover up wrongs, or 
 
 —68— 
 
to clothe them with the appearance of right. Herein 
 is any wrong-doer outgeneraled. By the first wrong 
 act the attention must be devided between covering the 
 past, taking care of the present and planning the 
 future. Truth and right find help and support from 
 lying open for inspection. The straightforward man 
 must take care of the present and the future ; the crook 
 must divide his forces, taking care of the front, the 
 flanks and the rear. This is the reason why with equal 
 resources the man in the right is many times the 
 stronger. But there is really no comparison in strength. 
 The truth that is open to inspection will ever recruit 
 the ranks of the one, while falsehood along the track 
 of the other will deplete his forces. The one has a 
 consciousness of right which ennobles ; the other has a 
 consciousness of wrong which makes him, in all real 
 tests, a coward. 
 
 In observing further results of compensation we 
 may consider any free human being. Just as lines 
 may radiate in any direction from a point, he has a 
 choice of all possible courses. A course by which a 
 man would be at once physically eliminated is a pos- 
 sible course. 
 
 It is a matter of common observation that certain 
 courses may be followed till opposing forces come to be 
 so great an obstacle that it is only economy of time and 
 energy to discontinue them. It is not at all uncom- 
 mon — I must say that it is, in fact, most common — to 
 see men attempting one thing and unconsciously suc- 
 ceeding in doing the opposite. The boatman who rows 
 up-stream at the rate of three miles an hour against 
 a five-mile current is going down-stream at the rate of 
 two miles an hour. If it is his purpose to go up 
 stream, he is going in opposition to it; if to go down 
 
 — 69 — 
 
stream, by rowing in that direction at the same rate 
 and with the same current, he will go four times as 
 fast. All wrong done, while it does not serve the real 
 happiness or welfare of the wrong-doer, is an exam- 
 ple which may save others from a similar course ; while 
 he who does the right as nearly as he can is an encour- 
 agement and a great material aid to others, at the same 
 time meriting his own approval. 
 
 There is a course in which even those things which 
 are judged to be of the greatest disadvantage are trans- 
 muted as if by magic into the most evident advantage. 
 In view of this let us look at greed and generosity. 
 Exchanges of good for good, of value for value, are 
 legitimate and not to be feared or condemned in the 
 least. But greed, in that proportion in which it takes 
 hold upon a man's actions, leads from exchanges of 
 value for value ultimately to the attempt to get some- 
 thing for nothing. Against this nature sets herself 
 with all the forces at her command. In society, if a 
 man is content with equal exchanges (this, of course, 
 includes pay for intelligence, labor, etc.,) he is marked 
 and recognized as a good citizen. Let greed drag him 
 in slight degree from this position, he becomes a cheat ; 
 further, he becomes recognized as a crook; further 
 still, he is looked upon with detest or commiseration; 
 and finally he must wall himself within a great stone 
 castle and virtually, if not really, look forth from 
 behind prison bars. This end can be arrived at only 
 by paring away or deadening all those higher qualities 
 of one's nature which culminate in a love for human- 
 ity. Some classes of business require that this paring 
 or deadening of the higher sensibilities go on continu- 
 ously. Yet there is an immeasurable field for busi- 
 ness in which the moral sense would be quickened, 
 
 —70— 
 
nourished and elevated. The propensity of the man 
 determines which he shall choose. Those in the legiti- 
 mate field are leaders ; the others are parasites. 
 
 Vice leads men into a labyrinth from which they 
 must either retreat or there flounder and die; while 
 along the pathway of right, the rose, upon its thorn, 
 sheds its beauty and fragrance, and the birds sing for 
 the passer-by. Nor can governments act, with impu- 
 nity, according to other moral standards than those 
 which apply to individual action. 
 
 It is needless to say that the course of generosity is 
 ever onward and upward. Though the higher quali- 
 ties of man have at times been forced to shine through 
 prison walls and even death itself, the prison thereby 
 becomes a shrine and the Calvary a beloved spot upon 
 the earth. 
 
 It is far better to know the impossible than to mis- 
 spend a lifetime in trying to accomplish it. 
 
 The railroad magnate who considers the interests of 
 the people along his line as one thing, and his own as 
 distinctly another; who attempts to squeeze from the 
 farmer, the stockman, and the manufacturer every 
 penny that the "traffic will stand," caeteris paribus, 
 will some day find his trains shorter and shortening, 
 while the empty and half -filled cars that remain will 
 rattle over an ill-kept roadbed, and to end the matter, 
 decreased dividends will call for an accounting and the 
 receiver. 
 
 But there is a railroad man in the Northwest who, 
 whatever other failings he may have, has a grasp and 
 intelligence beyond this. His common sense and prac- 
 ticality tell him that the success of the Great Northern 
 is one with the success and development of the broad 
 and fertile country that lies contingent to it. An 
 
 —71— 
 
inspiration akin to the genius which helped him to 
 build a great system tells him that his interest is virtu- 
 ally one with the man who fills his cars with freight. 
 Following out this idea, he works with, and not against, 
 the generality of the people within the scope of his in- 
 fluence. This way of working together is what I call 
 practicality. No more can be said against such a mil- 
 lionaire than can be said against many poor men. But 
 Mr. James J. Hill's method is no more to be applauded 
 than his chosen course, which is to increase the pro- 
 ductiveness of our country. This is the most effective 
 kind of patriotic work that can be done to-day. 
 
 This man of millions has said things that the people 
 of this country should treasure. For example : "The 
 farm is the basis of all industry, but for many years 
 this country has made the mistake of unduly assisting 
 manufactures, commerce and the activities that center 
 in cities at the expense of the farm." 
 
 The stock waterer finds at first, perhaps, that his 
 issues are in great demand, but finally, unless his 
 schemes are counteracted by some wholesome eco- 
 nomic force, he finds that in spite of gifts to churches 
 and causes of education — which gifts really tend as 
 much to suppress his system as to advance it — all 
 expedients fail. 
 
 The genius of Napoleon Bonaparte was for a time 
 the instrument of divine power, but later it became 
 something distinct from this, and we have Waterloo. 
 This man was a strange mixture of greatness and lit- 
 tleness ; he never failed to meet the enemy on its own 
 ground, but always with the resourcefulness of genius. 
 At St. Helena he gives evidence that he understood 
 his course previous to the passage of the Pyrenees, 
 
 —72— 
 
and to the campaign into Russia to have been that of 
 an agent or instrument. 
 
 A great deal is said of "race suicide," which obtains 
 especially in a certain class of our society. From a 
 standpoint of humanity it is to be deplored. It is, 
 however, a patent fact that the family of no children is 
 passing to extinction. This may be true even in case 
 of a family of one or more children. Here nature 
 again asserts her control. The "first" families become 
 the last families. The Bible and natural selection join 
 to say that the first shall be last, and the last first. We 
 are beginning to see plainly the verification of the reli- 
 gion of Jesus Christ. Faith, experience and science 
 lead to the same. Those who accept luxury and the 
 dollar as their gods pass between Scylla and Charybdis 
 with a second whirlpool in front. Without descend- 
 ants their line will soon become extinct. With a 
 numerous progeny great fortunes would become disin- 
 tegrated ; and while this would lead to a representation 
 in the republic and to perpetuation of the family, it 
 would, on the other hand, submerge the descendants in 
 the great sea of common humanity, and thus would be 
 lost that distinction, "better class," which some of the 
 rich assume. This is the natural or evolutionary way 
 in which a bad condition is met and mastered by 
 nature. It is the "duty of humanity to give sympathy 
 and aid to help to avoid such bad conditions. But 
 when preaching and religion fail the natural course 
 of things takes care in its own way in which we have 
 no part and no choice. 
 
 Many social workers and philanthropists deal, not 
 with the causes of bad conditions, but with the symp- 
 toms of them. For example, the causes of corruption 
 among government officials, of the high cost of living, 
 
 —73— 
 
of white slavery and of the prevalence of divorce, if 
 traced back we find finally to merge into one general 
 cause. Some do not distinguish between gen- 
 eral causes and the more specific results of them. 
 Others see that if they get at the vital cause they touch 
 upon their own life and actions, thus bringing reform 
 too near home; as, for example, the philanthropist 
 who owes his position of affluence to tariff exploita- 
 tion, to dividends from watered stock, to a monopoly 
 of some natural resource or of some necessary article. 
 If he is a canny reformer, as most of such are, he will 
 always avoid the vital trouble. 
 
 To gain tremendously by most disgraceful means 
 and then to give back a part, seems to be driving a 
 sharp bargain with Providence. The magnitude of 
 such deals blinds people for a time, but they soon 
 come to a true judgment of them. 
 
 Land must not be, and cannot be, so used as to es- 
 tablish a classification of slaves in society. Of course, 
 this may be done for a time, unjustly, but the condi- 
 tion cannot long be maintained. 
 
 The same that is said of the uses of land may be 
 said of the uses of other natural resources. 
 
 A machine is invented which, with one operator, 
 does the work of thirty men. Twenty-nine men are 
 thrown out of employment. They compete for work 
 elsewhere, reducing wages by so much. Thus we have 
 the anomaly: increased productive power attended by 
 an increase of poverty. What is the cause of this? 
 The cause lies solely in the ownership of the ma- 
 chine. So long as socially valuable machinery is pri- 
 vately owned, just so long will increase in production 
 be attended by increase in poverty. 
 
 —74— 
 
Disregard of justice in respect to the above tends 
 toward social stagnation and corruption in all of its 
 many forms. 
 
 Let us bear in mind that possession of inventions 
 and of natural resources is gained almost invariably 
 through cunning and legalized trickery, and not as a 
 result of thrift, economy and industry. 
 
 If we as a nation forget justice and honor in dealing 
 with vital questions, then peace cannot be maintained. 
 Marble peace palaces, august peace conferences, learn- 
 ed discourses by pampered flunkies who know just 
 what they want, but not how much they want, these 
 will not figure largely in any real peace movement. 
 
 One hundred years ago genius, leading tremendous 
 armies against greater ones, convulsed Europe with the 
 most terrible battles of modern times and brought to 
 bay that blatant falsehood, the divine right of kings. 
 
 Fifty years ago the fair face of our country was 
 scourged by perhaps the most terrible civil war in 
 history. War is nature's way to overrule man's un- 
 wisdom and haughtiness of spirit. We cannot love it, 
 but if man will not bow the knee to wisdom, then he 
 shall bow before war. He who winks at God's laws, 
 through dense ignorance and a pitiful moral incapacity, 
 cherishes he knows not what. Yet his course is of his 
 own choosing. 
 
 I am cognizant of the importance of the considera- 
 tions brought forward by increase of population, but I 
 think that for two centuries to come this need not be a 
 vital question with us. As to this we should go on con- 
 fident that in the coming years we shall be able to 
 meet new conditions as they arise. Though we should 
 welcome all good citizens from Europe, they should 
 not be misled by the belief that they can, to any great 
 
 —75— 
 
extent, now and hereafter, work out their destinies 
 better here than there. Here again is seen the 
 destructive work of commercialism. The problem 
 now before us is unrestrained greed. It can be solved 
 if men will control themselves; in lieu of this, if the 
 government will restrain the greedy. Outside these 
 scarce anything is more certain than war when the time 
 is ripe. The Hague Tribunal can have little or noth- 
 ing to do with this, except inasmuch as it may act 
 through the above-mentioned channels. Our country 
 is peopled principally by those who have fled from 
 tyranny in Europe and elsewhere. The Aryan peoples 
 have pressed westward, westward, till now they are 
 face to face with the Mongolian race. Here may come 
 the most titanic struggle of the Christian era to its 
 time. To adopt moderation and wisdom is not to lose 
 by any, but rather to gain in peace and happiness by 
 all. War is a horribly severe logic of values. The 
 years to come shall see the "almighty dollar" and 
 dreadnaughts recognize the supremacy of man and his 
 rights. When and how depends upon how we meet 
 the conditions fronting us to-day. The plastic future 
 is before us. What shall we make of it ? 
 
 -76- 
 
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