THE LABOR QUESTIONAT THE CHICAGO LABOR DAY PICNIC, SEPT. 3, 1900By far the greatest problem, the most far-reaching in its stupendous importance, is that problem, or rather that group of problems, which we have grown to speak of as the labor question. It must be always a peculiar privilege for any thoughtful public man to address a body of men predominantly composed of wage-workers, for the foundation of our whole social structure rests upon the material and moral well-being, the intelligence, the foresight, the sanity, the sense of duty, and the wholesome patriotism of the wage-worker. This is doubly the case now; for, in addition to each man’s individual action, you have learned the great lesson of acting in combination. It would be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching influences of, and, on the whole, the amount of good done through your associations.In addressing you, the one thing that I wish to avoid is any mere glittering generality, any mere high-sounding phraseology, and, above all, any appeal whatsoever made in a demagogic spirit, or ina spirit of mere emotionalism. When we come to dealing with our social and industrial needs, remedies, rights and wrongs, a ton of oratory is not worth an ounce of hard-headed, kindly common-sense.The fundamental law of healthy political life in this great Republic is that each man shall in deed, and not merely in word, be treated strictly on his worth as a man; that each shall do full justice to his fellow, and in return shall exact full justice from him. Each group of men has its special interests; and yet the higher, the broader and deeper interests are those which apply to all men alike; for the spirit of brotherhood in American citizenship, when rightly understood and rightly applied, is more important than aught else. Let us scrupulously guard the special interests of the wage-worker, the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant, giving to each man his due and also seeing that he does not wrong his fellows; but let us keep ever clearly before our minds the great fact that, where the deepest chords are touched, the interests of all are alike and must be guarded alike.We must beware of any attempt to make hatred in any form the basis of action. Most emphatically each of us needs to stand up for his own rights; all men and all groups of men are bound to retain their self-respect, and, demanding this same respect fromothers, to see that they are not injured and that they have secured to them the fullest liberty of thought and action. But to feed fat a grudge against others, while it may or may not harm them, is sure in the long run to do infinitely greater harm to the man himself.The more a healthy American sees of his fellow-Americans the greater grows his conviction that our chief troubles come from mutual misunderstanding, from failure to appreciate one another’s point of view. In other words, the great need is fellow-feeling, sympathy, brotherhood; and all this naturally comes by association. It is, therefore, of vital importance that there should be such association. The most serious disadvantage in city life is the tendency of each man to keep isolated in his own little set, and to look upon the vast majority of his fellow-citizens indifferently, so that he soon comes to forget that they have the same red blood, the same loves and hates, the same likes and dislikes, the same desire for good, and the same perpetual tendency, ever needing to be checked and corrected, to lapse from good into evil. If only our people can be thrown together, where they act on a common ground with the same motives, and have the same objects, we need not have much fear of their failing to acquire a genuine respect for one another; and with such respect there must finally come fair play for all.The first time I ever labored alongside of and got thrown into intimate companionship with men who were mighty men of their hands was in the cattle country of the Northwest. I soon grew to have an immense liking and respect for my associates, and as I knew them, and did not know similar workers in other parts of the country, it seemed to me that the ranch-owner was a great deal better than any Eastern business man, and that the cowpuncher stood on a corresponding altitude compared with any of his brethren in the East.Well, after a little while I was thrown into close relations with the farmers, and it did not take long before I had moved them up alongside of my beloved cowmen; and I made up my mind thattheyreally formed the backbone of the land. Then, because of certain circumstances, I was thrown into intimate contact with railroad men, and I gradually came to the conclusion that these railroad men were about the finest citizens there were anywhere around. Then, in the course of some official work, I was thrown into close contact with a number of the carpenters, blacksmiths, and men in the building trades, that is, skilled mechanics of a high order, and it was not long before I had them on the same pedestal with the others. By that time it began to dawn on me that the difference was not in the men but in my own point of view, and that if any man is thrown intoclose contact with any large body of our fellow-citizens it is apt to be the man’s own fault if he does not grow to feel for them a very hearty regard and, moreover, grow to understand that, on the great questions that lie at the root of human well-being, he and they feel alike.Our prime need as a nation is that every American should understand and work with his fellow-citizens, getting into touch with them, so that by actual contact he may learn that fundamentally he and they have the same interests, needs, and aspirations.Of course different sections of the community have different needs. The gravest questions that are before us, the questions that are for all time, affect us all alike. But there are separate needs that affect separate groups of men, just as there are separate needs that affect each individual man. It is just as unwise to forget the one fact as it is to forget the other. The specialization of our modern industrial life, its high development and complex character, means a corresponding specialization in needs and interests. While we should, so long as we can safely do so, give to each individual the largest possible liberty, a liberty which necessarily includes initiative and responsibility, yet we must not hesitate to interfere whenever it is clearly seen that harm comes from excessive individualism. We can not afford to be empirical one way or the other. In the countrydistricts the surroundings are such that a man can usually work out his own fate by himself to the best advantage. In our cities, or where men congregate in masses, it is often necessary to work in combination, that is, through associations; and here it is that we can see the great good conferred by labor organizations, by trade-unions. Of course, if managed unwisely, the very power of such a union or organization makes it capable of doing much harm; but, on the whole, it would be hard to overestimate the good these organizations have done in the past, and still harder to estimate the good they can do in the future if handled with resolution, forethought, honesty, and sanity.It is not possible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule, logically perfect, as to when the State shall interfere, and when the individual must be left unhampered and unhelped.We have exactly the same right to regulate the conditions of life and work in factories and tenement-houses that we have to regulate fire-escapes and the like in other houses. In certain communities the existence of a thoroughly efficient department of factory inspection is just as essential as the establishment of a fire department. How far we shall go in regulating the hours of labor, or the liabilities of employers, is a matter of expediency, and each case must be determined on its own merits, exactlyas it is a matter of expediency to determine what so-called “public utilities†the community shall itself own and what ones it shall leave to private or corporate ownership, securing to itself merely the right to regulate. Sometimes one course is expedient, sometimes the other.In my own State during the last half-dozen years we have made a number of notable strides in labor legislation, and, with very few exceptions, the laws have worked well. This is, of course, partly because we have not tried to do too much and have proceeded cautiously, feeling our way, and, while always advancing, yet taking each step in advance only when we were satisfied that the step already taken was in the right direction. To invite reaction by unregulated zeal is never wise, and is sometimes fatal.In New York our action has been along two lines. In the first place, we determined that as an employer of labor the State should set a good example to other employers. We do not intend to permit the people’s money to be squandered or to tolerate any work that is not the best. But we think that, while rigidly insisting upon good work, we should see that there is fair play in return. Accordingly, we have adopted an eight-hour law for the State employees and for all contractors who do State work, and we have also adopted a law requiring that the fair market rate of wages shall be given. I am glad to say that bothmeasures have so far, on the whole, worked well. Of course there have been individual difficulties, mostly where the work is intermittent, as, for instance, among lock-tenders on the canals, where it is very difficult to define what eight hours’ work means. But, on the whole, the result has been good. The practical experiment of working men for eight hours has been advantageous to the State. Poor work is always dear, whether poorly paid or not, and good work is always well worth having; and as a mere question of expediency, aside even from the question of humanity, we find that we can obtain the best work by paying fair wages and permitting the work to go on only for a reasonable time.The other side of our labor legislation has been that affecting the wage-workers who do not work for the State. Here we have acted in three different ways: through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, through the Board of Mediation and Arbitration, and through the Department of Factory Inspection.During the last two years the Board of Mediation and Arbitration have been especially successful. Not only have they succeeded in settling many strikes after they were started, but they have succeeded in preventing a much larger number of strikes before they got fairly under way. Where possible it is always better to mediate before the strike begins thanto try to arbitrate when the fight is on and both sides have grown stubborn and bitter.The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done more than merely gather the statistics, for by keeping in close touch with all the leading labor interests it has kept them informed on countless matters that were really of vital concern to them. Incidentally, one pleasing feature of the work of this bureau has been the steady upward tendency shown during the last four, years both in amount of wages received and in the quantity and steadiness of employment. No other man has benefited so much as the wage-worker by the growth in prosperity during these years.The Factory Inspection Department deals chiefly, of course, with conditions in great cities. One very important phase of its work during the last two years has been the enforcement of the anti-sweatshop law, which is primarily designed to do away with the tenement-house factory. The conditions of life in some of the congested tenement-house districts, notably in New York City, had become such as to demand action by the State. As with other reforms, in order to make it stable and permanent, it had to be gradual. It proceeded by evolution, not revolution. But progress has been steady, and wherever needed it has been radical. Much remains to be done, but the condition of the dwellers in the congested districts has been markedly improved, tothe great benefit not only of themselves, but of the whole community.A word on the general question. In the first place, in addressing an audience like this I do not have to say that the law of life is work, and that work in itself, so far from being a hardship, is a great blessing, provided, always, it is carried on under conditions which preserve a man’s self-respect and which allow him to develop his own character and rear his children so that he and they, as well as the whole community of which he and they are part, may steadily move onward and upward. The idler, rich or poor, is at best a useless and is generally a noxious member of the community. To whom much has been given, from him much is rightfully expected, and a heavy burden of responsibility rests upon the man of means to justify by his actions the social conditions which have rendered it possible for him or his forefathers to accumulate and to keep the property he enjoys. He is not to be excused if he does not render full measure of service to the State and to the community at large. There are many ways in which this service can be rendered,—in art, in literature, in philanthropy, as a statesman, as a solider,—but in some way he is in honor bound to render it, so that benefit may accrue to his brethren who have been less favored by fortune than he has been. In short, he must work, and work not only for himself, but forothers. If he does not work, he fails not only in his duty to the rest of the community, but he fails signally in his duty to himself. There is no need of envying the idle. Ordinarily, we can afford to treat them with impatient contempt; for when they fail to do their duty they fail to get from life the highest and keenest pleasure that life can give.To do our duty—that is the summing up of the whole matter. We must do our duty by ourselves and we must do our duty by our neighbors. Every good citizen, whatever his condition, owes his first service to those who are nearest to him, who are dependent upon him, to his wife, and his children; next he owes his duty to his fellow-citizens, and this duty he must perform both to his individual neighbor and to the State, which is simply a form of expression for all his neighbors combined. He must keep his self-respect and exact the respect of others. It is eminently wise and proper to strive for such leisure in our lives as will give a chance for self-improvement; but woe to the man who seeks, or trains up his children to seek, idleness instead of the chance to do good work. No worse wrong can be done by a man to his children than to teach them to go through life endeavoring to shirk difficulties instead of meeting them and overcoming them. You men here in the West have built up this country not by seeking to avoid work, but by doing it well; not by flinchingfrom every difficulty, but by triumphing over each as it arose and making out of it a stepping-stone to further triumph.We must all learn the two lessons—the lesson of self-help and the lesson of giving help to and receiving help from our brother. There is not a man of us who does not sometimes slip, who does not sometimes need a helping hand; and woe to him who, when the chance comes, fails to stretch out that helping hand. Yet, though each man can and ought thus to be helped at times, he is lost beyond redemption if he becomes so dependent upon outside help that he feels that his own exertions are secondary. Any man at times will stumble, and it is then our duty to lift him up and set him on his feet again; but no man can be permanently carried, for if he expects to be carried he shows that he is not worth carrying.Before us loom industrial problems vast in their importance and their complexity. The last half-century has been one of extraordinary social and industrial development. The changes have been far-reaching; some of them for good, and some of them for evil. It is not given to the wisest of us to see into the future with absolute clearness. No man can be certain that he has found the entire solution of this infinitely great and intricate problem, and yet each man of us, if he would do his duty, must strivemanfully so far as in him lies to help bring about that solution. It is not as yet possible to say what shall be the exact limit of influence allowed the State, or what limit shall be set to that right of individual initiative so dear to the hearts of the American people. All we can say is that the need has been shown on the one hand for action by the people, in their collective capacity through the State, in many matters; that in other matters much can be done by associations of different groups of individuals, as in trade-unions and similar organizations; and that in other matters it remains now as true as ever that final success will be for the man who trusts in the struggle only to his cool, head, his brave heart, and his strong right arm. There are spheres in which the State can properly act, and spheres in which a free field must be given to individual initiative.Though the conditions of life have grown so puzzling in their complexity, though the changes have been so vast, yet we may remain absolutely sure of one thing, that now, as ever in the past, and as it ever will be in the future, there can be no substitute for the elemental virtues, for the elemental qualities to which we allude when we speak of a man as not only a good man but as emphatically a man. We can build up the standard of individual citizenship and individual well-being, we can raise the national standard and make it what it can and shall be made,only by each of us steadfastly keeping in mind that there can be no substitute for the world-old, humdrum, commonplace qualities of truth, justice and courage, thrift, industry, common-sense, and genuine sympathy with and fellow-feeling for others. The nation is the aggregate of the individuals composing it, and each individual American ever raises the nation higher when he so conducts himself as to wrong no man, to suffer no wrong from others, and to show both his sturdy capacity for self-help and his readiness to extend a helping hand to the neighbor sinking under a burden too heavy for him to bear.The one fact which all of us need to keep steadfastly before our eyes is the need that performance should square with promise if good work is to be done, whether in the industrial or in the political world. Nothing does more to promote mental dishonesty and moral insincerity than the habit either of promising the impossible, or of demanding the performance of the impossible, or finally, of failing to keep a promise that has been made; and it makes not the slightest difference whether it is a promise made on the stump or off the stump. Remember that there are two sides to the wrong thus committed. There is, first, the wrong of failing to keep a promise made, and, in the next place, there is the wrong of demanding the impossible, and therefore forcing or permitting weak or unscrupulous mento make a promise which they either know, or should know, can not be kept. No small part of our troubles in dealing with many of the gravest social questions, such as the so-called labor question, the trust question, and others like them, arises from these two attitudes. We can do a great deal when we undertake, soberly, to do the possible. When we undertake the impossible, we too often fail to do anything at all. The success of the law for the taxation of franchises recently enacted in New York State, a measure which has resulted in putting upon the assessment books nearly $200,000,000 worth of property which had theretofore escaped taxation, is an illustration of how much can be accomplished when effort is made along sane and sober lines, with care not to promise the impossible but to make performance square with promise, and with insistence on the fact that honesty is never one-sided, and that in dealing with corporations it is necessary both to do to them and to exact from them full and complete justice. The success of this effort, made in a resolute but also a temperate and reasonable spirit, shows what can be done when such a problem is approached in a sound and healthy manner. It offers a striking contrast to the complete breakdown of the species of crude and violent anti-trust legislation which has been so often attempted, and which has always failed, because of its very crudeness and violence, to make any impressionupon the real and dangerous evils which have excited such just popular resentment.I thank you for listening to me. I have come here to-day not to preach to you, but partly to tell you how these matters look and seem to me, and partly to set forth certain facts which seem to me to show the essential community that there is among all of us who strive in good faith to do our duty as American citizens. No man can do his duty who does not work, and the work may take many different shapes, mental and physical; but of this you can rest assured, that this work can be done well for the nation only when each of us approaches his separate task, not only with the determination to do it, but with the knowledge that his fellow, when he in his turn does his task, has fundamentally the same rights and the same duties, and that while each must work for himself, yet each must also work for the common welfare of all.On the whole, we shall all go up or go down together. Some may go up or go down further than others, but, disregarding special exceptions, the rule is that we must all share in common something of whatever adversity or whatever prosperity is in store for the nation as a whole. In the long run each section of the community will rise or fall as the community rises or falls. If hard times come to the nation, whether as the result of natural causes orbecause they are invited by our own folly, all of us will suffer. Certain of us will suffer more, and others less, but all will suffer somewhat. If, on the other hand, under Providence, our own energy and good sense bring prosperity to us, all will share in that prosperity. We will not all share alike, but something each one of us will get. Let us strive to make the conditions of life such that as nearly as possible each man shall receive the share to which he is honestly entitled and no more; and let us remember at the same time that our efforts must be to build up, rather than to strike down, and that we can best help ourselves, not at the expense of others, but by heartily working with them for the common good of each and all.
AT THE CHICAGO LABOR DAY PICNIC, SEPT. 3, 1900
By far the greatest problem, the most far-reaching in its stupendous importance, is that problem, or rather that group of problems, which we have grown to speak of as the labor question. It must be always a peculiar privilege for any thoughtful public man to address a body of men predominantly composed of wage-workers, for the foundation of our whole social structure rests upon the material and moral well-being, the intelligence, the foresight, the sanity, the sense of duty, and the wholesome patriotism of the wage-worker. This is doubly the case now; for, in addition to each man’s individual action, you have learned the great lesson of acting in combination. It would be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching influences of, and, on the whole, the amount of good done through your associations.
In addressing you, the one thing that I wish to avoid is any mere glittering generality, any mere high-sounding phraseology, and, above all, any appeal whatsoever made in a demagogic spirit, or ina spirit of mere emotionalism. When we come to dealing with our social and industrial needs, remedies, rights and wrongs, a ton of oratory is not worth an ounce of hard-headed, kindly common-sense.
The fundamental law of healthy political life in this great Republic is that each man shall in deed, and not merely in word, be treated strictly on his worth as a man; that each shall do full justice to his fellow, and in return shall exact full justice from him. Each group of men has its special interests; and yet the higher, the broader and deeper interests are those which apply to all men alike; for the spirit of brotherhood in American citizenship, when rightly understood and rightly applied, is more important than aught else. Let us scrupulously guard the special interests of the wage-worker, the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant, giving to each man his due and also seeing that he does not wrong his fellows; but let us keep ever clearly before our minds the great fact that, where the deepest chords are touched, the interests of all are alike and must be guarded alike.
We must beware of any attempt to make hatred in any form the basis of action. Most emphatically each of us needs to stand up for his own rights; all men and all groups of men are bound to retain their self-respect, and, demanding this same respect fromothers, to see that they are not injured and that they have secured to them the fullest liberty of thought and action. But to feed fat a grudge against others, while it may or may not harm them, is sure in the long run to do infinitely greater harm to the man himself.
The more a healthy American sees of his fellow-Americans the greater grows his conviction that our chief troubles come from mutual misunderstanding, from failure to appreciate one another’s point of view. In other words, the great need is fellow-feeling, sympathy, brotherhood; and all this naturally comes by association. It is, therefore, of vital importance that there should be such association. The most serious disadvantage in city life is the tendency of each man to keep isolated in his own little set, and to look upon the vast majority of his fellow-citizens indifferently, so that he soon comes to forget that they have the same red blood, the same loves and hates, the same likes and dislikes, the same desire for good, and the same perpetual tendency, ever needing to be checked and corrected, to lapse from good into evil. If only our people can be thrown together, where they act on a common ground with the same motives, and have the same objects, we need not have much fear of their failing to acquire a genuine respect for one another; and with such respect there must finally come fair play for all.
The first time I ever labored alongside of and got thrown into intimate companionship with men who were mighty men of their hands was in the cattle country of the Northwest. I soon grew to have an immense liking and respect for my associates, and as I knew them, and did not know similar workers in other parts of the country, it seemed to me that the ranch-owner was a great deal better than any Eastern business man, and that the cowpuncher stood on a corresponding altitude compared with any of his brethren in the East.
Well, after a little while I was thrown into close relations with the farmers, and it did not take long before I had moved them up alongside of my beloved cowmen; and I made up my mind thattheyreally formed the backbone of the land. Then, because of certain circumstances, I was thrown into intimate contact with railroad men, and I gradually came to the conclusion that these railroad men were about the finest citizens there were anywhere around. Then, in the course of some official work, I was thrown into close contact with a number of the carpenters, blacksmiths, and men in the building trades, that is, skilled mechanics of a high order, and it was not long before I had them on the same pedestal with the others. By that time it began to dawn on me that the difference was not in the men but in my own point of view, and that if any man is thrown intoclose contact with any large body of our fellow-citizens it is apt to be the man’s own fault if he does not grow to feel for them a very hearty regard and, moreover, grow to understand that, on the great questions that lie at the root of human well-being, he and they feel alike.
Our prime need as a nation is that every American should understand and work with his fellow-citizens, getting into touch with them, so that by actual contact he may learn that fundamentally he and they have the same interests, needs, and aspirations.
Of course different sections of the community have different needs. The gravest questions that are before us, the questions that are for all time, affect us all alike. But there are separate needs that affect separate groups of men, just as there are separate needs that affect each individual man. It is just as unwise to forget the one fact as it is to forget the other. The specialization of our modern industrial life, its high development and complex character, means a corresponding specialization in needs and interests. While we should, so long as we can safely do so, give to each individual the largest possible liberty, a liberty which necessarily includes initiative and responsibility, yet we must not hesitate to interfere whenever it is clearly seen that harm comes from excessive individualism. We can not afford to be empirical one way or the other. In the countrydistricts the surroundings are such that a man can usually work out his own fate by himself to the best advantage. In our cities, or where men congregate in masses, it is often necessary to work in combination, that is, through associations; and here it is that we can see the great good conferred by labor organizations, by trade-unions. Of course, if managed unwisely, the very power of such a union or organization makes it capable of doing much harm; but, on the whole, it would be hard to overestimate the good these organizations have done in the past, and still harder to estimate the good they can do in the future if handled with resolution, forethought, honesty, and sanity.
It is not possible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule, logically perfect, as to when the State shall interfere, and when the individual must be left unhampered and unhelped.
We have exactly the same right to regulate the conditions of life and work in factories and tenement-houses that we have to regulate fire-escapes and the like in other houses. In certain communities the existence of a thoroughly efficient department of factory inspection is just as essential as the establishment of a fire department. How far we shall go in regulating the hours of labor, or the liabilities of employers, is a matter of expediency, and each case must be determined on its own merits, exactlyas it is a matter of expediency to determine what so-called “public utilities†the community shall itself own and what ones it shall leave to private or corporate ownership, securing to itself merely the right to regulate. Sometimes one course is expedient, sometimes the other.
In my own State during the last half-dozen years we have made a number of notable strides in labor legislation, and, with very few exceptions, the laws have worked well. This is, of course, partly because we have not tried to do too much and have proceeded cautiously, feeling our way, and, while always advancing, yet taking each step in advance only when we were satisfied that the step already taken was in the right direction. To invite reaction by unregulated zeal is never wise, and is sometimes fatal.
In New York our action has been along two lines. In the first place, we determined that as an employer of labor the State should set a good example to other employers. We do not intend to permit the people’s money to be squandered or to tolerate any work that is not the best. But we think that, while rigidly insisting upon good work, we should see that there is fair play in return. Accordingly, we have adopted an eight-hour law for the State employees and for all contractors who do State work, and we have also adopted a law requiring that the fair market rate of wages shall be given. I am glad to say that bothmeasures have so far, on the whole, worked well. Of course there have been individual difficulties, mostly where the work is intermittent, as, for instance, among lock-tenders on the canals, where it is very difficult to define what eight hours’ work means. But, on the whole, the result has been good. The practical experiment of working men for eight hours has been advantageous to the State. Poor work is always dear, whether poorly paid or not, and good work is always well worth having; and as a mere question of expediency, aside even from the question of humanity, we find that we can obtain the best work by paying fair wages and permitting the work to go on only for a reasonable time.
The other side of our labor legislation has been that affecting the wage-workers who do not work for the State. Here we have acted in three different ways: through the Bureau of Labor Statistics, through the Board of Mediation and Arbitration, and through the Department of Factory Inspection.
During the last two years the Board of Mediation and Arbitration have been especially successful. Not only have they succeeded in settling many strikes after they were started, but they have succeeded in preventing a much larger number of strikes before they got fairly under way. Where possible it is always better to mediate before the strike begins thanto try to arbitrate when the fight is on and both sides have grown stubborn and bitter.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done more than merely gather the statistics, for by keeping in close touch with all the leading labor interests it has kept them informed on countless matters that were really of vital concern to them. Incidentally, one pleasing feature of the work of this bureau has been the steady upward tendency shown during the last four, years both in amount of wages received and in the quantity and steadiness of employment. No other man has benefited so much as the wage-worker by the growth in prosperity during these years.
The Factory Inspection Department deals chiefly, of course, with conditions in great cities. One very important phase of its work during the last two years has been the enforcement of the anti-sweatshop law, which is primarily designed to do away with the tenement-house factory. The conditions of life in some of the congested tenement-house districts, notably in New York City, had become such as to demand action by the State. As with other reforms, in order to make it stable and permanent, it had to be gradual. It proceeded by evolution, not revolution. But progress has been steady, and wherever needed it has been radical. Much remains to be done, but the condition of the dwellers in the congested districts has been markedly improved, tothe great benefit not only of themselves, but of the whole community.
A word on the general question. In the first place, in addressing an audience like this I do not have to say that the law of life is work, and that work in itself, so far from being a hardship, is a great blessing, provided, always, it is carried on under conditions which preserve a man’s self-respect and which allow him to develop his own character and rear his children so that he and they, as well as the whole community of which he and they are part, may steadily move onward and upward. The idler, rich or poor, is at best a useless and is generally a noxious member of the community. To whom much has been given, from him much is rightfully expected, and a heavy burden of responsibility rests upon the man of means to justify by his actions the social conditions which have rendered it possible for him or his forefathers to accumulate and to keep the property he enjoys. He is not to be excused if he does not render full measure of service to the State and to the community at large. There are many ways in which this service can be rendered,—in art, in literature, in philanthropy, as a statesman, as a solider,—but in some way he is in honor bound to render it, so that benefit may accrue to his brethren who have been less favored by fortune than he has been. In short, he must work, and work not only for himself, but forothers. If he does not work, he fails not only in his duty to the rest of the community, but he fails signally in his duty to himself. There is no need of envying the idle. Ordinarily, we can afford to treat them with impatient contempt; for when they fail to do their duty they fail to get from life the highest and keenest pleasure that life can give.
To do our duty—that is the summing up of the whole matter. We must do our duty by ourselves and we must do our duty by our neighbors. Every good citizen, whatever his condition, owes his first service to those who are nearest to him, who are dependent upon him, to his wife, and his children; next he owes his duty to his fellow-citizens, and this duty he must perform both to his individual neighbor and to the State, which is simply a form of expression for all his neighbors combined. He must keep his self-respect and exact the respect of others. It is eminently wise and proper to strive for such leisure in our lives as will give a chance for self-improvement; but woe to the man who seeks, or trains up his children to seek, idleness instead of the chance to do good work. No worse wrong can be done by a man to his children than to teach them to go through life endeavoring to shirk difficulties instead of meeting them and overcoming them. You men here in the West have built up this country not by seeking to avoid work, but by doing it well; not by flinchingfrom every difficulty, but by triumphing over each as it arose and making out of it a stepping-stone to further triumph.
We must all learn the two lessons—the lesson of self-help and the lesson of giving help to and receiving help from our brother. There is not a man of us who does not sometimes slip, who does not sometimes need a helping hand; and woe to him who, when the chance comes, fails to stretch out that helping hand. Yet, though each man can and ought thus to be helped at times, he is lost beyond redemption if he becomes so dependent upon outside help that he feels that his own exertions are secondary. Any man at times will stumble, and it is then our duty to lift him up and set him on his feet again; but no man can be permanently carried, for if he expects to be carried he shows that he is not worth carrying.
Before us loom industrial problems vast in their importance and their complexity. The last half-century has been one of extraordinary social and industrial development. The changes have been far-reaching; some of them for good, and some of them for evil. It is not given to the wisest of us to see into the future with absolute clearness. No man can be certain that he has found the entire solution of this infinitely great and intricate problem, and yet each man of us, if he would do his duty, must strivemanfully so far as in him lies to help bring about that solution. It is not as yet possible to say what shall be the exact limit of influence allowed the State, or what limit shall be set to that right of individual initiative so dear to the hearts of the American people. All we can say is that the need has been shown on the one hand for action by the people, in their collective capacity through the State, in many matters; that in other matters much can be done by associations of different groups of individuals, as in trade-unions and similar organizations; and that in other matters it remains now as true as ever that final success will be for the man who trusts in the struggle only to his cool, head, his brave heart, and his strong right arm. There are spheres in which the State can properly act, and spheres in which a free field must be given to individual initiative.
Though the conditions of life have grown so puzzling in their complexity, though the changes have been so vast, yet we may remain absolutely sure of one thing, that now, as ever in the past, and as it ever will be in the future, there can be no substitute for the elemental virtues, for the elemental qualities to which we allude when we speak of a man as not only a good man but as emphatically a man. We can build up the standard of individual citizenship and individual well-being, we can raise the national standard and make it what it can and shall be made,only by each of us steadfastly keeping in mind that there can be no substitute for the world-old, humdrum, commonplace qualities of truth, justice and courage, thrift, industry, common-sense, and genuine sympathy with and fellow-feeling for others. The nation is the aggregate of the individuals composing it, and each individual American ever raises the nation higher when he so conducts himself as to wrong no man, to suffer no wrong from others, and to show both his sturdy capacity for self-help and his readiness to extend a helping hand to the neighbor sinking under a burden too heavy for him to bear.
The one fact which all of us need to keep steadfastly before our eyes is the need that performance should square with promise if good work is to be done, whether in the industrial or in the political world. Nothing does more to promote mental dishonesty and moral insincerity than the habit either of promising the impossible, or of demanding the performance of the impossible, or finally, of failing to keep a promise that has been made; and it makes not the slightest difference whether it is a promise made on the stump or off the stump. Remember that there are two sides to the wrong thus committed. There is, first, the wrong of failing to keep a promise made, and, in the next place, there is the wrong of demanding the impossible, and therefore forcing or permitting weak or unscrupulous mento make a promise which they either know, or should know, can not be kept. No small part of our troubles in dealing with many of the gravest social questions, such as the so-called labor question, the trust question, and others like them, arises from these two attitudes. We can do a great deal when we undertake, soberly, to do the possible. When we undertake the impossible, we too often fail to do anything at all. The success of the law for the taxation of franchises recently enacted in New York State, a measure which has resulted in putting upon the assessment books nearly $200,000,000 worth of property which had theretofore escaped taxation, is an illustration of how much can be accomplished when effort is made along sane and sober lines, with care not to promise the impossible but to make performance square with promise, and with insistence on the fact that honesty is never one-sided, and that in dealing with corporations it is necessary both to do to them and to exact from them full and complete justice. The success of this effort, made in a resolute but also a temperate and reasonable spirit, shows what can be done when such a problem is approached in a sound and healthy manner. It offers a striking contrast to the complete breakdown of the species of crude and violent anti-trust legislation which has been so often attempted, and which has always failed, because of its very crudeness and violence, to make any impressionupon the real and dangerous evils which have excited such just popular resentment.
I thank you for listening to me. I have come here to-day not to preach to you, but partly to tell you how these matters look and seem to me, and partly to set forth certain facts which seem to me to show the essential community that there is among all of us who strive in good faith to do our duty as American citizens. No man can do his duty who does not work, and the work may take many different shapes, mental and physical; but of this you can rest assured, that this work can be done well for the nation only when each of us approaches his separate task, not only with the determination to do it, but with the knowledge that his fellow, when he in his turn does his task, has fundamentally the same rights and the same duties, and that while each must work for himself, yet each must also work for the common welfare of all.
On the whole, we shall all go up or go down together. Some may go up or go down further than others, but, disregarding special exceptions, the rule is that we must all share in common something of whatever adversity or whatever prosperity is in store for the nation as a whole. In the long run each section of the community will rise or fall as the community rises or falls. If hard times come to the nation, whether as the result of natural causes orbecause they are invited by our own folly, all of us will suffer. Certain of us will suffer more, and others less, but all will suffer somewhat. If, on the other hand, under Providence, our own energy and good sense bring prosperity to us, all will share in that prosperity. We will not all share alike, but something each one of us will get. Let us strive to make the conditions of life such that as nearly as possible each man shall receive the share to which he is honestly entitled and no more; and let us remember at the same time that our efforts must be to build up, rather than to strike down, and that we can best help ourselves, not at the expense of others, but by heartily working with them for the common good of each and all.
CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIPADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 30, 1900It is a peculiar pleasure to me to come before you to-night to greet you and to bear testimony to the great good that has been done by these Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations throughout the United States. More and more we are getting to recognize the law of combination. This is true of many phases in our industrial life, and it is equally true of the world of philanthropic effort. Nowhere is it, or will it ever be, possible to supplant individual effort, individual initiative; but in addition to this there must be work in combination. More and more this is recognized as true not only in charitable work proper, but in that best form of philanthropic endeavor where we all do good to ourselves by all joining together to do good to one another. This is exactly what is done in your associations.It seems to me that there are several reasons why you are entitled to especial recognition from all who are interested in the betterment of our American socialsystem. First and foremost, your organization recognizes the vital need of brotherhood, the most vital of all our needs here in this great Republic. The existence of a Young Men’s or Young Women’s Christian Association is certain proof that some people at least recognize in practical shape the identity of aspiration and interest, both in things material and in things higher, which with us must be widespread through the masses of our people if our national life is to attain full development. This spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of helping others in the only way which ever ultimately does great good, that is, of helping them to help themselves. Every man of us needs such help at some time or other, and each of us should be glad to stretch out his hand to a brother who stumbles. But while every man needs at times to be lifted up when he stumbles, no man can afford to let himself be carried, and it is worth no man’s while to try thus to carry some one else. The man who lies down, who will not try to walk, has become a mere cumberer of the earth’s surface.These Associations of yours try to make men self-helpful and to help them when they are self-helpful. They do not try merely to carry them, to benefit them for the moment at the cost of their future undoing. This means that all in any way connected with themnot merely retain but increase their self-respect. Any man who takes part in the work of such an organization is benefited to some extent and benefits the community to some extent—of course, always with the proviso that the organization is well managed and is run on a business basis, as well as with a philanthropic purpose.The feeling of brotherhood is necessarily as remote from a patronizing spirit, on the one hand, as from a spirit of envy and malice, on the other. The best work for our uplifting must be done by ourselves, and yet with brotherly kindness for our neighbor. In such work, and therefore in the kind of work done by the Young Men’s Christian Associations, we all stand on the self-respecting basis of mutual benefit and common effort. All of us who take part in any such work, in whatever measure, both receive and confer benefits. This is true of the founder and giver, and it is no less true of every man who takes advantage of what the founder and giver have done. These bodies make us all realize how much we have in common, and how much we can do when we work in common. I doubt if it is possible to overestimate the good done by the mere fact of association with a common interest and for a common end, and when the common interest is high and the common end peculiarly worthy, the good done is of course many times increased.Besides developing this sense of brotherhood, the feeling which breeds respect both for one’s self and for others, your Associations have a peculiar value in showing what can be done by acting in combination without aid from the State. While on the one hand it has become evident that under the conditions of modern life we can not allow an unlimited individualism which may work harm to the community, it is no less evident that the sphere of the State’s action should be extended very cautiously, and so far as possible only where it will not crush out healthy individual initiative. Voluntary action by individuals in the form of associations of any kind for mutual betterment or mutual advantage often offers a way to avoid alike the dangers of State control and the dangers of excessive individualism. This is particularly true of efforts for that most important of all forms of betterment, moral betterment—the moral betterment which usually brings material betterment in its train.It is only in this way, by all of us working together in a spirit of brotherhood, by each doing his part for the betterment of himself and of others, that it is possible for us to solve the tremendous problems with which as a nation we are now confronted. Our industrial life has become so complex, its rate of movement so very rapid, and the specialization and differentiation so intense that we find ourselves faceto face with conditions that were practically unknown in this nation half a century ago. The power of the forces of evil has been greatly increased, and it is necessary for our self-preservation that we should similarly strengthen the forces for good. We are all of us bound to work toward this end. No one of us can do everything, but each of us can do something, and if we work together the aggregate of these somethings will be very considerable.There are, of course, a thousand different ways in which the work can be done, and each man must choose as his tastes and his powers bid him, if he is to do the best of which he is capable. But all the kinds of work must be carried along on certain definite lines if good is to come. All the work must be attempted as on the whole this Young Men’s Christian Association work has been done, that is, in a spirit of good will toward all and not of hatred toward some; in a spirit in which to broad charity for mankind there is added a keen and healthy sanity of mind. We must retain our self-respect, each and all of us, and we must beware alike of mushy sentimentality and of envy and hatred.It ought not to be necessary for me to warn you against mere sentimentality, against the philanthropy and charity which are not merely insufficient but harmful. It is eminently desirable that we should none of us be hard-hearted, but it is no less desirablethat we should not be soft-headed. I really do not know which quality is most productive of evil to mankind in the long run, hardness of heart or softness of head. Naked charity is not what we permanently want. There are of course certain classes, such as young children, widows with large families, or crippled or very aged people, or even strong men temporarily crushed by stunning misfortune, on whose behalf we may have to make a frank and direct appeal to charity, and who can be the recipients of it without any loss of self-respect. But taking us as a whole, taking the mass of Americans, we do not want charity, we do not want sentimentality; we merely want to learn how to act both individually and together in such fashion as to enable us to hold our own in the world, to do good to others according to the measure of our opportunities, and to receive good from others in ways which will not entail on our part any loss of self-respect.It ought to be unnecessary to say that any man who tries to solve the great problems that confront us by an appeal to anger and passion, to ignorance and folly, to malice and envy, is not, and never can be, aught but an enemy of the very people he professes to befriend. In the words of Lowell, it is far safer to adopt “All men up†than “Some men down†for a motto. Speaking broadly, we can not in the long run benefit one man by the downfall of another.Our energies, as a rule, can be employed to much better advantage in uplifting some than in pulling down others. Of course there must sometimes be pulling down, too. We have no business to blink evils, and where it is necessary that the knife should be used, let it be used unsparingly, but let it be used intelligently. When there is need of a drastic remedy, apply it, but do not apply it in the spirit of hate. Normally a pound of construction is worth a ton of destruction.There is degradation to us if we feel envy and malice and hatred toward our neighbor for any cause; and if we envy him merely his riches, we show we have ourselves low ideals. Money is a good thing. It is a foolish affectation to deny it. But it is not the only good thing, and after a certain amount has been amassed it ceases to be the chief even of material good things. It is far better, for instance, to do well a bit of work which is well worth doing, than to have a large fortune. I do not care whether this work is that of an engineer on a great railroad, or captain of a fishing-boat, or foreman in a factory or machine-shop, or section boss, or division chief, or assistant astronomer in an observatory, or a second lieutenant somewhere in China or the Philippines—each has an important piece of work to do, and if he is really interested in it, and has the right stuff in him, he will be altogether too proud ofwhat he is doing, and too intent on doing it well, to waste his time in envying others.From the days when the chosen people received the Decalogue to our own, envy and malice have been recognized as evils, and woe to those who appeal to them. To break the Tenth Commandment is no more moral now than it has been for the past thirty centuries. The vice of envy is not only a dangerous but also a mean vice, for it is always a confession of inferiority. It may provoke conduct which will be fruitful of wrongdoing to others, and it must cause misery to the man who feels it. It will not be any the less fruitful of wrong and misery if, as is so often the case with evil motives, it adopts some high-sounding alias. The truth is that each one of us has in him certain passions and instincts which if they gained the upper hand in his soul would mean that the wild beast had come uppermost in him. Envy, malice, and hatred are such passions, and they are just as bad if directed against a class or group of men as if directed against an individual. What we need in our leaders and teachers is help in suppressing such feelings, help in arousing and directing the feelings that are their extreme opposites. Woe to us as a nation if we ever follow the lead of men who seek not to smother but to inflame the wild-beast qualities of the human heart! In social and industrial no less than in political reform we can dohealthy work, work fit for a free Republic, fit for self-governing democracy, only by treading in the footsteps of Washington and Franklin and Adams and Patrick Henry, and not in the steps of Marat and Robespierre.So far, what I have had to say has dealt mainly with our relations to one another in what may be called the service of the State. But the basis of good citizenship is the home. A man must be a good son, husband, and father, a woman a good daughter, wife, and mother, first and foremost. There must be no shirking of duties in big things or in little things. The man who will not work hard for his wife and his little ones, the woman who shrinks from bearing and rearing many healthy children, these have no place among the men and women who are striving upward and onward. Of course the family is the foundation of all things in the State. Sins against pure and healthy family life are those which of all others are sure in the end to be visited most heavily upon the nation in which they take place. We must beware, moreover, not merely of the great sins, but of the lesser ones which when taken together cause such an appalling aggregate of misery and wrong. The drunkard, the lewd liver, the coward, the liar, the dishonest man, the man who is brutal to or neglectful of parents, wife, or children—of all of these the shrift should be short when we speakof decent citizenship. Every ounce of effort for good in your Associations is part of the ceaseless war against the traits which produce such men. But in addition to condemning the grosser forms of evil we must not forget to condemn also the evils of bad temper, lack of gentleness, nagging and whining fretfulness, lack of consideration for others—the evils of selfishness in all its myriad forms. Each man or woman must remember his or her duty to all around, and especially to those closest and nearest, and such remembrance is the best possible preparation for doing duty for the State as a whole.We ask that these Associations, and the men and women who take part in them, practice the Christian doctrines which are preached from every true pulpit. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life. “Fear the Lord and walk in his ways†and “Love thy neighbor as thyselfâ€â€”when we practice these two precepts, the reign of social and civic righteousness will be close at hand. Christianity teaches not only that each of us must so live as to save his own soul, but that each must also strive to do his whole duty by his neighbor. We can not live up to these teachings as we should; for in the presence of infinite might and infinite wisdom, the strength of the strongest man is but weakness, and the keenest of mortal eyessee but dimly. But each of us can at least strive, as light and strength are given him, toward the ideal. Effort along any one line will not suffice. We must not only be good, but strong. We must not only be high-minded, but brave-hearted. We must think loftily, and we must also work hard. It is not written in the Holy Book that we must merely be harmless as doves. It is also written that we must be wise as serpents. Craft unaccompanied by conscience makes the crafty man a social wild beast who preys on the community and must be hunted out of it. Gentleness and sweetness unbacked by strength and high resolve are almost impotent for good.The true Christian is the true citizen, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero’s deeds, but never looking down on his task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to his own duties as well as to his rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in him lies, so that when death comes he may feel that mankind is in some degree better because he has lived.
ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 30, 1900
It is a peculiar pleasure to me to come before you to-night to greet you and to bear testimony to the great good that has been done by these Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations throughout the United States. More and more we are getting to recognize the law of combination. This is true of many phases in our industrial life, and it is equally true of the world of philanthropic effort. Nowhere is it, or will it ever be, possible to supplant individual effort, individual initiative; but in addition to this there must be work in combination. More and more this is recognized as true not only in charitable work proper, but in that best form of philanthropic endeavor where we all do good to ourselves by all joining together to do good to one another. This is exactly what is done in your associations.
It seems to me that there are several reasons why you are entitled to especial recognition from all who are interested in the betterment of our American socialsystem. First and foremost, your organization recognizes the vital need of brotherhood, the most vital of all our needs here in this great Republic. The existence of a Young Men’s or Young Women’s Christian Association is certain proof that some people at least recognize in practical shape the identity of aspiration and interest, both in things material and in things higher, which with us must be widespread through the masses of our people if our national life is to attain full development. This spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of helping others in the only way which ever ultimately does great good, that is, of helping them to help themselves. Every man of us needs such help at some time or other, and each of us should be glad to stretch out his hand to a brother who stumbles. But while every man needs at times to be lifted up when he stumbles, no man can afford to let himself be carried, and it is worth no man’s while to try thus to carry some one else. The man who lies down, who will not try to walk, has become a mere cumberer of the earth’s surface.
These Associations of yours try to make men self-helpful and to help them when they are self-helpful. They do not try merely to carry them, to benefit them for the moment at the cost of their future undoing. This means that all in any way connected with themnot merely retain but increase their self-respect. Any man who takes part in the work of such an organization is benefited to some extent and benefits the community to some extent—of course, always with the proviso that the organization is well managed and is run on a business basis, as well as with a philanthropic purpose.
The feeling of brotherhood is necessarily as remote from a patronizing spirit, on the one hand, as from a spirit of envy and malice, on the other. The best work for our uplifting must be done by ourselves, and yet with brotherly kindness for our neighbor. In such work, and therefore in the kind of work done by the Young Men’s Christian Associations, we all stand on the self-respecting basis of mutual benefit and common effort. All of us who take part in any such work, in whatever measure, both receive and confer benefits. This is true of the founder and giver, and it is no less true of every man who takes advantage of what the founder and giver have done. These bodies make us all realize how much we have in common, and how much we can do when we work in common. I doubt if it is possible to overestimate the good done by the mere fact of association with a common interest and for a common end, and when the common interest is high and the common end peculiarly worthy, the good done is of course many times increased.
Besides developing this sense of brotherhood, the feeling which breeds respect both for one’s self and for others, your Associations have a peculiar value in showing what can be done by acting in combination without aid from the State. While on the one hand it has become evident that under the conditions of modern life we can not allow an unlimited individualism which may work harm to the community, it is no less evident that the sphere of the State’s action should be extended very cautiously, and so far as possible only where it will not crush out healthy individual initiative. Voluntary action by individuals in the form of associations of any kind for mutual betterment or mutual advantage often offers a way to avoid alike the dangers of State control and the dangers of excessive individualism. This is particularly true of efforts for that most important of all forms of betterment, moral betterment—the moral betterment which usually brings material betterment in its train.
It is only in this way, by all of us working together in a spirit of brotherhood, by each doing his part for the betterment of himself and of others, that it is possible for us to solve the tremendous problems with which as a nation we are now confronted. Our industrial life has become so complex, its rate of movement so very rapid, and the specialization and differentiation so intense that we find ourselves faceto face with conditions that were practically unknown in this nation half a century ago. The power of the forces of evil has been greatly increased, and it is necessary for our self-preservation that we should similarly strengthen the forces for good. We are all of us bound to work toward this end. No one of us can do everything, but each of us can do something, and if we work together the aggregate of these somethings will be very considerable.
There are, of course, a thousand different ways in which the work can be done, and each man must choose as his tastes and his powers bid him, if he is to do the best of which he is capable. But all the kinds of work must be carried along on certain definite lines if good is to come. All the work must be attempted as on the whole this Young Men’s Christian Association work has been done, that is, in a spirit of good will toward all and not of hatred toward some; in a spirit in which to broad charity for mankind there is added a keen and healthy sanity of mind. We must retain our self-respect, each and all of us, and we must beware alike of mushy sentimentality and of envy and hatred.
It ought not to be necessary for me to warn you against mere sentimentality, against the philanthropy and charity which are not merely insufficient but harmful. It is eminently desirable that we should none of us be hard-hearted, but it is no less desirablethat we should not be soft-headed. I really do not know which quality is most productive of evil to mankind in the long run, hardness of heart or softness of head. Naked charity is not what we permanently want. There are of course certain classes, such as young children, widows with large families, or crippled or very aged people, or even strong men temporarily crushed by stunning misfortune, on whose behalf we may have to make a frank and direct appeal to charity, and who can be the recipients of it without any loss of self-respect. But taking us as a whole, taking the mass of Americans, we do not want charity, we do not want sentimentality; we merely want to learn how to act both individually and together in such fashion as to enable us to hold our own in the world, to do good to others according to the measure of our opportunities, and to receive good from others in ways which will not entail on our part any loss of self-respect.
It ought to be unnecessary to say that any man who tries to solve the great problems that confront us by an appeal to anger and passion, to ignorance and folly, to malice and envy, is not, and never can be, aught but an enemy of the very people he professes to befriend. In the words of Lowell, it is far safer to adopt “All men up†than “Some men down†for a motto. Speaking broadly, we can not in the long run benefit one man by the downfall of another.Our energies, as a rule, can be employed to much better advantage in uplifting some than in pulling down others. Of course there must sometimes be pulling down, too. We have no business to blink evils, and where it is necessary that the knife should be used, let it be used unsparingly, but let it be used intelligently. When there is need of a drastic remedy, apply it, but do not apply it in the spirit of hate. Normally a pound of construction is worth a ton of destruction.
There is degradation to us if we feel envy and malice and hatred toward our neighbor for any cause; and if we envy him merely his riches, we show we have ourselves low ideals. Money is a good thing. It is a foolish affectation to deny it. But it is not the only good thing, and after a certain amount has been amassed it ceases to be the chief even of material good things. It is far better, for instance, to do well a bit of work which is well worth doing, than to have a large fortune. I do not care whether this work is that of an engineer on a great railroad, or captain of a fishing-boat, or foreman in a factory or machine-shop, or section boss, or division chief, or assistant astronomer in an observatory, or a second lieutenant somewhere in China or the Philippines—each has an important piece of work to do, and if he is really interested in it, and has the right stuff in him, he will be altogether too proud ofwhat he is doing, and too intent on doing it well, to waste his time in envying others.
From the days when the chosen people received the Decalogue to our own, envy and malice have been recognized as evils, and woe to those who appeal to them. To break the Tenth Commandment is no more moral now than it has been for the past thirty centuries. The vice of envy is not only a dangerous but also a mean vice, for it is always a confession of inferiority. It may provoke conduct which will be fruitful of wrongdoing to others, and it must cause misery to the man who feels it. It will not be any the less fruitful of wrong and misery if, as is so often the case with evil motives, it adopts some high-sounding alias. The truth is that each one of us has in him certain passions and instincts which if they gained the upper hand in his soul would mean that the wild beast had come uppermost in him. Envy, malice, and hatred are such passions, and they are just as bad if directed against a class or group of men as if directed against an individual. What we need in our leaders and teachers is help in suppressing such feelings, help in arousing and directing the feelings that are their extreme opposites. Woe to us as a nation if we ever follow the lead of men who seek not to smother but to inflame the wild-beast qualities of the human heart! In social and industrial no less than in political reform we can dohealthy work, work fit for a free Republic, fit for self-governing democracy, only by treading in the footsteps of Washington and Franklin and Adams and Patrick Henry, and not in the steps of Marat and Robespierre.
So far, what I have had to say has dealt mainly with our relations to one another in what may be called the service of the State. But the basis of good citizenship is the home. A man must be a good son, husband, and father, a woman a good daughter, wife, and mother, first and foremost. There must be no shirking of duties in big things or in little things. The man who will not work hard for his wife and his little ones, the woman who shrinks from bearing and rearing many healthy children, these have no place among the men and women who are striving upward and onward. Of course the family is the foundation of all things in the State. Sins against pure and healthy family life are those which of all others are sure in the end to be visited most heavily upon the nation in which they take place. We must beware, moreover, not merely of the great sins, but of the lesser ones which when taken together cause such an appalling aggregate of misery and wrong. The drunkard, the lewd liver, the coward, the liar, the dishonest man, the man who is brutal to or neglectful of parents, wife, or children—of all of these the shrift should be short when we speakof decent citizenship. Every ounce of effort for good in your Associations is part of the ceaseless war against the traits which produce such men. But in addition to condemning the grosser forms of evil we must not forget to condemn also the evils of bad temper, lack of gentleness, nagging and whining fretfulness, lack of consideration for others—the evils of selfishness in all its myriad forms. Each man or woman must remember his or her duty to all around, and especially to those closest and nearest, and such remembrance is the best possible preparation for doing duty for the State as a whole.
We ask that these Associations, and the men and women who take part in them, practice the Christian doctrines which are preached from every true pulpit. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life. “Fear the Lord and walk in his ways†and “Love thy neighbor as thyselfâ€â€”when we practice these two precepts, the reign of social and civic righteousness will be close at hand. Christianity teaches not only that each of us must so live as to save his own soul, but that each must also strive to do his whole duty by his neighbor. We can not live up to these teachings as we should; for in the presence of infinite might and infinite wisdom, the strength of the strongest man is but weakness, and the keenest of mortal eyessee but dimly. But each of us can at least strive, as light and strength are given him, toward the ideal. Effort along any one line will not suffice. We must not only be good, but strong. We must not only be high-minded, but brave-hearted. We must think loftily, and we must also work hard. It is not written in the Holy Book that we must merely be harmless as doves. It is also written that we must be wise as serpents. Craft unaccompanied by conscience makes the crafty man a social wild beast who preys on the community and must be hunted out of it. Gentleness and sweetness unbacked by strength and high resolve are almost impotent for good.
The true Christian is the true citizen, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero’s deeds, but never looking down on his task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to his own duties as well as to his rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in him lies, so that when death comes he may feel that mankind is in some degree better because he has lived.
END OF VOLUME TWELVE