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We come here to-day to commemorate one of the epochmaking events of the
long struggle for the rights of man - the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our
country - this great Republic - means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real
democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an
economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to
show the best that there is in him. That is why the history of America is now the
central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face hopefully
toward our democracy; and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your
shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your own country, but
the burden of doing well and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of
mankind.
There have been two great crises in our country's history: first, when it was
formed, and then, again, when it was perpetuated; and, in the second of these great
crises - in the time of stress and strain which culminated in the Civil War, on the
outcome of which depended the justification of what had been done earlier, you
men of the Grand Army, you men who fought through the Civil War, not only did
you justify your generation, not only did you render life worth living for our
generation, but you justified the wisdom of Washington and Washington's
colleagues. If this Republic had been founded by them only to be split asunder into
fragments when the strain came, then the judgment of the world would have been
that Washington's work was not worth doing. It was you who crowned
Washington's work, as you carried to achievement the high purpose of Abraham
Lincoln.
Now, with this second period of our history the name of John Brown will be
forever associated; and Kansas was the theater upon which the first act of the second
of our great national life dramas was played. It was the result of the struggle in
Kansas which determined that our country should be in deed as well as in name
devoted to both union and freedom; that the great experiment of democratic
government on a national scale should succeed and not fail. In name we had the
Declaration of Independence in 1776; but we gave the lie by our acts to the words of
the Declaration of Independence until 1865; and words count for nothing except in
so far as they represent acts. This is true everywhere; but, O my friends, it should be
truest of all in political life. A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is
worse in the field of politics. No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on
the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a
pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life. I care for the great deeds of
the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present. I speak of the men of the
past partly that they may be honored by our praise of them, but more that they may
serve as examples for the future.
It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all such struggles, it had also a
dark and terrible side. Very much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as
was inevitable in such a period of revolution, often the same man did both good
and evil. For our great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the United States
as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil, or, at least, to remember it without
bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride only on the good that was accomplished.
Even in ordinary times there are very few of us who do not see the problems of life
as through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious
popular passion, the vision of the best and the bravest is dimmed. Looking back, we
are all of us now able to do justice to the valor and the disinterestedness and the
love of the right, as to each it was given to see the right, shown both by the men of
the North and the men of the South in that contest which was finally decided by the
attitude of the West. We can admire the heroic valor, the sincerity, the self devotion
shown alike by the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray; and
our sadness that such men should have had to fight one another is tempered by the
glad knowledge that ever hereafter their descendants shall be found fighting side by
side, struggling in peace as well as in war for the uplift of their common country. all
alike resolute to raise to the highest pitch of honor and usefulness the nation to
which they all belong. As for the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, they
deserve honor and recognition such as is paid to no other citizens of the Republic;
for to them the republic owes its all; for to them it owes its very existence. It is
because of what you and your comrades did in the dark years that we of to-day walk,
each of us, head erect, and proud that we belong, not to one of a dozen little
squabbling contemptible commonwealths, but to the mightiest nation upon which
the sun shines.
I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic standpoint.
Our interest is primarily in the application to-day of the lessons taught by the contest
of half a century ago. It is of little use for us to pay lip-loyalty to the mighty men of
the past unless we sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present
precisely the qualities which in other crises enable the men of that day to meet those
crises. It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in which well-meaning
people gather to do honor to the man who, in company with John Brown, and
under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved the great problems of the
nineteenth century, while, at the same time, these same good people nervously
shrink from, or frantically denounce, those who are trying to meet the problems of
the twentieth century in the spirit which was accountable for the successful solution
of the problems of Lincoln's time. Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe
most is, of course, Lincoln. Part of our debt to him is because he forecast our present
struggle and saw the way out. He said:
"I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own
condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind."
And again:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor,
and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of
capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
If that remark was original with me, I should be even more strongly denounced
as a Communist agitator than I shall be anyhow. It is Lincoln's. I am only quoting it;
and that is one side; that is the side the capitalist should hear. Now, let the working
man hear his side.
"Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights....
Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of
labor; . . . property is desirable; is a positive good in the world."
And then comes a thoroughly Lincolnlike sentence:
"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him
work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own
shall be safe from violence when built."
It seems to me that, in these words, Lincoln took substantially the attitude that
we ought to take; he showed the proper sense of proportion in his relative estimates
of capital and labor, of human rights and property rights. Above all, in this speech,
as in many others, he taught a lesson in wise kindliness and charity; an
indispensable lesson to us of today. But this wise kindliness and charity never
weakened his arm or numbed his heart. We cannot afford weakly to blind ourselves
to the actual conflict which faces us to-day. The issue is joined, and we must fight or
fail.
In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often
the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the
struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through
it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief
factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle
for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man
or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which
has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in
the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now.
At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who
possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they
possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of
freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special
interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating
the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the
struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and
citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the
commonwealth. That is nothing new. All I ask in civil life is what you fought for in
the Civil War. I ask that civil life be carried on according to the spirit in which the
army was carried on. You never get perfect justice, but the effort in handling the
army was to bring to the front the men who could do the job. Nobody grudged
promotion to Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas, or Sheridan, because they earned it.
The only complaint was when a man got promotion which he did not earn.
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have
two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that
in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special
privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry
him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second,
equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen
the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the
special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it
is fairly entitled. I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean
not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the games, but that I
stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of
opportunity and of reward for equally good service. One word of warning, which, I
think, is hardly necessary in Kansas. When I say I want a square deal for the poor
man, I do not mean that I want a square deal for the man who remains poor because
he has not got the energy to work for himself. If a man who has had a chance will
not make good, then he has got to quit. And you men of the Grand Army, you want
justice for the brave man who fought, and punishment for the coward who shirked
his work. Is not that so?
Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from
the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of
cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now
the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and
methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests
out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every special interest is entitled to
justice - full, fair, and complete - and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by
mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be,
and I most dislike and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have
the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your
salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not
one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in
any public office. The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must
make that promise good But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation.
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that
property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists
that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the
man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the
mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being.
There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity
remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be
done. We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that
people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and
whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is
necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly
or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be
thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially
such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal
sources of corruption in our political affairs.
It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the
capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly,
railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business. I do not wish to see the
nation forced into the ownership of the railways if it can possibly be avoided, and
the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective regulation, which shall be based
on a full knowledge of all the facts, including a physical valuation of property. This
physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed, for fixing rates;
but it is needed as the basis of honest capitalization.
We have come to recognize that franchises should never be granted except for a
limited time, and never without proper provision for compensation to the public. It
is my personal belief that the same kind and degree of control and supervision
which should be exercised over public-service corporations should be extended also
to combinations which control necessaries of life, such as meat, oil, and coal, or
which deal in them on an important scale. I have not doubt that the ordinary man
who has control of them is much like ourselves. I have no doubt he would like to
do well, but I want to have enough supervision to help him realize that desire to do
well. I believe that the officers, and, especially, the directors, of corporations should be
held personally responsible when any corporation breaks the law.
Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which
cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination
has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such
combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public
welfare. For that purpose the Federal Bureau of Corporations is an agency of first
importance. Its powers, and, therefore, its efficiency, as well as that of the Interstate
Commerce Commission, should be largely increased. We have a right to expect
from the Bureau of Corporations and from the Interstate Commerce Commission a
very high grade of public service. We should be as sure of the proper conduct of the
interstate railways and the proper management of interstate business as we are now
sure of the conduct and management of the national banks, and we should have as
effective supervision in one case as in the other. The Hepburn Act, and the
amendment to the act in the shape in which it finally passed Congress at the last
session, represent a long step in advance, and we must go yet further.
There is a wide-spread belief among our people that under the methods of
making tariffs, which have hitherto obtained, the special interests are too
influential. Probably this is true of both the big special interests and the little special
interests. These methods have put a premium on selfishness, and, naturally, the
selfish big interests have gotten more than their smaller, though equally selfish
brothers. The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which the interest of the
whole people shall be all that receives consideration. To this end there must be an
expert tariff commission, wholly removed from the possibility of political pressure
or of improper business influence. Such a commission can find the real difference
between cost of production, which is mainly the difference of labor cost here and
abroad. As fast as its recommendations are made, I believe in revising one schedule
at a time. A general revision of the tariff almost inevitably leads to logrolling and
the subordination of the general public interest to local and special interests.
The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair
money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and
economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.
The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate
power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We
grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when
exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. Again, comrades over
there, take the lesson from your own experience. Not only did you not grudge, but
you gloried in the promotion of the great generals who gained their promotion by
leading the army to victory. So it is with us. We grudge no man a fortune in civil
life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should
have gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be
gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I
know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social
and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have
got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every
dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered - not gambling
in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the
mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in
degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe
in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more
easily collected and far more effective - a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes,
properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size
of the estate. The people of the United States suffer from periodical financial panics to a
degree substantially unknown among the other nations which approach us in
financial strength. There is no reason why we should suffer what they escape. It is of
profound importance that our financial system should be promptly investigated,
and so thoroughly and effectively revised as to make it certain that hereafter our
currency will no longer fail at critical times to meet our needs.
It is hardly necessary for me to repeat that I believe in an efficient army and a
navy large enough to secure for us abroad that respect which is the surest guaranty
of peace. A word of special warning to my fellow citizens who are as progressive as I
hope I am. I want them to keep up their interest in our internal affairs; and I want
them also continually to remember Uncle Sam's interest abroad. Justice and fair
dealing among nations rest upon principles identical with those which control
justice and fair dealing among the individuals of which nations are composed, with
the vital exception that each nation must do its own part in international police
work. If you get into trouble here, you can call for the police; but if Uncle Sam gets
into trouble, he has got to be his own policeman, and I want to see him strong
enough to encourage the peaceful aspirations of other peoples in connection with
us. I believe in national friendships and heartiest good-will to all nations; but
national friendships, like those between men, must be founded on respect as well as
on liking, on forbearance as well as upon trust. I should be heartily ashamed of any
American who did not try to make the American Government act as Justly toward
the other nations in international relations as he himself would act toward any
individual in private relations. I should be heartily ashamed to see us wrong a
weaker power, and I should hang my head forever if we tamely suffered wrong
from a stronger power.
Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere. Conservation means
development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this
generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not
recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that
come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer
here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who
skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer
who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education
of his children leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the
same thing of a nation.
Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all
our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few, and here again is
another case in which I am accused of taking a revolutionary attitude. People forget
now that one hundred years ago there were public men of good character who
advocated the nation selling its public lands in great quantities, so that the nation
could get the most money out of it, and giving it to the men who could cultivate it
for their own uses. We took the proper democratic ground that the land should be
granted in small sections to the men who were actually to till it and live on it. Now,
with the water-power with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face
with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the
resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one
of the fundamental reasons why the special interest should be driven out of politics.
Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual
preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in
importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our
descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land
and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue for it involves the patriotic duty
of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and
vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters,
lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a
most important part.
I have spoken elsewhere also of the great task which lies before the farmers of
the country to get for themselves and their wives and children not only the benefits
of better farming, but also those of better business methods and better conditions of
life on the farm. The burden of this great task will fall, as it should, mainly upon the
great organizations of the farmers themselves. I am glad it will, for I believe they are
all able to handle it. In particular, there are strong reasons why the Departments of
Agriculture of the various States, and the United States Department of Agriculture,
and the agricultural colleges and experiment stations should extend their work to
cover all phases of farm life, instead of limiting themselves. as they have far too
often limited themselves in the past, solely to the question of the production of
crops. And now a special word to the farmer. I want to see him make the farm as
fine a farm as it can be made; and let him remember to see that the improvement
goes on indoors as well as out; let him remember that the farmer's wife should
have her share of thought and attention just as much as the farmer himself.
Nothing is more true than that excess of every kind is followed by reaction; a
fact which should be pondered by reformer and reactionary alike. We are face to face
with new conceptions of the relations of property to human welfare, chiefly because
certain advocates of the rights of property as against the rights of men have been
pushing their claims too far. The man who wrongly holds that every human right is
secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who
rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of
the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require
it.
But I think we may go still further. The right to regulate the use of wealth in the
public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the
terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the
interest of the common good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give
him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible
contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance,
not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies
down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to
see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be a good
citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living,
and hours of labor short enough so that after his day's work is done he will have
time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in
carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the
conditions of life with which we surround them. We need comprehensive
workmen's compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor
and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely
education in booklearning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We
need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers and to extend the use of
safety appliances for our workers in industry and commerce, both within and
between the States. Also, friends, in the interest of the working man himself we
need to set our faces like Mint against mob-violence just as against corporate greed;
against violence and injustice and lawlessness by wage-workers just as much as
against lawless cunning and greed and selfish arrogance of employers. If I could ask
but one thing of my fellow countrymen, my request would be that, whenever they
go in for reform, they remember the two sides, and that they always exact justice
from one side as much as from the other. I have small use for the public servant
who can always see and denounce the corruption of the capitalist, but who cannot
persuade himself, especially before elections, to say a word about lawless
mob-violence. And I have equally small use for the man, be he a judge on the
bench, or editor of a great paper, or wealthy and influential private citizen, who can
see clearly enough and denounce the lawlessness of mob-violence, but whose eyes
are closed so that he is blind when the question is one of corruption in business on a
gigantic scale. Also remember what I said about excess in reformer and reactionary
alike. If the reactionary man, who thinks of nothing but the rights of property, could
have his way, he would bring about a revolution; and one of my chief fears in
connection with progress comes because I do not want to see our people, for lack of
proper leadership, compelled to follow men whose intentions are excellent, but
whose eyes are a little too wild to make it really safe to trust them. Here in Kansas
there is one paper which habitually denounces me as the tool of Wall Street, and at
the same time frantically repudiates the statement that I am a Socialist on the
ground that is an unwarranted slander of the Socialists.
National efficiency has many factors. It is a necessary result of the principle of
conservation widely applied. In the end it will determine our failure or success as a
nation. National efficiency has to do, not only with natural resources and with men,
but is equally concerned with institutions. The State must be made efficient for the
work which concerns only the people of the State; and the nation for that which
concerns all the people. There must remain no neutral ground to serve as a refuge
for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can hire the
vulpine legal cunning which will teach them how to avoid both jurisdictions. It is a
misfortune when the national legislature fails to do its duty in providing a national
remedy, so that the only national activity is the purely negative activity of the
judiciary in forbidding the State to exercise power in the premises.
I do not ask for overcentralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad
and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns our people as a
whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent. I
speak to you here in Kansas exactly as I would speak in New York or Georgia, for the
most vital problems are those which affect us all alike. The national government
belongs to the whole American people, and where the whole American people are
interested, that interest can be guarded effectively only by the national government.
The betterment which we seek must be accomplished, I believe, mainly through the
national government.
The American people are right in demanding that New Nationalism, without
which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The New Nationalism puts the
national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter
confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as
local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from
overdivision of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for
local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring
national activities to a deadlock. This New Nationalism regards the executive power
as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be
interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands
that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class
or section of the people.
I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property as well as
human welfare. Normally, and in the long run, the ends are the same; but
whenever the alternative must be faced, I am for men and not for property, as you
were in the Civil War. I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends;
but I rank dividends below human character. Again, I do not have any sympathy
with the reformer who says he does not care for dividends. Of course, economic
welfare is necessary, for a man must pull his own weight and be able to support his
family. I know well that the reformers must not bring upon the people economic
ruin, or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin. But we must be ready to
face temporary disaster, whether or not brought on by those who will war against us
to the knife. Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its
worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen
fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and
selfish materialism.
If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the
political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our
political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people
whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under
proper safeguards is vitally necessary. The direct primary is a step in this direction, if
it is associated with a corrupt-practices act effective to prevent the advantage of the
man willing recklessly and unscrupulously to spend money over his more honest
competitor. It is particularly important that all moneys received or expended for
campaign purposes should be publicly accounted for, not only after election, but
before election as well. Political action must be made simpler, easier, and freer from
confusion for every citizen. I believe that the prompt removal of unfaithful or
incompetent public servants should be made easy and sure in whatever way
experience shall show to be most expedient in any given class of cases.
One of the fundamental necessities in a representative government such as ours
is to make certain that the men to whom the people delegate their power shall serve
the people by whom they are elected, and not the special interests. I believe that
every national officer, elected or appointed, should be forbidden to perform any
service or receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, from interstate
corporations; and a similar provision could not fail to be useful within the States.
The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress
and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and
material welfare of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and
woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public
affairs - but, first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of
healthy children whom they bring up well - just so far, and no farther, we may
count our civilization a success. We must have - I believe we have already - a
genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation
or administration really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to
secure the social and economic legislation without which any improvement due to
purely moral agitation is necessarily evanescent. Let me again illustrate by a
reference to the Grand Army. You could not have won simply as a disorderly and
disorganized mob. You needed generals; you needed careful administration of the
most advanced type; and a good commissary - the cracker line. You well remember
that success was necessary in many different lines in order to bring about general
success. You had to have the administration at Washington good, just as you had to
have the administration in the field; and you had to have the work of the generals
good. You could not have triumphed without that administration and leadership;
but it would all have been worthless if the average soldier had not had the right
stuff in him. He had to have the right stuff in him, or you could not get it out of
him. In the last analysis, therefore, vitally necessary though it was to have the right
kind of organization and the right kind of generalship, it was even more vitally
necessary that the average soldier should have the fighting edge, the right character.
So it is in our civil life. No matter how honest and decent we are in our private
lives, if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration of
the law, we cannot go forward as a nation. That is imperative; but it must be an
addition to, and not a substitution for, the qualities that make us good citizens. In
the last analysis, the most important elements in any man's career must be the sum
of those qualities which, in the aggregate, we speak of as character. If he has not got
it, then no law that the wit of man can devise, no administration of the law by the
boldest and strongest executive, will avail to help him. We must have the right
kind of character - character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home,
a good father, a good husband - that makes a man a good neighbor. You must have
that, and, then, in addition, you must have the kind of law and the kind of
administration of the law which will give to those qualities in the private citizen
the best possible chance for development. The prime problem of our nation is to get
the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, and our
public men must be genuinely progressive.
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