Eflective Government of the Psalmist, your feet are planted in a large room. The world is all before you, where to choose. When your fathers were graduated at the Univer sity thirty odd years ago, the thoughts of the people were centred principally upon industrial and business activity.
The railroads were opening up the great western country for development, min
ing and manufacture were being stimu lated by new inventions and increased facilities of transportation, leading to cheapened production and improved product; and the rapid progress in facili ties of inter-communication of thought was bringing the ends of the earth into closer touch with each other. The surplus population of Europe poured into our country, and brawny arms from many lands developed our mines and carried on the work of our factories. Plenty was scattered over a smiling land. The way was open for everyone. If the older communities were too crowded, there was room for all in the great West. Industry and enterprise and intelligence found ample scope, wealth was garnered
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ness alone exalteth a nation. In the period of their greatest material progress they paused to consider whether their institutions were securing justice be tween man and man.
The laws of state and nation alike during this period of great industrial progress were moulded to facilitate the conduct of business on a colossal scale. There was nothing more natural. They met the needs of the hour. True, they went beyond those needs, and, in so
doing, they aroused the people to a recognition of the fact that they had gone too far. In the triumphal progress of expanding industry and accumulating wealth the rights of individuals and of classes of individuals who had but an humble share in it, were not always
considered. Here and there occasional peaks of garnered riches rose high above the plain, and like the robber barons of
the Rhineland,
great
masters
of
capital sat enthroned upon them. But their very height lifted them up where all men could see and begin to question how they came there, and whether it
in many fields. The power of co-opera tion and organization in the conduct of business was applied during the past
was for the common weal, that such
thirty years to an extent never before
ing you as you enter upon the drama of
dreamed of.
matured life is to find the means of
Men learned then how
inequalities of condition should exist. So today the great’question confront
over industry
maintaining the true balance between
and commerce could be effected through organization. Commercial empires were formed. Great fortunes were amassed
zen must enjoy in order that he may
far-reaching
a control
in the hands of a few, but prosperity
came also to many. What wonder that materialism became rampant, and that the golden calf was erected for worship in the market places! But the vision of truth and justice has never wholly failed before the eyes of the American people, and in the full flush of their highest prosperity they heard the voice of the national con science reminding them that Righteous
the freedom which the individual citi justly prosper, and the protection of the mass of the people from unjust discrimination in favor of the few. In a country whose government is
based on manhood suffrage, any abuse can continue only until a majority of the people are convinced that it is wrong. Then there is bound to be a change. But whether or not the change proposed to remedy the evil is a wise one and will not result merely in jump
ing out of the frying pan into the fire,
