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    • Chile - 04/16/98 - 4/20/98

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    about nov. SPEECH AT SANTIAGO DE CHILE The Democratic Novement in a Republic I am glad to have the chence to eddress this great TO- public of yours. Chile is a young nation, and its national history io not as long even as the history of the country from which I COMO. But 18 is scretimes forgotten than. taking into. account both colonial history and the history of the several colonies after they became independent nations, there 18 a far longer history for Latin America than for English-speaking mer- ica. Chile's history, as known to people of Puropean stock. began $hree querters of u century before the Poritans landed at Plymouth Rock. The signal valor which the people of the re- public of Chile have 80 repeatedly shown. and the stern and high quality of devotion to an ideal which 1a theirs, was shown by the ancestors of the present Chilesns at least two generations before the New world was sighted by the founders of the colonies which afterwards because the United States. Since Chile has be come a nation. it has made giant strides forward toward grestness: 56370 -2- its people have shown striking efficiency, in war, in government and in business; and the success and eminance of the great und- versity before which I have the honor now to appear afford proof that in addition to material triumphs in peace and war the lead- ors of the Chiloan nation have also aought for and obtained the right to stand abroast of the modern nations whose triumphs have boon those of the spirit and the intellect It hos been suggested to ae that when I spoke to this autience I would find that they would be especially interested in an secount of the political movement in the United states during the last dozen years, the period since I myself became resident of the United States. It is not too such to expect that in addition to furnishing leadership in arts and letters this university shall furnish its proper share of leadership in the politionl and industrial thought of the Chilean nation through- out the lifetime of the generation that is nor cowing to manhood Having in view this fact, and the further fact. that in this age all tho froe peoples everywhere are engaged 1n some shape or way 56371 -3- in working out the great democratic experiment, I shall speak to you vary briefly of certain features of the democratic rovement of the last dozen years in the republic of which I Am 8 citizen. The graddates and the undergradustes, the teachers end the scholars of this university need not be told by BD that the institutions of Government must of necessity change, as all things change, not only in the husan but in the natural world. Change 1s part of the lew of life. What 1s absolutely neces- sary of the wolfure of a people, or indeed of mankind, at one time, may at another time represent what 18 useless or positive- ly homful. :@ osnnot Hfford to let ourselves by withhold from the path of noc coary reform by the dead hard of the past. The great forward movement of mankind can take place only at the cost of breaking sheckles, these sheckles may and have been in- struments of Erowth: but the along change of the years has turned them into obotacles to growth. To fail to strike them from our fettered limbs because they orce, were supports instead or futters is foolish; and it 18 no less foolish to reject supports which 56372 -60 will do good in the present because some time in the future they may turn to fetters; and 10 16 even more foolish to reject all the supports that are needed in the précent because some time in the remote future it may be that no supports whatever will be no- / cessary. hen facing the necessity for change. the headlorg in novation and the here obstruction 7111 tend to fall into france of mind which in their our represent a double error. The rasi- 091, because he finds that what the wise men of the past created no longer serves the needs of the now time, is apt to derive these leaders of the past as obstructionists and reactionaries. The reactionary. on the other hand, is apt to hide his opposition to reform in the present by Ioudly insisting that it is his fealty to the reformers of the past which forbids him to go fur- ther than they nent. ther side is right. Leaders in a re+ Form rovement. if they are wise, will gaage their stempted pro- gress by the ability of the people for whom they are working to receive and profit by their reforms. There can be no permanent 56373 -B- advance if such advance go es for beyond what at the time humanity is capable of receiving. Timrefore radical reformers who also poscess sanity and dommon sense can do most good by pushing the forward movement up to but not beyond the limit which can at the moment receive popular scceptance. A generation or two later. or @ century or two later, when the people have advanced, it 10 necessary for the reformers egain to lead them farther for- ward-- and in such case the spiritnal heirs of the men who bit- terly opposed the original reform Mion 1t was a reform are to be found sealously championing the same reform when years and events have made it 5 bulwark of resotion. Under these circum- stonees sealous redioals who do not understand the past are apt to let their meal to overthrow or modify the existing system make them unjust to the zen who founded that system; and, what is of more practical importance, they are apt to play into the hande of the reactionaries by championing reforms so extreme that if the effect of realization is made it invites and insures resotion. 56374 To scholars trained in a school of learning such as this university, 18 ought not to be and I suppose 10 not mose- eary to say that both of these sttitudes are wrong. You have been taught by what you have listened to in the classroos, and you have been taught by your own researches, that it is equally foolish to condomn the Men of the past because they 61d not 50 as far as you now find it expedient to go. and to refuse to 80 forward in your own day because the leaders of progress in a past generation could not push the forward movement further than they actually did push it. Every modern people that has fought for liberty has followed in the footsteps that Athens trod twenty- four conturies are. Yet the people of Athens were a elave-owning people, to whom slavery seemed part of the eternal order of life To of the modorn democracies would be equally foolish if we feiled to recognize the incalculable service thens rendered to democ- racy, and if we failed to WaY against alavery because Athens as- copted it. Turn to a real to an imaginary comunity, correise Thomas More's "Uptopia". I only wish it were practical for us 56375 -% of the Twentieth Contury to realize soze of the utopian ideals of this fine and highminded old philosopher who lived four cen- turiee ago. But 5'0 would not show ourselves his disciples un- less wemrred against certain parts of his theory. Again in the hintory of the Tuglish-speaking peoples, the ren who put through lagna Charta took the loud in what was then the great movement of liboralism. If any among thom had tried to exbody in that document the principles for which the North moricans of 1776 fought, they would have 4ccomplished nothing whatever, they would have been NO for Nimed of their time that they could have done nothing to bring their own generation a messureable distance forward. In their turn the non of Lincoln's day would have been fulso to the principles of 1776 if they had not in their application gone far beyond the application the man of 1776 made of those principles. And now in our day in ky own country we can be loyal to the principles of Lineoln only by applying them in his epirit to conditions which did not exist in his day; and therefore me must use methods which 1t was 1m- possible for him to devise or to think of. a 56376 -8- During the last dosen years the political novement in the United States has represented merely the effort to put into actual and concrete performance the principles which in the abstract all intelligent men admit to be true. It has represented the of- fort to make the great republic of the North a genuine democracy It 18 the history of 7 democratic movement 1n a republic. When twelve years ago I become President it was as the representative of a carty which when founded under the lead of Abraham Lincoln had been the genuine party of popular rights, of radical democracy. The movement with which during the last twelve years) I have been associated has consisted merely in applying to the conditions of the present day in actual fact. The principles of the founder of the Republican Party, Abral. Lincoln, and in bringing to the task before us the purposes not only of Abraham Lineoln but of Thomas Jefferson the founder of the Democratic Party. The poli- Moal and financial leaders of the old parties ctill paid lip service to these principles and purposes: but it was lip service merely; and these leaders resented as party disloyalty the effort to trenslate into deeds the exsot words which they were only too 56377 -:- glad to use as long as they remained words only. I believe that the offort to which 1, and those associated with me are committed, is in its encence chiefly an effort to turn words into deeds, and that it is emphatically a movement in the interest of the pluin people, in the interest of the rank and file of both the old per- ties, as ogninst the political and financial machines which have dominated them. The power of names 18 great: TO, of the new nove- sent care nothing for them, wheress 30 care infinitely for the facts which the names symbolise: and one of the shief obstacles in our path 18 the adroitness with which the leaders of resotion have used loyalty to a deed name a@ a fettsh wherewith to keep the rank and file of their followers in line against their own living in- terests. . Following the Civil War there had come R period of (R- treordinary industrial development in the United States. They's produced such sweeping economic changes that we were obliged as 0 people to look our political theories equarely in the face, and 880 whether these inherited theories sctually fitted the new facts. 56378 -10- In the early days of the Fineteenth Century. when ermment almost overywhere was in the hands of the few, the rights of the many would best be secured and entrenched abuses overthroum by restricting the use of the powers of government and by claim ing for every man the exercise of on elmost unrestricted indivi- dealism. The leaders of the democratic movement in the United States at that time had elempioned these two principles. A century later the growth of the country in wealth and industry had resulted in the creation of conditions which conclusively showed that in order to Mohieve the objects which the early do- mocratic leaders had at heart. it was necessary to reverse the processes by which theme early democratic leaders thought the or jeets could ve achieved. It was necessary to increase the power of the government and to control individual sotion in order to secure the rights of the many against the GROYMOUD power ameased in finance and industry by a few zon operating through a system of uncontrolled individualism. The ultra-conservatives, the re- actionaries, used the democratic shibboleths of a century proviess in order to provent progress in true democracy, in order to prevent 56379 -21- the democratic advance. One of the standbys of the reactionaries was the judi- ciary. In the days when the people suffered from the tyranny of irresponsible power. 1t was absolutely vital that the courtsshould be independent of this irresponsible power. 00 that they should possess conplete independence in the exercise of their judicial functions. Accordingly the independence of the judiciary be- came one of the vital features of the democratic programms. But during the last half of the Eincteenth Century the leaders of TO- sotion in the United itates, political and financial alike? grad- uslly grow to recognise in the judiciary their rost powerful po- tential ally. There was very little actual corruption on the bench; on the contrary, our judges have been on the whole both able and upright public servants, standing on a level probably higher than that of any other civil servants of the government. AB long as they confine themselves to the exercise of judicial functions they perform their daties at least as well as, probably better than other public servents perform theirs. But thair whole training. and the alcerness of their position on the bench, 56380 -12- provent their having, 88 S rule, any real knowledge ef. - stending sympathy vis, the lives and needs of the ordinary MM. working nomel Voiler. There are many honorable exceptions; but this 18 the rale, In consequence their tendersy 1a to DO altra- conservative in all matters where the fancied rights of property ore invoked on behalf of the big privileged interests @@ against human rights, as against the ordinary rights of ordinary non and romen. The reactionaries in business, and the bosses in polities. thus found these well-meuring and upright judges instincte already fashioned for their use. Their purposes were served by gradually clothing the judges with non-judicial functions. including 45- pecially the right to interpret it, and authoritatively and finally to declare the reaning of the supreme and fundemental law of the land. the constitution. This made them in reality irrespensible lawmskers, with a strong natural bias against every species of reform legislation for social end industrial relief and fair play. then by their decisions the judges thns created a system of lew hostile to popular interest, the resctionaries defended thes, and insisted that they be keyt irresponsible, denouncing as OR assemlt 56381 -18- upon the independence of the judges all effort to give to the poople themselves the power to make their own lews for themselves which necessarily means the power finally to interpret end to say what these laws really are. The great privileged interests work through a sombi- nation of politics and business. They were favored by the as- tions of many son who had no intention of favoring them. As everywhere. and throughout all history, the foolish ultra-radiesls and the spostles of a mock redicalism showed thomselves to be the most efficient tools and instruments of resction. Many of the so-ealled redicals who may sincerely have thought themselves such were in reality nothing whatever but well-meaning feelish resotioneries who either advocated impossible remedies or sought relief from present-day evils by the vain effort to go back to conditions that were DO dead that they sould not by any poesibil- ity be revived. Others attempted to meet real evile without taking the trouble to diagnese what those evils were. For example, the conditions of modern life make 1t es- sential that men should work with consentrated capital. There 56382 -14- must be big business in this ora of world business, in this era of stem and electricity. Yet very great evils have come through parmitting the uncontrolled concentration of big business is the hands of a few mon. whose enormous wealth became fermidable to the body politic because it was in entirely irrespensible hands The mock radiouls, both the sincere, usually the rural, tory, and the mon who wanted to make believe that he was 8 redical without accomplishing anythine. attempted to meet this situation by break- inc nr all B2: business units. This was attempted not serely as regards nonopolies, but as regards every great corporation of such sixe as to got the maximum of efficiency. The offort has of course proved futile. If not futile it would prove rischievous, There 18 no use in trying so TO- verse the wheels of economic development. That is necessary is to recognize the fact that biz business has come to stay, and @@ to control 1t and supervise it as to provent there being any 1a- proper advantuge taken by big business Be the expense of small business. Moreover we and insiet upon the principle of cooper- ation, of profit *hwring and partnership as regards employer and 56383 1 -10- employee. 80 that the prosperity coming to the big business organ- ization shell immessureable degree and with some approximation to justice be divided among all the sen in the business. I shall not attompt to tell you in detail our problems. for the details would not prove interesting to you. In barest outline, they were in the first place to restore the government to the people 00 as to make the fact correspond with the theory. and in the second place and even more important to use the gov- ermental power when thus restored 80 as to make us an industrial and economic as well 88 & political democracy. As with all such movements, very great obstasles wore encountere', and we had nearly as such to fear from the unwise and extreme sealots as from the tories. the bourbons, the resctionaries. To also had to encounter that curious blindness to the lessons of the past which seed 80 difficult to reconcile with any knowledge of the past. I suppose that most competent historism are now agreed that if during the thirty years or holf century preceding the French Revolution the government had been administered as Turgo for a short while tried to administer it, there sould 56384 -16- either have been no revolution or else it would have been kept - within such bounds that its results would have been almost wholly boneficert. But as 1t sotually turned out, reform was denied until the demand for it came with a buret of such pent-up fury as to bring in its truin almost 08 many disactors 08 benefits, one recult was to throw the nation which load European therght into S process of governmental growth by convulsion, in which spasue of furious excess in rudical advance was succesded by spases of furious excess in tory reaction. In our own MOVEMENT during the lant ten years we have baen on a emall soale the exhibition of all the passions and Neen- ness and follies which were witnessed on a larger scale in such movemento as the French Revolution, in such movements 80 the struggle which brought sbout the abolition of altvery in the United States. The zealots of an unwise and extreme redicalism were al- most ao unhoalthy allies as were the hypocrites who professed al- legiance to the forward movement serely to advance their own for- tunes. In the other hand, the ultra-resctionaries who set their faces against all reform played into the hands of these sealots 56385 -17- and rendered doubly difficult the task of the sane radicals. It is these sane radicals alone who are in reality the wise comer- vatives for the very reason that they are the wise progressives. The wish to substitute social conscioneness-- the consciousness that recognizes the duty of the individual towards all his fel- 10w8-- for a malign class consciousness, whether presched in the interest of the working man or practiced in the interest of the cupitalist. The reactionary who upholds an anoient abuse tenis to excite a feeling which will destroy all that exists, whether good or ovil; and the zealot ho in his assaults confounds good and evil tends to make the supporters of the good also the sup- porters of the evil. June radicals rish to go forward and meet the new conditions by changing governmental and business action 80 far and only 80 far, as is necessary. Because they war against svil, for that very reason, they are a mirious not ignor- antly to tear down anything that is 8000 There are erises in human affairs when the only safe man to follow 10 the extremist. But under normal conditions the leaders of a great movement have to curb the son who wish to push 56386 -18- too far in front exactly as they whip forward those who decire to lag too far in the rear. The great perment ######### in the forward movements of rankind have always been achieved by men whose sane idealism was both inspired by lofty devotion and guided by robust o ommon sense. In ry own land it was this 60m bination which preeminently marked both Teshington and LincoIn Probably in any such movement it 18 inevitable that the nioneers should at Mrst meet defeat. Jo of the United states who are the pionsers in this movement shared the comon lot. Dut we have nothing to regret, for in our case we have driven even our bitterest opponents to a frantic 11p loyalty to- ward the very principles which they started by confemning. There was in the United States d historic party. the one to which I then belonged, which if true to its origin would have championed without exception every single one of the reforms which the Pro- gressives have championed. Every single one of these reforms can find its justification in the principles and policies of Abraham Lincoln. All that we of the second decade of the Toon- tieth Century have done is to apply the conditions of our day 56387 I -19- the principles which Abraham Lincoln fifty years previously had applied to the conditions of Lis day. 10 did not desire to 80 into any political or economic revolution. 00 do not believe in revolutions. But we most emphatically do believe that the only way to prevent violent revolution is to provide for pesseful growth and evolution in the right direction. are not Socialists. for we do not believe in class conscionsness, and we as little believe in mere doctrinsire dog- mation about collectiveism as we believe in mero doctrinaire dog- matima about individualism. But we do believe that the only way to prevent the growth of a party founded on class consciousness is to secure the triumph in the community of nome party founded on the ideal of social consciousness. Such a party must in good faith assume that each man is in very truth his brother's keeper. It must act in no spirit of vindictive hostility even toward wrongdoers. When necessary it must punish them; but where this can be avoided it must be avoided, and the end sought for obtained by changing the conditions which have brought about the wrongdeing. Ye believe in property 56388 -20- rights as infispensible 80 the sivancement of human rights: but where they are twisted into an obstaole to the advancement of human rights, then we are for human rights as against them. To believe in using the collective power of the people. through their government, not to hinder the growth of individualism or to interfere with individual netivity, but 30 80 regulate the possibilities of that growth as to give to the largest number of individuals possible the yower to develop their own lives with the utmost freedom along their several lines, provided always that they do not wrongly interfere with the lives of their follows. 56389

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    "ocrText": "about nov.\nSPEECH AT SANTIAGO DE CHILE\nThe Democratic Novement in a Republic\nI am glad to have the chence to eddress this great TO-\npublic of yours. Chile is a young nation, and its national\nhistory io not as long even as the history of the country from\nwhich I COMO. But 18 is scretimes forgotten than. taking into.\naccount both colonial history and the history of the several\ncolonies after they became independent nations, there 18 a far\nlonger history for Latin America than for English-speaking mer-\nica. Chile's history, as known to people of Puropean stock.\nbegan $hree querters of u century before the Poritans landed at\nPlymouth Rock. The signal valor which the people of the re-\npublic of Chile have 80 repeatedly shown. and the stern and\nhigh quality of devotion to an ideal which 1a theirs, was shown\nby the ancestors of the present Chilesns at least two generations\nbefore the New world was sighted by the founders of the colonies\nwhich afterwards because the United States. Since Chile has be\ncome a nation. it has made giant strides forward toward grestness:\n56370\n-2-\nits people have shown striking efficiency, in war, in government\nand in business; and the success and eminance of the great und-\nversity before which I have the honor now to appear afford proof\nthat in addition to material triumphs in peace and war the lead-\nors of the Chiloan nation have also aought for and obtained the\nright to stand abroast of the modern nations whose triumphs have\nboon those of the spirit and the intellect\nIt hos been suggested to ae that when I spoke to this\nautience I would find that they would be especially interested\nin an secount of the political movement in the United states\nduring the last dozen years, the period since I myself became\nresident of the United States. It is not too such to expect\nthat in addition to furnishing leadership in arts and letters\nthis university shall furnish its proper share of leadership in\nthe politionl and industrial thought of the Chilean nation through-\nout the lifetime of the generation that is nor cowing to manhood\nHaving in view this fact, and the further fact. that in this age\nall tho froe peoples everywhere are engaged 1n some shape or way\n56371\n-3-\nin working out the great democratic experiment, I shall speak to\nyou vary briefly of certain features of the democratic rovement\nof the last dozen years in the republic of which I Am 8 citizen.\nThe graddates and the undergradustes, the teachers end\nthe scholars of this university need not be told by BD that the\ninstitutions of Government must of necessity change, as all\nthings change, not only in the husan but in the natural world.\nChange 1s part of the lew of life. What 1s absolutely neces-\nsary of the wolfure of a people, or indeed of mankind, at one\ntime, may at another time represent what 18 useless or positive-\nly homful. :@ osnnot Hfford to let ourselves by withhold from\nthe path of noc coary reform by the dead hard of the past. The\ngreat forward movement of mankind can take place only at the\ncost of breaking sheckles, these sheckles may and have been in-\nstruments of Erowth: but the along change of the years has turned\nthem into obotacles to growth. To fail to strike them from our\nfettered limbs because they orce, were supports instead or futters\nis foolish; and it 18 no less foolish to reject supports which\n56372\n-60\nwill do good in the present because some time in the future they\nmay turn to fetters; and 10 16 even more foolish to reject all\nthe supports that are needed in the précent because some time in\nthe remote future it may be that no supports whatever will be no-\n/\ncessary.\nhen facing the necessity for change. the headlorg in\nnovation and the here obstruction 7111 tend to fall into france\nof mind which in their our represent a double error. The rasi-\n091, because he finds that what the wise men of the past created\nno longer serves the needs of the now time, is apt to derive\nthese leaders of the past as obstructionists and reactionaries.\nThe reactionary. on the other hand, is apt to hide his opposition\nto reform in the present by Ioudly insisting that it is his\nfealty to the reformers of the past which forbids him to go fur-\nther than they nent. ther side is right. Leaders in a re+\nForm rovement. if they are wise, will gaage their stempted pro-\ngress by the ability of the people for whom they are working to\nreceive and profit by their reforms. There can be no permanent\n56373\n-B-\nadvance if such advance go es for beyond what at the time humanity\nis capable of receiving. Timrefore radical reformers who also\nposcess sanity and dommon sense can do most good by pushing the\nforward movement up to but not beyond the limit which can at the\nmoment receive popular scceptance. A generation or two later.\nor @ century or two later, when the people have advanced, it\n10 necessary for the reformers egain to lead them farther for-\nward-- and in such case the spiritnal heirs of the men who bit-\nterly opposed the original reform Mion 1t was a reform are to\nbe found sealously championing the same reform when years and\nevents have made it 5 bulwark of resotion. Under these circum-\nstonees sealous redioals who do not understand the past are apt\nto let their meal to overthrow or modify the existing system\nmake them unjust to the zen who founded that system; and, what\nis of more practical importance, they are apt to play into the\nhande of the reactionaries by championing reforms so extreme\nthat if the effect of realization is made it invites and insures\nresotion.\n56374\nTo scholars trained in a school of learning such as\nthis university, 18 ought not to be and I suppose 10 not mose-\neary to say that both of these sttitudes are wrong. You have\nbeen taught by what you have listened to in the classroos, and\nyou have been taught by your own researches, that it is equally\nfoolish to condomn the Men of the past because they 61d not 50\nas far as you now find it expedient to go. and to refuse to 80\nforward in your own day because the leaders of progress in a\npast generation could not push the forward movement further than\nthey actually did push it. Every modern people that has fought\nfor liberty has followed in the footsteps that Athens trod twenty-\nfour conturies are. Yet the people of Athens were a elave-owning\npeople, to whom slavery seemed part of the eternal order of life\nTo of the modorn democracies would be equally foolish if we feiled\nto recognize the incalculable service thens rendered to democ-\nracy, and if we failed to WaY against alavery because Athens as-\ncopted it. Turn to a real to an imaginary comunity, correise\nThomas More's \"Uptopia\". I only wish it were practical for us\n56375\n-%\nof the Twentieth Contury to realize soze of the utopian ideals\nof this fine and highminded old philosopher who lived four cen-\nturiee ago. But 5'0 would not show ourselves his disciples un-\nless wemrred against certain parts of his theory. Again in\nthe hintory of the Tuglish-speaking peoples, the ren who put\nthrough lagna Charta took the loud in what was then the great\nmovement of liboralism. If any among thom had tried to exbody\nin that document the principles for which the North moricans\nof 1776 fought, they would have 4ccomplished nothing whatever,\nthey would have been NO for Nimed of their time that they could\nhave done nothing to bring their own generation a messureable\ndistance forward. In their turn the non of Lincoln's day would\nhave been fulso to the principles of 1776 if they had not in\ntheir application gone far beyond the application the man of\n1776 made of those principles. And now in our day in ky own\ncountry we can be loyal to the principles of Lineoln only by\napplying them in his epirit to conditions which did not exist\nin his day; and therefore me must use methods which 1t was 1m-\npossible for him to devise or to think of.\na\n56376\n-8-\nDuring the last dosen years the political novement in\nthe United States has represented merely the effort to put into\nactual and concrete performance the principles which in the abstract\nall intelligent men admit to be true. It has represented the of-\nfort to make the great republic of the North a genuine democracy\nIt 18 the history of 7 democratic movement 1n a republic. When\ntwelve years ago I become President it was as the representative\nof a carty which when founded under the lead of Abraham Lincoln\nhad been the genuine party of popular rights, of radical democracy.\nThe movement with which during the last twelve years) I have been\nassociated has consisted merely in applying to the conditions of\nthe present day in actual fact. The principles of the founder\nof the Republican Party, Abral. Lincoln, and in bringing to the\ntask before us the purposes not only of Abraham Lineoln but of\nThomas Jefferson the founder of the Democratic Party. The poli-\nMoal and financial leaders of the old parties ctill paid lip\nservice to these principles and purposes: but it was lip service\nmerely; and these leaders resented as party disloyalty the effort\nto trenslate into deeds the exsot words which they were only too\n56377\n-:-\nglad to use as long as they remained words only. I believe that\nthe offort to which 1, and those associated with me are committed,\nis in its encence chiefly an effort to turn words into deeds, and\nthat it is emphatically a movement in the interest of the pluin\npeople, in the interest of the rank and file of both the old per-\nties, as ogninst the political and financial machines which have\ndominated them. The power of names 18 great: TO, of the new nove-\nsent care nothing for them, wheress 30 care infinitely for the\nfacts which the names symbolise: and one of the shief obstacles in\nour path 18 the adroitness with which the leaders of resotion have\nused loyalty to a deed name a@ a fettsh wherewith to keep the rank\nand file of their followers in line against their own living in-\nterests.\n.\nFollowing the Civil War there had come R period of (R-\ntreordinary industrial development in the United States. They's\nproduced such sweeping economic changes that we were obliged as 0\npeople to look our political theories equarely in the face, and\n880 whether these inherited theories sctually fitted the new facts.\n56378\n-10-\nIn the early days of the Fineteenth Century. when\nermment almost overywhere was in the hands of the few, the rights\nof the many would best be secured and entrenched abuses overthroum\nby restricting the use of the powers of government and by claim\ning for every man the exercise of on elmost unrestricted indivi-\ndealism. The leaders of the democratic movement in the United\nStates at that time had elempioned these two principles.\nA\ncentury later the growth of the country in wealth and industry\nhad resulted in the creation of conditions which conclusively\nshowed that in order to Mohieve the objects which the early do-\nmocratic leaders had at heart. it was necessary to reverse the\nprocesses by which theme early democratic leaders thought the or\njeets could ve achieved. It was necessary to increase the power\nof the government and to control individual sotion in order to\nsecure the rights of the many against the GROYMOUD power ameased\nin finance and industry by a few zon operating through a system\nof uncontrolled individualism. The ultra-conservatives, the re-\nactionaries, used the democratic shibboleths of a century proviess\nin order to provent progress in true democracy, in order to prevent\n56379\n-21-\nthe democratic advance.\nOne of the standbys of the reactionaries was the judi-\nciary. In the days when the people suffered from the tyranny of\nirresponsible power. 1t was absolutely vital that the courtsshould\nbe independent of this irresponsible power. 00 that they should\npossess conplete independence in the exercise of their judicial\nfunctions. Accordingly the independence of the judiciary be-\ncame one of the vital features of the democratic programms. But\nduring the last half of the Eincteenth Century the leaders of TO-\nsotion in the United itates, political and financial alike? grad-\nuslly grow to recognise in the judiciary their rost powerful po-\ntential ally. There was very little actual corruption on the\nbench; on the contrary, our judges have been on the whole both\nable and upright public servants, standing on a level probably\nhigher than that of any other civil servants of the government.\nAB long as they confine themselves to the exercise of judicial\nfunctions they perform their daties at least as well as, probably\nbetter than other public servents perform theirs. But thair\nwhole training. and the alcerness of their position on the bench,\n56380\n-12-\nprovent their having, 88 S rule, any real knowledge ef. -\nstending sympathy vis, the lives and needs of the ordinary MM.\nworking nomel Voiler. There are many honorable exceptions; but\nthis 18 the rale, In consequence their tendersy 1a to DO altra-\nconservative in all matters where the fancied rights of property\nore invoked on behalf of the big privileged interests @@ against\nhuman rights, as against the ordinary rights of ordinary non and\nromen. The reactionaries in business, and the bosses in polities.\nthus found these well-meuring and upright judges instincte already\nfashioned for their use. Their purposes were served by gradually\nclothing the judges with non-judicial functions. including 45-\npecially the right to interpret it, and authoritatively and finally\nto declare the reaning of the supreme and fundemental law of the\nland. the constitution. This made them in reality irrespensible\nlawmskers, with a strong natural bias against every species of\nreform legislation for social end industrial relief and fair play.\nthen by their decisions the judges thns created a system of lew\nhostile to popular interest, the resctionaries defended thes, and\ninsisted that they be keyt irresponsible, denouncing as OR assemlt\n56381\n-18-\nupon the independence of the judges all effort to give to the\npoople themselves the power to make their own lews for themselves\nwhich necessarily means the power finally to interpret end to say\nwhat these laws really are.\nThe great privileged interests work through a sombi-\nnation of politics and business. They were favored by the as-\ntions of many son who had no intention of favoring them. As\neverywhere. and throughout all history, the foolish ultra-radiesls\nand the spostles of a mock redicalism showed thomselves to be the\nmost efficient tools and instruments of resction. Many of the\nso-ealled redicals who may sincerely have thought themselves\nsuch were in reality nothing whatever but well-meaning feelish\nresotioneries who either advocated impossible remedies or sought\nrelief from present-day evils by the vain effort to go back to\nconditions that were DO dead that they sould not by any poesibil-\nity be revived. Others attempted to meet real evile without\ntaking the trouble to diagnese what those evils were.\nFor example, the conditions of modern life make 1t es-\nsential that men should work with consentrated capital. There\n56382\n-14-\nmust be big business in this ora of world business, in this era\nof stem and electricity. Yet very great evils have come through\nparmitting the uncontrolled concentration of big business is the\nhands of a few mon. whose enormous wealth became fermidable to\nthe body politic because it was in entirely irrespensible hands\nThe mock radiouls, both the sincere, usually the rural, tory, and\nthe mon who wanted to make believe that he was 8 redical without\naccomplishing anythine. attempted to meet this situation by break-\ninc nr all B2: business units. This was attempted not serely\nas regards nonopolies, but as regards every great corporation of\nsuch sixe as to got the maximum of efficiency.\nThe offort has of course proved futile. If not futile\nit would prove rischievous, There 18 no use in trying so TO-\nverse the wheels of economic development. That is necessary is\nto recognize the fact that biz business has come to stay, and @@\nto control 1t and supervise it as to provent there being any 1a-\nproper advantuge taken by big business Be the expense of small\nbusiness. Moreover we and insiet upon the principle of cooper-\nation, of profit *hwring and partnership as regards employer and\n56383\n1\n-10-\nemployee. 80 that the prosperity coming to the big business organ-\nization shell immessureable degree and with some approximation to\njustice be divided among all the sen in the business.\nI shall not attompt to tell you in detail our problems.\nfor the details would not prove interesting to you. In barest\noutline, they were in the first place to restore the government\nto the people 00 as to make the fact correspond with the theory.\nand in the second place and even more important to use the gov-\nermental power when thus restored 80 as to make us an industrial\nand economic as well 88 & political democracy. As with all such\nmovements, very great obstasles wore encountere', and we had nearly\nas such to fear from the unwise and extreme sealots as from the\ntories. the bourbons, the resctionaries.\nTo also had to encounter that curious blindness to the\nlessons of the past which seed 80 difficult to reconcile with any\nknowledge of the past. I suppose that most competent historism\nare now agreed that if during the thirty years or holf century\npreceding the French Revolution the government had been administered\nas Turgo for a short while tried to administer it, there sould\n56384\n-16-\neither have been no revolution or else it would have been kept\n-\nwithin such bounds that its results would have been almost wholly\nboneficert. But as 1t sotually turned out, reform was denied\nuntil the demand for it came with a buret of such pent-up fury\nas to bring in its truin almost 08 many disactors 08 benefits,\none recult was to throw the nation which load European therght\ninto S process of governmental growth by convulsion, in which\nspasue of furious excess in rudical advance was succesded by\nspases of furious excess in tory reaction.\nIn our own MOVEMENT during the lant ten years we have\nbaen on a emall soale the exhibition of all the passions and Neen-\nness and follies which were witnessed on a larger scale in such\nmovemento as the French Revolution, in such movements 80 the\nstruggle which brought sbout the abolition of altvery in the United\nStates. The zealots of an unwise and extreme redicalism were al-\nmost ao unhoalthy allies as were the hypocrites who professed al-\nlegiance to the forward movement serely to advance their own for-\ntunes. In the other hand, the ultra-resctionaries who set their\nfaces against all reform played into the hands of these sealots\n56385\n-17-\nand rendered doubly difficult the task of the sane radicals.\nIt\nis these sane radicals alone who are in reality the wise comer-\nvatives for the very reason that they are the wise progressives.\nThe wish to substitute social conscioneness-- the consciousness\nthat recognizes the duty of the individual towards all his fel-\n10w8-- for a malign class consciousness, whether presched in the\ninterest of the working man or practiced in the interest of the\ncupitalist. The reactionary who upholds an anoient abuse tenis\nto excite a feeling which will destroy all that exists, whether\ngood or ovil; and the zealot ho in his assaults confounds good\nand evil tends to make the supporters of the good also the sup-\nporters of the evil. June radicals rish to go forward and meet\nthe new conditions by changing governmental and business action\n80 far and only 80 far, as is necessary. Because they war\nagainst svil, for that very reason, they are a mirious not ignor-\nantly to tear down anything that is 8000\nThere are erises in human affairs when the only safe\nman to follow 10 the extremist. But under normal conditions the\nleaders of a great movement have to curb the son who wish to push\n56386\n-18-\ntoo far in front exactly as they whip forward those who decire\nto lag too far in the rear. The great perment ######### in\nthe forward movements of rankind have always been achieved by\nmen whose sane idealism was both inspired by lofty devotion and\nguided by robust o ommon sense. In ry own land it was this 60m\nbination which preeminently marked both Teshington and LincoIn\nProbably in any such movement it 18 inevitable that\nthe nioneers should at Mrst meet defeat.\nJo of the United\nstates who are the pionsers in this movement shared the comon\nlot. Dut we have nothing to regret, for in our case we have\ndriven even our bitterest opponents to a frantic 11p loyalty to-\nward the very principles which they started by confemning. There\nwas in the United States d historic party. the one to which I\nthen belonged, which if true to its origin would have championed\nwithout exception every single one of the reforms which the Pro-\ngressives have championed. Every single one of these reforms\ncan find its justification in the principles and policies of\nAbraham Lincoln. All that we of the second decade of the Toon-\ntieth Century have done is to apply the conditions of our day\n56387\nI\n-19-\nthe principles which Abraham Lincoln fifty years previously had\napplied to the conditions of Lis day. 10 did not desire to 80\ninto any political or economic revolution. 00 do not believe in\nrevolutions. But we most emphatically do believe that the only\nway to prevent violent revolution is to provide for pesseful\ngrowth and evolution in the right direction.\nare not Socialists. for we do not believe in class\nconscionsness, and we as little believe in mere doctrinsire dog-\nmation about collectiveism as we believe in mero doctrinaire dog-\nmatima about individualism. But we do believe that the only way\nto prevent the growth of a party founded on class consciousness\nis to secure the triumph in the community of nome party founded\non the ideal of social consciousness.\nSuch a party must in good faith assume that each man\nis in very truth his brother's keeper. It must act in no spirit\nof vindictive hostility even toward wrongdoers. When necessary\nit must punish them; but where this can be avoided it must be\navoided, and the end sought for obtained by changing the conditions\nwhich have brought about the wrongdeing. Ye believe in property\n56388\n-20-\nrights as infispensible 80 the sivancement of human rights: but\nwhere they are twisted into an obstaole to the advancement of\nhuman rights, then we are for human rights as against them. To\nbelieve in using the collective power of the people. through\ntheir government, not to hinder the growth of individualism or\nto interfere with individual netivity, but 30 80 regulate the\npossibilities of that growth as to give to the largest number of\nindividuals possible the yower to develop their own lives with\nthe utmost freedom along their several lines, provided always\nthat they do not wrongly interfere with the lives of their follows.\n56389"
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