no sentimental duty. The firm basis of government is justice, not pity. These are matters of justice. There can be no equality of opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very business of justice and legal efficiency.

These are some of the things we ought to do, and not leave the others undone, the old-fashioned, never-to-be-neglected, fundamental safeguarding of property and of individual right. This is the high enterprise of the new day: to lift everything that concerns our life as a Nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right. It is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans; it is inconceivable we should do it in ignorance of the facts as they are or in blind haste. We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be, in the spirit of those who question their own wisdom and seek counsel and knowledge, not shallow self-satisfaction or the excitement of excursions whither they cannot tell. Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.

And yet it will be no cool process of mere science. The Nation has been deeply stirred, stirred by a solemn passion, stirred by the knowledge of wrong, of ideals lost, of Government too often debauched and made an instrument of evil. The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heart-strings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one. We know our task to be no mere task of politics, but a task which shall search us through and through, whether we be able to under

stand our time and the need of our people, whether we be indeed their spokesmen and interpreters, whether we have the pure heart to comprehend and the rectified will to choose our high course of action.

This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication. Here muster, not the forces of party, but the forces of humanity. Men's hearts wait upon us; men's lives hang in the balance; men's hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? I summon all honest men, all patriotic, all forward-looking men, to my side. God helping me, I will not fail them, if they will but counsel and sustain me!

Speeches excellent for study of plan and expression.

BEVERIDGE, ALBERT J. Speech at Progressive National Convention, 1912. Frances E. Willard. The Meaning of the Times.

BRYAN, WM. J. Signs of the Times. Speech explaining vote, at Democratic National Convention, 1912. W. J. Bryan: A Tale of Two Conventions.

CARLYLE, THOMAS. The Edinburgh Address, University of Edinburgh, 1866. The World's Best Orations.

CHOATE, JOSEPH. Rufus Choate. Best American Orations, etc.

DEPEW, CHAUNCEY M. One Hundredth Anniversary of the Inauguration of President Washington. Orations and After-dinner Speeches of Chauncey M. Depew.

ELIOT, CHARLES W. The Durable Satisfactions of Life.

GRADY, HENRY W. The New South. In various collections.

INGALLS, JOHN J. Speech on Benj. H. Hill, U. S. Senate, Jan. 25, 1883. World's Best Orations.

MCKINLEY, WILLIAM. At Dedication of Grant Monument. Last Address, at Buffalo Exposition. Best

World's Best Orations.

American Orations.

PHILLIPS, WENDELL. Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Speeches, Letters and Addresses.

ROOT, ELIHU. Opening Speech at Republican National Convention, 1912. W. J. Bryan: A Tale of Two Conventions. Speech in U. S. Senate, Jan. 22, 1913, on Panama Canal Tolls. Congressional Record.

INDEX

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