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 strive manfully 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 men to 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
impression upon 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 or because 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 CITIZENSHIP
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 social system. 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 them not 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
face to 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 desirable that
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 of what 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 do
healthy 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
speak of 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 thyself”—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 eyes see 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