Declaration of Independence. They rejoice in their distinguished lineage. But we are all the spiritual sons of these fathers of our liberties. We have a priceless heritage. This great country, populated with an intelligent people animated by the loftiest ideals, presents unexampled opportunity. May we be worthy of our birthright and so deal with the problems confronting this generation that we may transmit to our children a still larger boon, and that they, enjoying even to a greater degree equality of opportunity, may find still better secured the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

VI.

Address at Chautauqua, August 24, 1907.

These meetings furnish evidence of the alertness, earnestness, and zeal for mental and moral betterment which characterize the American people. Their restlessness, their eagerness to know and to do something worth while are symptoms of health. The multiplying courses of our universities having relation to social and political subjects, our institutes of research, our voluntary assemblies for mutual improvement, our varied philanthropic associations, our organizations in every line of commercial and intellectual effort, reflect the intense desire for progress.

There are a few, fortunately only a few relatively, who devote themselves to ease and self-indulgence, awakening passionate remonstrance by the spectacular incongruity of their lives as contrasted with American ideals. But the attitude of many of these, conscious of their lack of popular esteem, is apologetic. The typical American does not seek idleness,

but work. He wants to justify himself by proved capacity in useful effort. Under different conditions, he still has the spirit of those who faced the wilderness, advanced the outposts of civilization, and settled a continent of matchless resources, where has been laid the basis for a wider diffusion of prosperity among a great population than the world has ever known. To whatever department of activity we turn, after making all necessary allowances for ignorance, shiftlessness, and vice, we still find throughout the country, dominant and pervasive, the note of energy and resistless ambition. The vitality of the people has not been sapped by prosperity. The increase of comfort has not impaired their virility. We are still a hardy people, equal to our task, and pressing forward vigorous and determined in every direction to enlarge the record of achievement.

It is easy, looking at phases of our life in an absolute way, for one who is pessimistically inclined to gather statistics which superficially considered are discouraging. Congestion in our great cities, the widened opportunities for the play of selfishness, and the increase of temptations following in the wake of prosperity give rise to an appalling number and variety

of private and public wrongs whose thousands of victims voice an undying appeal to humanity and patriotism. But one would form a very inaccurate judgment of our moral condition by considering these wrongs alone. They must be considered in their relation to other phases of our life. We must not fail to take note of the increasing intensity of the desire to find remedies and the earnestness with which all forms of evil and oppression are attacked.

The ethical sentiment of our country is not to be judged by statistics of formal relations to particular institutions. It must be determined by the general ethical standards of the people and their vital regard for sobriety, virtue, and fiduciary responsibility.

It may largely be judged, not by what they approve in conventional phrase, but by what they sharply condemn and refuse to tolerate in concrete cases. I believe that the moral standards of the American people were never more sound than they are to-day. Considering the tremendous increase in the opportunities for wrongdoing, the seductive and refined temptations, and the materialistic appeals that are incident to our present mode of life, and the material comforts which invention and commerce have made possible, I believe that the

manner in which the ethical development of the people has kept pace with their progress in other directions may fairly be called extraordinary. It is really because our ethical standards are so high that we fail more frequently to take to account this fact.

In saying this I am not at all unmindful of how far short we come of an ideal state of society. On the contrary, existing evils are the more noticeable because they stand out in strong contrast to the desires and aspirations of the people. We have had disclosures of shocking infidelity to trust and to public obligation, but more important than the evil disclosed was the attitude of the people toward it. Cynics have no audience in this country. Devotion to duty and strict discharge of honorable obligation to both individual and public are not hypocritically preached, but are the sincere and insistent demand of the American people from one end of the land to the other. Individual shortcomings are many, but the moral judgment of the community is keen and severe. In this we find just cause for satisfaction.

For years there have been many prophets of civic right-doing, who have been preaching good government and insisting that citizens