J. N. Larned

“ This will be the world’s formal and final acceptance of the declaration that no part of the American continents is to be deemed subject to colonization. Let us pledge ourselves to aid each other in the full performance of the duty to humanity which that accepted declaration implies; so that in time the weakest and most unfortunate of our republics may come to march with equal step by the side of the stronger and more fortunate. Let us help each other to show that for all the races of men the liberty for which we have fought and labored is the twin sister of justice and peace. ”

“ It is of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove to be not the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere dissatisfaction with the inevitable inequality of conditions, but the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure the betterment of the individual and the nation. ... It is a prime necessity that if the present unrest is to result in permanent good the emotion shall be translated into action, and that the action shall be marked by honesty, sanity, and self-restraint. There is mighty little good in a mere spasm of reform. ”

“ By ceasing to exist as a separate community, and by advancing its pretensions to influence the general government of mankind, Christianity, to a certain extent, forfeited its independence. It was no longer a republic, governed exclusively—as far, at least, as its religious concerns—by its own internal policy. The interference of the civil power in some of its most, private affairs, the promulgation of its canons and even, in some cases, the election of its bishops, by the State, was the price which it must inevitably pay for its association with the ruling power. ”

“ Can a court, without abuse of judicial discretion, wipe out all the property of the defendant before the court, and all the assets to which its creditors look, in an effort to reach and punish a party that is not before the court—a party that has not been convicted, has not been tried, has not been indicted even? Can an American judge, without abuse of judicial discretion, condemn any one who has not had his day in court? ”

“ It is a striking fact that a large part of the natural resources, industry, and wealth-production of that unresting workshop of Germany is under the control of a dozen men of commanding business genius—men of strong and masterful character, born rulers of the sternest mould, without sentiment, not insusceptible to justice, yet never going beyond it, inflexible in decision, of inexhaustible will-power, and impervious to all modern notions of political liberalism. ”

“ Sir, the martial spirit, I should be the last to deny, has its place, and its proper place, in the life of a nation. That the nation should take pride in its power to resist force by force is a natural and wholesome thing. It is a source of perfectly healthy pride to have soundness of wind and limb and physical strength, and it has no unworthy part in the national spirit. That I sympathize with entirely, but I would ask the people to consider to what consequences the growth of armaments has led. ”

“ I would not want workmen to do as they please; but I believe that by the organization of industry and by the organization of labor we are gathering forces conscious of their power, which, intelligently and wisely wielded, bring forth a spirit of conciliation that no court of arbitration ever yet was able to impose. There is in the United States more genuine conciliation between organized employers and organized workmen than exists in any other part of the world. ”

“ A gallant soldier in the great war for the Union, he also shone as an example to all our people because of his conduct in the most sacred and intimate of home relations. There could be no personal hatred of him, for he never acted with aught but consideration for the welfare of others. No one could fail to respect him who knew him in public or private life. The defenders of those murderous criminals who seek to excuse their criminality by asserting that it is exercised for political ends, inveigh against wealth and irresponsible power. ”

“ These adventurous characters, going out into a new country and plunging into the virgin, everlasting hills, where it would seem that at last all men would stand on the same footing, have suddenly discovered that amid these primitive surroundings the modern industrial system is not only found, but is found at its worst. No one would try to find a parallel anywhere else on earth for the reckless unscrupulous and maddening insolence of the corporations of the Rocky Mountain States. And practical anarchism among corporations is always a strong promoter of theoretical Socialism among trade unions. ”

“ The impetus given to German commerce and German manufactures is to be ascribed far more to the increase in the buying capacity of other nations—England, France, Russia or America—than to all the German colonies combined. Germany needs no colonies; what she wants is merely free competition on all seas, the open door, and the right to cooperate freely on an equal footing with all other commercial and industrial nations, in opening up new and as yet unopened districts and markets. Hence the principle of the open door is the leading motive of the foreign policy pursued by Germany. ”

“ Not only the whole exterior fabric of British Empire, but the bare subsistence of the people of the small island at its center, depends on the uninterrupted use of the surrounding seas for trade and travel between its parts. To lose freedom in that use means the downfall of Great Britain, not merely as a militant power, but in everything that could carry her past importance into the future of the world. It means so much as this, because the resources of the island-home of the nation, within themselves, are so small. ”

“ Without any tangible reason we see the nations preparing new armaments. They cannot arm any more men on land, so they have to seek new armaments upon the sea, piling up these enormous preparations as if for some great Armageddon—and that in a time of profoundest peace. We live in the midst of what I think was called by Petrarch tacens bellum—a silent warfare, in which not a drop of blood is shed in anger, but in which, however, the last drop is extracted from the living body by the lancets of the European statesmen. ”

“ All our efforts might fail to bestow upon him an ideal government—there are not the makings of a harmonious nation in Macedonia. But politics are, after all, a mere fraction of life. While Servia earns the contempt of the civilised world, the Servian peasant sows in hope and reaps in peace, keeping for winter evenings the tale of murdered forbears and ravished ancestors. The Macedonian villager is ignorant. But his leaders have heard of a far-off England which twenty-five years ago flung them back under the heels of the Turk, after Russia had won their freedom at San Stefano. ”

“ Beyond a doubt, Denmark to-day is much more favorably situated than when Prussia despoiled the country of Schleswig-Holstein, and while little apprehension exists on the score of Germany again attacking her northern neighbor, should a war break out between England and the German Empire it might prove impossible for either belligerent to keep Danish territory inviolate. Denmark’s neutrality would be thrown to the winds where the fate of empires would be at stake. Still, in her defense of such neutrality, Denmark would gain time sufficient to make any trespasser pause before advancing. ”

“ Germany elbows so many close neighbors in Europe that nothing but a perfectly trusting friendship or a perfectly organized reign of law among them can make safety for any. In the absence of both friendly trust and authoritative law, they stand on guard against each other in the twentieth century as they did in the tenth; but with arms a hundred-fold more hellish and a thousand-fold more ruinous in cost. Under the pressure of her long-pent ambitions and energies, Germany has beaten all her neighbors in this as in other fields of exertion. ”

“ According to public opinion, in which I concur unreservedly, Russia is, at present, facing an epoch of anarchy and revolutionary movement. What is going on is, by far, no mere agitation by the youth. The youth stands forth only as a reflection of the general state prevailing in society. This state is most dangerous and terrible for our entire country, as well as for all of us, and particularly so for the holy person of the Emperor. It is, therefore, the duty of every truly loyal subject to ward off the disastrous calamity with any and all means at his disposal. ”

“ Those great corporations containing some tendency to monopoly, which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts, are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but is in duty bound to control them wherever the need for such control is shown. There is clearly a need of supervision—need to exercise the power of regulation on the part of the representatives of the public, wherever, as in our own country at the present time, business corporations become so very strong, both for beneficent work and for work that is not always beneficent. ”

“ It is sheer waste of time to labor for improvement of a law whose fundamental principle covers only cases of employers’ fault, because a vast number of injuries are due to causes which the utmost care cannot prevent. {396} "In order to secure income in periods of incapacity for labor several legal ways are open. The British method has much to commend it and finds favor with many Americans, the method based on the principle of ‘compensation.’ In Great Britain the old liability law is left to stand, like a rotting trunk, by the side of the new and living tree of the ‘compensation’ law. ”