BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 PROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henrg W. Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 Aj-^6My /f/^/^p2L 
 
 1^43 
 
Cornell University Library 
 JK1759 .B84 
 
 American citizenshii 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 478 964 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030478964 
 
YALE LECTURES ON THE 
 RESPONSIBILITIES OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 YALE LECTURES 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID J* BEEWER 
 
 ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SORIBNBE'S SONS 
 
 1902 
 
UOPTBIGHT, lata, HT 
 
 YALE UNIVERSITY 
 
 PubliBhed, AprU. 1902 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANV 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
In May, 1900, Honorable William E. Dodge, 
 of New York, made provision for lectures be- 
 fore the students of Yale University, to be 
 known as the "Yale Lectures on the Eespon- 
 sibilities of Citizenship" and to be on a 
 " topic whose understanding wiU contribute to 
 the formation of an intelligent public senti- 
 ment, of high standards of the duty of a Chris- 
 tian citizen, and of habits of action to give 
 effect to these sentiments and these standards." 
 
 Having been honored by selection to deliver 
 the first course of these lectures I have felt that 
 it was fitting to present a few plain, simple, 
 commonplace truths in respect to those respon- 
 sibilities, thus laying, as it were, a foundation 
 upon which succeeding lecturers might in a 
 more ambitious way develop some particular 
 form of responsibility, or some particular ap- 
 peal to noble action. With this in view I have 
 prepared the following lectures. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PASB 
 
 I. Obligations of Citizenship .... 3 
 
 II. The Maintenance of a Good Char- 
 acter A Primary Obligation op 
 Every Citizen 31 
 
 III. Service a Responsibility of Citizen- 
 
 ship 61 
 
 IV. Obligation of Obedience .... 85 
 
 V. The Duty of Striving to Better 
 THE Life of the Nation .... 107 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 OBMQATIOUrS OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Out of all the relations into which human 
 beings enter, or are brought, there spring obli- 
 gations — obligations resting upon each party to 
 the relationship, yet varying in the specific 
 duties imposed with the character of the re- 
 lationship and the place each occupies therein. 
 
 In many relationships the existence of obli- 
 gations is obvious and universally recognized. 
 In others the fact of obligation is not always 
 conceded, frequently not appreciated, and not 
 infrequently ignored. Thus, no one doubts 
 that when man and woman enter into the mar- 
 riage relation certain obligations are thereby 
 imposed upon each. All recognize that there 
 immediately springs up and continues during 
 the existence of that relation a mutuality of 
 obligation, although the character of the duties 
 
4 AMEEIOAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 imposed upon each by virtue thereof may be 
 different. A business partnership creates, as 
 all readily perceive and acknowledge, certain 
 obligations on the part of each to the other. 
 A distinct disregard by either party to a mar- 
 riage, or by either member of a partnership, of 
 the obligations created by such relationship re- 
 ceives general condemnation. 
 
 There are other relationships, not so close 
 and intimate, which also cast obligations upon 
 each party thereto, and yet the fact and sig- 
 nificance of those obligations often make little 
 impression on the parties bound thereby. We 
 owe certain duties to our neighbors, but upon 
 how many of us the burden of those duties rests 
 lightly or is wholly forgotten? In a general 
 way we say that we ought to be neighborly, and 
 yet too often all that we do is to let our neigh- 
 bors alone, and ask them to let us alone. Who 
 is our neighbor ? is a frequent question. The 
 Great Teacher answered it in the story of the 
 Good Samaritan, as the one we meet in life 
 whom we can help and do help. It may also 
 be afOrmed that there is one universal relation- 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 5 
 
 ship in that we are all memhers of one great 
 human family, and that out of that relation- 
 ship spring obligations which no right-thiaking 
 man will ignore. It was a noble utterance of 
 the ancient Eoman, "nihil humanum mihi 
 aliennm est." 
 
 As I stated, the mere fact of relationship car- 
 ries obligations, and it matters not whether 
 that relationship is one voluntarily entered 
 into, or one ia which we are placed without our 
 consent. Marriage is a relation voluntarily 
 entered into. On the other hand, a child is 
 bom into a family, and without its consent the 
 relation of child to parent is established, and 
 yet none the less do obligations spring from 
 that relationship. We are not only born into 
 families but also into citizenship in a nation, 
 and so long as the relationship springing out 
 of that birth continues there are obligations 
 resting upon us as citizens which cannot be 
 ignored. These obligations are the responsibili- 
 ties of citizenship. 
 
 One may at the same time be subject to many 
 relationships, and sometimes the obligations 
 
6 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 springing out of those different relationships 
 apparently antagonize each other. One may 
 be under a relationship of marriage, of part- 
 nership, of parent, of citizen, and the varied 
 duties springing from those several relation- 
 ships may seem to conflict. He may have to 
 determine which carries the higher obligation; 
 but the possibility of conflict does not alter the 
 fact that there are duties springing from each 
 of those relationships. 
 
 Again, many of the obligations which spring 
 from the relationships of life are not enforcible 
 by human law or the decrees of a court. They 
 are called imperfect obligations because, as said 
 with gentle satire, law which is the perfection 
 of reason takes no notice of them. They are 
 cognizable only in the forum of conscience. 
 But ofttimes they are felt to be the most 
 sacred, and this partly because they appeal 
 alone to the higher element in our nature and 
 have no sanction in exterior force. Take the 
 relation of parent and child. Municipal law 
 enforces — perhaps not always satisfactorily — 
 at any rate it attempts to enforce the obliga- 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 7 
 
 tion of the parent to care for the minor child. 
 It is certainly one of those obligations which 
 the law recognizes, no matter how poorly it 
 may succeed in its enforcement; but when the 
 child has arrived at maturity and the parent 
 passed into the weakness of old age then that 
 high moral obligation which rests upon the 
 child to care for the failing parent is one 
 which the law does not recognize or attempt to 
 enforce. " Over the hiU to the poorhouse " 
 expresses the imperfection of human law, and 
 yet to every right-thinking person the obliga- 
 tion to care for the aged parent is as sacred as 
 any. No sweeter picture in life can be seen 
 than that of son or daughter who, in memory 
 of corresponding care in days of infancy, toils 
 through the years of manhood or womanhood 
 to care for the parent in the failing strength of 
 old age. Take another illustration: One obli- 
 gation of husband and wife to each other is that 
 of helpfulness and courtesy. But if the treat- 
 ment of either to the other only comes short 
 of cruelty the law takes no notice of it. Still 
 who does not feel that the inability or inatten- 
 
AMEKIUAN CITIZEN BHlii' 
 
 tion of the law detracts in no degree from the 
 sacredness of this obligation? Even the very- 
 much neglected courtesies called for by the 
 temporary relationship of fellow-passengers in 
 a street-car are in the truest and highest sense 
 duties, and duties whose faithful discharge car- 
 ries, like virtue, its own reward. Indeed, may 
 
 1 not stop to say that among the things which 
 make for the sweetness and real glory of one's 
 life is a keen recognition of those obligations 
 which are outside the domain of law. 
 
 Again, a fact worthy of notice in respect to 
 all obligations is that the more perfectly one 
 discharges them the greater the blessings which 
 come from the relationship out of which they 
 spring. The mother who is most faithful to 
 the child during its early days finds in the 
 future years of its life the highest reward of 
 motherhood. "These are my jewels," cried 
 the mother of the Gracchi. The ripened man- 
 hood and womanhood of her children become 
 her crown of joy and rejoicing, and their affec- 
 tion and tender care are the sweetest comfort 
 that a mother ever knows. A partner who is 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 9 
 
 most faithful to his partnership obligations 
 will find that partnership most fruitful of re- 
 sult. The neighbor who is most neighborly 
 feels, as no one else, the blessing of being and 
 having a neighbor. And yet it is one of the 
 paradoxes of life that in order to attain the 
 full blessings of a discharge of obligation, such 
 discharge must not be with a thought of pur- 
 chase, with the hope of compensation, but from 
 the pure sense of obligation. You cannot se- 
 cure the great rewards of life by working for 
 them. There is an unfailing truth in the 
 declaration, "he that saveth his life shall lose 
 it and he that loseth his life shaU save it." 
 Duty done because it is duty carries the crown 
 and the laurel. Indeed, there is no more mag- 
 nificent word in the English language than 
 " duty." As Whittier says : 
 
 " There's life alone in duty done, 
 And rest alone in striving." 
 
 The existence of relationship, at least in 
 cases in which both parties are competent to 
 act intelligently, carries with it a mutuality of 
 
10 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 obligation. The husband, by virtue of the re- 
 lationship of marriage, owes certain duties to 
 the wife. Conversely, the wife owes duties to 
 the husband. The mere fact of the relation- 
 ship imposes obligations on each. So, in the 
 case of parent and child, as soon as the child 
 comes to an age of understanding there is a 
 measure of obligation resting upon him to the 
 parent, as well as upon the parent to him. 
 Now, the fact that either party to a relation- 
 ship may wholly ignore the obligations created 
 thereby does not necessarily release the other 
 from the performance of his duties. Indeed, 
 sometimes the dereliction of the one seems to 
 increase or at least emphasize the duty of the 
 other. There is often the not unreasonable ex- 
 pectation that greater faithfulness on the part 
 of the one will renew the neglected fidelity of 
 the other. Take the familiar example of hus- 
 band and wife. Delinquency on the part of 
 one does not excuse the other from fidelity. 
 It may be that no rule can be stated which 
 will fit all cases, and yet the possibility of 
 restoring the helpfulness of the relation and 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 11 
 
 re-establishing the sense of duty on the part of 
 the delinquent is always to be considered. 
 Who can number the multitude of cases in 
 which an increased fidelity on the part of one 
 has brought the other back to a sense of duty ? 
 Indeed, such restoration is not infrequently a 
 blessed result of duty done. It is obviously a 
 case of salvage. Every one familiar with Ad- 
 miralty knows that the compensation in such 
 cases is large and generous, and so the salvage 
 which one party to any relationship in life 
 ought to receive and does receive on the restora- 
 tion of the other through his or her increased 
 fidelity, is among the great compensations of 
 life. He that saveth a soul from death shall 
 hide a multitude of sins. 
 
 While all relationships impose' obligations on 
 the parties thereto, the character and force of 
 those obligations vary with the nature of the 
 relationship. Some are stronger and more im- 
 portant than others; some more continuous in 
 their force, and some the performance of which 
 affects a larger number of persons. In order, 
 therefore, to a full understanding of the scope 
 
12 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 and significance of such obligations it is not 
 enough to determine the fact of a relationship ; 
 it is necessary to inquire into its nature and 
 conditions, and consider whether it is mainly 
 personal, or one directly or indirectly affecting 
 many. 
 
 With these preliminary observations, I pass 
 on to say that among the relationships in life 
 out of which spring obligations is that of the 
 individual to the nation or tribe of which he is 
 a citizen or member. And here I start with 
 the broad proposition that whatever may be the 
 position, capacity, or surroundings of the in- 
 dividual, and whatever may be the character of 
 his nation or tribe, or its fidelity to its corre- 
 sponding obligations, he is always under obli- 
 gations to that nation or tribe. A member of 
 the most savage tribe in the centre of Africa 
 owes certain duties to it and to its chief, and 
 the same is true of the citizen of the most civ- 
 ilized nation in the world. While there is a 
 similarity in the nature of those obligations, 
 yet it is clear that their significance and reach 
 vary largely with the conditions in which the 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 13 
 
 individual is placed and the character of the 
 tribe or nation to which he belongs. Contrast, 
 for instance, the obligations of an uneducated 
 savage to his tribe with those of the President 
 of Yale University to the United States. 
 There may be like duty of service and obedi- 
 ence, and yet the obligations in the one case 
 are much more important and far-reaching 
 than in the other, and of greater significance 
 to the individual and to the race. Indeed, it 
 may be laid down as a general proposition that 
 the higher the status of the two parties to any 
 relationship the more far-reaching are the 
 obligations which spring therefrom, and the 
 more significant and important is the full dis- 
 charge of those obligations. The manner in 
 which the citizen of a savage tribe discharges 
 his obligations to that tribe, whether well or 
 ill, means less for the general weal or woe than 
 the way in which a citizen of the United States 
 discharges his obligations. And it is because 
 in the one case the parties to the relationship 
 are of more importance to the well-being of the 
 world than those in the other. 
 
14 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Of all the obligations of citizen to nation 
 none is greater than those of one of our citizens 
 to the Republic. The responsibilities of citi- 
 zenship are nowhere more sacred and solemn. 
 To impress this truth is the purpose of these 
 lectures. Let me notice some of the facts 
 which justify the assertion. First, this Ee- 
 publie occupies a unique and prominent posi- 
 tion among the nations. It may be there are 
 other nations with more territory or popula- 
 tion, larger military and naval forces, a greater 
 accumulation of wealth, or a longer history, 
 but not one whose history has been more 
 significant, in whose present the world is more 
 interested, and above whose future there spans 
 a brighter rainbow of hope and promise for 
 humanity. This is a government of and by 
 and for the people. It rests upon the thought 
 that to each individual belong the inalienable 
 rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness. It affirms that the nation exists not 
 for the benefit of one man, or set of men, 
 but to secure to each and all the fullest op- 
 portunity for personal development. It stands 
 
OBLIGATIONS OP CITIZENSHIP 15 
 
 over against the governments of the Old World 
 in that there the thought is that the indi- 
 vidual lives for the nation; here, that the na- 
 tion exists for the individual. It was estab- 
 lished in a place, at a time, and under circum- 
 stances peculiarly unique and fortunate — con- 
 ditions which can never be repeated, and if the 
 effort here made to establish popular govern- 
 ment fails we may well believe that the failure 
 will be final and irretrievable. As Webster 
 said: "If, ia our ease, the representative sys- 
 tem ultimately fails, popular governments 
 must be pronounced impossible. No combina- 
 tion of circumstances more favorable to the ex- 
 periment can ever be expected to occur. The 
 last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; 
 and if it should be proclaimed that our example 
 had become an argument against the experi- 
 ment, the knell of popular liberty would be 
 sounded throughout the earth." 
 
 It was established by the most earnest and 
 resolute men of the most virile races the world 
 has ever developed. The place was a new con- 
 tinent, separated by three thousand miles of 
 
ID AMEBICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 boisterous ocean from the nations and civiliza- 
 tion of the Old World, at a time when the 
 peoples and the nations of that world were 
 beginning to be moved by forces which soon 
 involved all of them in prolonged conflict. 
 They who formed the Eepublie were too few 
 in nimiber and too poor in resources to ap- 
 peal very strongly to the greed of the distant 
 monarchs. They were by themselves and they 
 were left to themselves. Their leaders were 
 men of clear conviction, resolute and conscien- 
 tious. They were not blind to the lessons of 
 the past and they had unswerving faith in 
 the possibilities of the future. They were rea- 
 sonable radicals and progressive conservatives. 
 They were not dazzled by power or glory or 
 wealth. Coming here under the impulse of 
 strong convictions they meant to establish the 
 best home for man on the face of the earth. 
 Thus situated and thus protected the Eepub- 
 lie grew in numbers and wealth until it be- 
 came strong enough to resist the attack of any 
 nation, and now is so strong as to be a recog- 
 nized leader among the nations. It has blazed 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 17 
 
 the way for popular government. Other na- 
 tions have followed in its footsteps and estab- 
 lished like governments. Yet none has become 
 its equal; something has always been lacking. 
 Either while the form has been Eepublican the 
 substance has been despotism, or else the people 
 have had no respect for the form. Elections, 
 instead of being settlements securing stability 
 of rulers and confirming matters of policy for 
 stated periods, have been simply invitations to 
 revolution, while neither life nor property has 
 been sacred. 
 
 Far be it for me to affirm that we have lived 
 up to our ideals. I am making no Fourth of 
 July speech. On the contrary, our history has 
 disclosed many shortcomings. We have not 
 been free from the weaknesses of human nat- 
 ure. But, notwithstanding all our failures, 
 nowhere has there been a closer living to the 
 ideals of popular government, and nowhere are 
 the possibilities of future success greater. If, 
 therefore, the chief object of national existence 
 is to secure to each individual the fullest pro- 
 tection in all inalienable rights and the fullest 
 
±0 AMEHIOAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 opportunity for personal advancement, and if 
 this nation has come nearer than any other to 
 the realization of this ideal, and if hy virtue of 
 its situation, its population, its development, it 
 has the greatest promise of a full realization of 
 this ideal in the future, surely it must be that 
 the obligations of its citizens to it are nowhere 
 surpassed. 
 
 Again, the significance of the responsibilities 
 of citizenship in this Eepublic also appears in 
 the fact that here each man is a ruler. It goes 
 without saying that where there is a single ruler, 
 whether the chieftain of a savage tribe or the 
 monarch of a civilized nation, the duty of that 
 ruler to his tribe or nation is one of supreme 
 importance. Its welfare depends largely upon 
 his actions, and as so m^uch rests upon his ac- 
 tions by just so much is increased his duty of 
 rendering the best service. The pure and 
 noble life of Queen Victoria has exalted the 
 British nation. Now, government of the peo- 
 ple, that government which exists among us, 
 means that each man is a ruler ; each shares the 
 responsibility of government. And if each 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 19 
 
 man is a ruler then upon each rests the obliga- 
 tion of a ruler. That there are many rulers 
 may diminish the effect of the separate action 
 of any single one, but it does not change the 
 fact that upon each rests the obligation of 
 ruler. Upon him lies the burden of govern- 
 ment. As he acts so the nation acts. And 
 there is no man in this country who can say he 
 has nothing to do with the action of the gov- 
 ernment. Le Grand Monarque, in the arro- 
 gance of his power, is said to have exclaimed, 
 " The State ! I am the State." With him the 
 thought was that the whole purpose and life of 
 the State centred in himself. In a different 
 but equally true and a far nobler sense every 
 American can say, "The Nation! I am the 
 Nation." And that fact of personal responsi- 
 bility, that sense of governmental duty, gives 
 strength and importance to the responsibilities 
 of the American citizen. 
 
 Still again, this is a christian nation. Not 
 that the people have made it so by any legal 
 enactment or that there exists an established 
 church, but christian in the sense that the 
 
<6V AMJSKIUAJN UlTlZJfiJN HMlJi' 
 
 dominant thought and purpose of the nation 
 accord with the great principles taught by the 
 founder of Christianity. Historically it has 
 developed along the lines of that religion. Its 
 first settlements were in its name, and while 
 every one is welcome, whether a believer in 
 Christianity or in any other religion, or in no 
 religion, yet the principles of Christianity are 
 the foundations of our social and political life.' 
 It needs no judicial decision to determine this 
 fact. The commission to Columbus was from 
 " Ferdinand and Isabella, by the grace of God, 
 king and queen of Castile," and recited that 
 "it is hoped that by God's assistance some of 
 the continents and islands in the ocean will be 
 discovered." The first colonial grant from the 
 crown of England, in 1584, authorizing the 
 grantee to enact statutes, provided that " they 
 be not against the true christian faith now pro- 
 fessed in the church of England." The first 
 charter of Virginia, in 1606, recited that it was 
 granted in hopes of the "propagating of chris- 
 tian religion to such people as yet live in dark- 
 ness and miserable ignorance of the true knowl- 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 21 
 
 edge and worship of God." The Mayflower 
 compact declared that its colonial settlement 
 was " for the glory of God and for the advance- 
 ment of the christian faith." The fundament- 
 al orders of Connecticut recited that they were 
 established " to maintain and preserve the lib- 
 erty and the purity of the gospel of our Lord 
 Jesus which we now profess." Running 
 through other colonial charters, in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, in the Constitutions of 
 the various States, in the proceedings in courts, 
 and in those official declarations which are the 
 manifestations of the organized will of the na- 
 tion, there is the constant recognition of the 
 fact that Christianity is the underlying thought 
 of our national life. 
 
 It is in that sense as truly a christian nation 
 as is England with its Established Church, or 
 as is Turkey a Mohammedan nation with the 
 Koran as its officially declared sacred book. 
 Indeed, the very fact that it has no Established 
 Church makes one of its highest credentials to 
 the title of a christian nation. The great 
 thought of the Master was that over the human 
 
<S)a AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 soul there was no earthly sovereign. There is 
 no truth which shines more clearly through the 
 gospels and the epistles than that of the inde- 
 pendence of the human soul. In that great 
 forum where are settled the destinies of time 
 and eternity each one stands alone with his 
 conscience. "Work out your own salvation 
 with fear and trembling." That nation which 
 seeks to enforce or support a religion by legis- 
 lative enactment fails to recognize the immor- 
 tal truth contained in the Master's words, 
 " my kingdom is not of this world." The very 
 tolerance which some over-sensitive people 
 deprecate is one of the best evidences that in 
 the framing of our Constitution and the 
 foundation of our nation there was recognized 
 that truth which imderlies Christianity, to-wit, 
 that love not law is the supreme thing. We 
 enforce no religion; but the voice of the nation 
 from its beginning to the present hour is in 
 accord with the religion of Christ. N"ow, 
 whatever else may be said of Christianity one 
 thing is undisputed and indisputable — ^that 
 christian nations manifest the highest forms of 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 23 
 
 civilized life, and that among professedly 
 christian nations those in which the principles 
 of Christianity have the utmost freedom and 
 power occupy the first place. And surely no- 
 where has Christianity such freedom and power 
 as in this Kepublic. 
 
 We have, therefore, a nation which gives to 
 each citizen the most of liberty and affords the 
 best field for his development, which casts upon 
 each the responsibility of a ruler, and one in 
 which that religion, whose principi^s are most 
 potent in the perfection of human civilization, 
 has the largest freedom and power. Is it 
 strange, therefore, that this nation is the one 
 around which the hopes of humanity cluster? 
 Its continuance, its growth, its perfection, 
 mean the most for the race. Does it not fol- 
 low that upon its citizens rest the most solemn 
 responsibilities of citizenship? 
 
 But further, special dangers and difficulties 
 attend the development of the Kepublic; dan- 
 gers and difBculties which grow out of the very 
 peculiarities of its national life, and in the so- 
 lution of which each individual is a real and 
 potent factor. 
 
Zt AMBKICAN Cll'lZEJN SJill- 
 
 In the first place, there are no restraints 
 upon popular action except such as the citi- 
 zens themselves have imposed, and there is the 
 ever-present danger that, conscious that these 
 restraints are self-imposed, the people in some 
 time of passion will disregard them — break 
 down the constitutional compact made between 
 each and all, and do that which cannot be done 
 without trespassing upon rights secured by such 
 compact. To continue an orderly administra- 
 tion, to abide by the Constitution and laws, and 
 to seek redress of wrongs, real or supposed, only 
 in the manner therein prescribed, are among 
 the duties and triumphs of popular govern- 
 ment. There is nothing so wicked as a mob; 
 nothing more cruel and unreasonable. The 
 long lines of burning cars seen in Chicago at 
 the time of the Pullman strike, the stripping 
 of a woman of her clothing in St. Louis merely 
 because she rode in a street-car belonging to an 
 obnoxious company, and the flames which re- 
 cently rose up around a burning negro in 
 Leavenworth are but illustrations. There is 
 no one so dangerous as the demagogue, who 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 25 
 
 cries " we, the people," and urges a disregard, 
 by force, of laws and the rights secured by those 
 laws. Fortunately we have escaped the whirli- 
 gigs of revolution which have attended the ef- 
 forts of many peoples to establish popular 
 government. The sense of order, respect for ■ 
 law, and self-restraint, which thus far have j 
 characterized the American people are among ! 
 the sure prophecies of permanent popular gov- j 
 ernment, and woe be to the man who seeks to 
 influence the passions and forcibly overthrow ' 
 the restraints of law. 
 
 In the second place, we face the dangers i 
 which come from an heterogeneous population, ; 
 a not inconsiderable fraction of which is of peo- 
 ples with no conception of that which is the 
 only true liberty — ^liberty regulated by law — 
 peoples who look upon every policeman as an 
 enemy, every sherifiE as a tyrant, and all the 
 forms of law as so many processes of despot- 
 ism. The original races which founded this 
 nation are still dominant; and yet if one were 
 dropped into some of the streets of New York 
 or Boston he might wonder if he were in 
 
26 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 America or Ireland. If he passed through 
 many of the mining districts of Pennsylvania 
 he might fancy himself in Hungary or Italy. 
 In certain parts of Chicago he would believe 
 himself in Bohemia or Poland; and the great 
 Northwest is a second Scandinavia. To min- 
 gle these heterogeneous elements in one homo- 
 geneous American people, and to so mingle that 
 the good qualities of each shall be preserved 
 and the bad qualities of each cast out is one of 
 the great tasks of the American people. 
 
 In the third place, we are in the presence of 
 those dangers which come from imexampled 
 material prosperity. As a nation we are grow- 
 ing marvellously rich. More and more we hear 
 of the discontents which arise from the unequal 
 distribution of this wealth. On the one hand 
 is to be seen extravagance and luxury, with its 
 often attendant vice; on the other, the bitter- 
 ness which comes from envy or a sense of 
 wrong. These are dangers to the Eepublic. 
 
 As against these and all like them the indi- 
 vidual citizen is the Eepublic's strength and 
 hope. He may become a power. He has a 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 27 
 
 duty. He should so live and act that it may 
 be said of him, as of Wellington: 
 
 "That tower of strength, 
 Which stood four-square to all the -wmds that blew." 
 
 Upon him rests the burden of overcoming 
 these dangers. He may not transfer responsi- 
 bility to a government. He is the government. 
 It is the citizen's privilege, his duty, his glory, 
 to stand firmly against all movements and ef- 
 forts to weaken the force of law, to disturb 
 social order, or to tear down the Stars and 
 Stripes and substitute the red flag of the 
 Anarchist. 
 
 To fuse aU heterogeneous elements in the 
 crucible of national life, and to so fuse them 
 as to leave out all that is base and unworthy, 
 require the powerful solvents of education and 
 religion. These solvents are found in the in- 
 dividual. To him, therefore, we must look for 
 the force which will cast out the folly of re- 
 garding law as the enemy of liberty, which will 
 put an end to habits formed under despotism 
 and unsuited to popular government, and 
 
38 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 which will unite in one common flow all those 
 thoughts, purposes, aspirations, and activities 
 of the various peoples and races gathering on 
 our soil which mean well for the race and for 
 the glory of the nation. 
 
 Amid all the displays of wealth, all the social 
 inequalities which spring therefrom, the indi- 
 vidual may and must stand as a constant wit- 
 ness to the unfailing truth that the life is more 
 than meat, the man more than the accident of 
 riches. " Am I my brother's keeper " finds its 
 most magnificent affirmative answer in the 
 duty of the American citizen to the nation. 
 Picture the glory of this Republic if in each 
 individual life were fully disclosed respect for 
 law, taste for justice, regard for the rights of 
 others, remembrance of the poor and afflicted, 
 encouragement of education, the helping hand 
 to everything that is true, beautiful and good. 
 The ages will see the fulness and glory of the 
 picture. The future will not disappoint us. 
 The loved poet is the prophet, clear-visioned 
 and true, when he sings : 
 
OBLIGATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP 39 
 
 " Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State I 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
 Humanity with all its fears, 
 With all the hopes of future years, 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate I 
 We know what Master laid thy keel. 
 What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, 
 Who made each mast, and sail, and rope. 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope 1 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
 'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 
 'Tis but the flapping of the sail. 
 And not a rent made by the gale I 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar. 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 Are all with thee, — are all with thee." 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY 
 OBLIGATION 
 
II 
 
 THE MAINTENANCE OF A GOOD OHAEAOTEB A 
 PRIMARY OBLIGATION OF EVERY CITIZEN 
 
 I endeavored to develop in my former lect- 
 ure the thought that there were responsibili- 
 ties resting upon every citizen of every nation 
 by virtue of his citizenship, and that none 
 were greater than those which rested upon a 
 citizen of this Eepublic. If it be true that 
 the responsibility of an American citizen is 
 greater than that of a citizen of any other na- 
 tion it becomes correspondingly important to 
 know what action on his part such responsi- 
 bility calls for. To say that an individual is 
 responsible, and not define what his responsi- 
 bilities are, to say that he owes duties and obli- 
 gations and not make clear the nature and ex- 
 tent of those duties and obligations is to leave 
 the matter less than half disclosed. May he by 
 
 a single act discharge the full measure of his 
 33 
 
34 AMEEIOAKT CITIZENSHIP 
 
 responsibility and relieve himself from all fur- 
 ther obligations? If not, what must he do, 
 and how often must he act? 
 
 It is one of the weaknesses of our nature to 
 desire to be rid entirely of obligations, or, if 
 not rid entirely, to discharge them by a single 
 act. We would be benevolent, charitable, but 
 would gladly give many dollars in a single sum 
 if thereby we could cancel all our obligations 
 in that direction. We would be religious, but 
 how many would fain limit their religion, like 
 the putting on of a clean shirt and the wear- 
 ing of the best clothes, to Sunday? We aU 
 look forward hopefully to an entrance into 
 heaven, but wish there was some kindly power 
 who could sell us a ticket, receive the price and 
 end the transaction at once. This having ever- 
 more over us a responsibility, one which never 
 fails in its demands, and which continues until 
 our latest breath, is something from which we 
 willingly turn. 
 
 I wish to impress upon you this afternoon 
 the thought that the responsibility of a citizen 
 is something which, like the heartbeat, stays 
 
,.wOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 35 
 
 with him through life, the care of which is 
 essential to his own highest development, and 
 in the constant recognition of which is alone 
 found the successful life of the nation. And 
 in order to develop this thought I must no- 
 tice some of the many obligations which rest 
 upon the citizen; some of the duties imposed 
 upon him. I use the plural nouns, because it 
 is a mistake to suppose that there is but a single 
 obligation or a single duty to be performed. 
 No one can say " I have voted at every election, 
 and in so doing I have discharged my entire 
 duty to the Eepublic " ; or "I have served 
 faithfully as a soldier in the army, and so have 
 fulfilled the whole measure of my obligation to 
 the nation," any more than a parent can say 
 "I have fed my child, and thus have dis- 
 charged the full measure of my duty to him." 
 The first matter which I shall notice is what 
 may be called the obligation of personal char- iy 
 acter. In other words, each citizen owes to the 
 nation the duty of maintaining in himself a 
 high, clean, moral character. His personal 
 morality is a debt to the nation. Indeed, it is 
 
0X> AMEKICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 a part of the nation's morality. I mention this 
 first because it is of primary importance, an 
 obligation which is binding upon aU citizens, 
 and binding at all times and in all places. 
 There is no break or cessation in its force, and 
 there are no conditions or circumstances under 
 or by which any citizen is released from its 
 demands. 
 
 It is the one duty which underlies aU others ; 
 with it we may hope to realize something of 
 the greatness and nobility of citizenship in this 
 republic; without it the loudest voices of as- 
 sumed patriotism are but sounding brass and 
 tinkling cymbals. 
 
 What is good character ? It is righteousness 
 in the soul. It is the shining jewel of life, 
 that to which we all look up, which we all 
 love and admire. It makes the chasm which 
 separates man from the brute, the " great gulf 
 fixed" which the brute cannot cross and the 
 man ought not to cross. It is the link which 
 binds him to the divine. In flesh we are 
 brothers of the beast, living without thought; 
 unmoved by conscience, ignorant of purity and 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 37 
 
 dying without hope or remorse. In nobility of 
 soul, in elevation of character, we are heirs not 
 merely of the ages but of eternity; we clasp 
 hands with the Infinite and Eternal, and are 
 bold to say " of thee, and thine." 
 
 One seldom sinks so low in the scale of be- 
 ing as not to have respect and admiration for 
 the high and noble. He never becomes so far 
 in love with his own vices as not to be touched 
 with respect for him who has them not. " A 
 good name is rather to be chosen than great 
 riches, and loving favor rather than silver and 
 gold." We long for it ourselves, and we joy 
 to see it in our homes, our friends, and in all 
 with whom we are thrown in contact. With it 
 heaven may begin on earth; without it death 
 is not needed for admission to hell. 
 
 Who does not wish that death would bring 
 him such tribute as this from an English poet 
 to an English General ? 
 
 Strew not on the hero's hearse 
 Garlands of a herald's verse : 
 Let us hear no words of Fame 
 Sounding loud a deathless name : 
 
38 AMEKIOAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Tell us of no vauntful Glory 
 Shouting forth her haughty story. 
 All life long his homage rose 
 To far other shrine than those. 
 " In hoc signo," pale nor dim, 
 Lit the battle-field for him, 
 And the prize he sought and won. 
 Was the Crown for Duty done. 
 
 There is power also in character. I know 
 there are many who think that it is enough to 
 be smart; that brains are the only thing that 
 count in this world ; that you may live and act 
 as you please; that you may safely get the bet- 
 ter of others, by ways however crooked, pro- 
 vided they do not end in the penitentiary. I 
 am not disposed to belittle the value of brains. 
 I am not underwriting the idiot. I am aware 
 that success often attends those who know noth- 
 ing of the Golden Kule, and who remember only 
 so much of the Decalogue as is framed in the 
 penal statutes. I know there may be brilliancy 
 going hand in hand with vice; and yet, after 
 all, one of the strongest forces that make for 
 individual success is character. Looking back 
 through life at the multitudes I have known. 
 
GOOD CHARACTEK A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 39 
 
 I have no hesitation in saying that the majority 
 of the successful ones owe whatever of success 
 they have attained as much if not more to their 
 characters as to their hrains. And by far the 
 greater number of failures have been due not , 
 to lack of capacity, or even want of opportu- 
 nity, but to the fact that when tested their 
 characters failed, and they proved unworthy of 
 confidence. So it is that character is not only 
 the beautiful thing ; it is the valuable thing. 
 
 And that which is true of the individual is 
 also true of the nation. Its good character is 
 its beauty and strength. If it is to be loved 
 and honored it must be honest and just. It 
 must stand firm against all wrong, and uphold 
 every effort for right; hold evermore the even 
 scales of justice and the strong hand of 
 honesty. 
 
 That a nation, as such, has a character, and 
 is known by it, is obvious. True, it is often 
 said that a corporation has neither body to be 
 kicked nor soul to be damned, and many seem 
 to think that the organization of individuals 
 into a corporate body creates an . artificial 
 
40 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 entity destitute of moral qualities. Doubtless 
 many corporate acts proceed upon the theory 
 that the acting body has no moral qualities, and 
 can never be held delinquent in the forum of 
 conscience. And that which is said of private 
 corporations is also affirmed of that large cor- 
 porate body called the nation; but both reason 
 and history protest against such an assertion of 
 moral poverty. The organization of individu- 
 als into a corporate body, whether small or 
 great, local or national, is not a movement out- 
 side the domain of morals, does not eliminate 
 the matter of character, does not create a mere 
 machine like a steam-engine unaffected by con- 
 science, but simply puts into an organic whole 
 the combined consciences, characters and mo- 
 rality of all the individual members. You 
 never would call that a temperance community, 
 half of whose citizens went home every night 
 intoxicated, and this notwithstanding the fact 
 that its ordinances contained the finest body 
 of temperance legislation ever written. Their 
 actions would contradict their words. You 
 would not think that a moral city on whose 
 
GOOD CHAKACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATIOUT 41 
 
 every street were the gilded palaces of sin. 
 You would not call that an honest community, 
 none of whose citizens paid their debts, and 
 this although it was full of lawyers; nor that 
 a healthy place where only the doctors did a 
 thriving business. Historically, we all know 
 that nations as well as cities are spoken of as 
 possessed of certain characteristics and accus- 
 tomed to certain lines of actions, which char- 
 acteristics and actions are simply manifesta- 
 tions of their characters. 
 
 ; It may be said that character is a personal 
 matter, that the maintenance of one which is 
 free from stain is the discharge of a duty to 
 one's self, or, at most, only to one's family and 
 friends, or to God. I do not question the force 
 of the obligation in all these directions, but I 
 assert that in addition thereto the making and 
 keeping of a high and noble character is one 
 of the duties of the individual to the nation, 
 and to be numbered among the responsibilities 
 of citizenship. 
 
 A nation may be regarded in a twofold as- 
 pect. In the one it is to be viewed as standing 
 
42 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 over against the individual, an artificial entity 
 separate and distinct from all its citizens, thus 
 coming closely within the definition of a cor- 
 poration, as given by Chief Justice Marshall; 
 in the other, and a perfectly consistent aspect, 
 it is to be regarded as an aggregation of indi- 
 viduals. In the one it is a unit; in the other 
 a collection of units. In either case the moral 
 element is the bright coloring of the picture. 
 We speak of international law as a body of 
 rules regulating the intercourse of nations. 
 In this the nation is an artificial entity — an in- 
 corporeal being — a unit among nations, one 
 whose conduct is to be regulated by certain 
 rules adopted by the family of nations. This 
 individuality, this singleness of national life, is 
 as true of this Republic as of any other nation, 
 and this whether we say. The United States of 
 America are, or The United States of America 
 is. The one expression simply indicates the 
 Federal system under which the nation exists. 
 A nation in its dealings with other nations is 
 bound to certain rules of conduct which it is 
 universally conceded should be founded upon 
 
GOOD CHAEAOTEE A PEIMAEY OBLIGATION 43 
 
 justice and righteousness. The declaration of 
 scripture, "righteousness exalteth a nation; 
 but sin is a reproach to any people," is a sound 
 maxim of international law. Indeed, some 
 writers have gone so far as to assert that such 
 declaration is the foundation upon which that 
 law rests, and that by it alone, and without 
 regard to actual approval or practical recog- 
 nition by the nations, may be determined 
 whether a certain course of conduct has the 
 sanction of international law. Be that as it 
 may, the moral element in a nation's life, look- 
 ing at it as one among many nations, is beyond 
 dispute. 
 
 Again, while we look upon the nation in its 
 relations to other nations and for the purpose 
 of determining its international rights and 
 duties as a unit, in the other aspect every na- 
 tion or tribe is only an assemblage of many in- 
 dividuals. As in this aspect it is the aggre- 
 gation of the lives and forces of all its citizens, 
 so its character is the combined total of their 
 characters. If they are all savages, the tribe 
 or nation is itself a savage tribe or nation. If 
 
44 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 all are civilized and enlightened the nation is 
 civilized and enlightened. In other words, the 
 nation is not simply the numerical aggregation 
 of so many individuals, but is the combination 
 of all the mental and moral characteristics of 
 those individuals. That which can be afiBrmed 
 of all the citizens may with equal truth be af- 
 firmed of the nation. You cannot disassociate 
 the character of the nation and that of its citi- 
 zens. You cannot have an ideally perfect na- 
 tion, the citizens of which are thoroughly bad; 
 and if all the citizens live up to the highest 
 possibilities of their lives you may be sure that 
 the nation of which they are citizens stands out 
 before the world as one whose ideals are of the 
 highest. A good man does not intentionally 
 do a bad act. Ten good men acting together 
 are equally honest, and so if all the citizens of 
 a nation are animated by the one high purpose 
 the acts of the nation will likewise be above the 
 plane of intentional wrong. 
 
 Two things may be noticed of the olligation 
 in respect to personal character: One, that it 
 is universal; and the other, that it is continu- 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 45 
 
 ous. There are certain duties which rest upon 
 some citizens and do not rest upon all. Thus, 
 some are called upon to render military ser- 
 vice ; others to perform the functions of jurors ; 
 to discharge duties attaching to certain offices; 
 and yet it cannot be said of all citizens of both 
 sexes that they are alike amenable to all these 
 obligations and called upon to render the same 
 services. The varied conditions and circum- 
 stances of life impose certain duties upon some 
 which are not cast upon others, but the obli- 
 gation of personal character is one resting alike 
 upon each and all. As one member of the body 
 politic his individual character enters into the 
 sum total of all characters, and thus goes to 
 make up that of the nation. 
 
 It is also continuous, and this because human 
 character is itself a continuous thing. It is 
 not made up of one or many acts. Indeed, 
 actions are but evidences thereof. We judge 
 of a man's character by his conduct, although 
 we know that the two are not always alike. 
 Hypocrisy may exist. There may be not only 
 a difference but an absolute antagonism be- 
 
46 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 tween the two. And yet a noble character is 
 sure to express itself in actions of a like nature. 
 "By their fruits shall ye know them" is the 
 best rule we have. And character is the thing 
 of value, the enduring fact. It is continuous, 
 is part of the life. And this is true both of 
 the individual and the nation. 
 
 No one can excuse himself from his duty to 
 the State to establish and maintain a good per- 
 sonal character on the plea that he is but one 
 of a great multitude, and therefore his single 
 life and character count for little or nothing. 
 Doubtless the influence of one bad man is more 
 obvious in a small than in a large society. If 
 a commimity were composed of but ten per- 
 sons, of whom half were good and the other 
 half bad, who would not expect the latter half 
 to make a powerful impression on the general 
 life? While, on the other hand, if it were 
 composed of a hundred and only five were bad 
 the numerical predominance of the good would 
 go far to establish a good character in the or- 
 ganized whole. But the presence of even a 
 single bad man in any society is an influence 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 47 
 
 for evil. It is a blot on its character. A sin- 
 gle flaw in a diamond detracts from its worth, 
 and although the great mass of the crystal be 
 perfectly pure yet the single flaw is always seen 
 and discredits the value. If there be but one 
 black sheep in a flock every passer-by notices 
 that sheep, and so a single bad man in a com- 
 munity becomes an obvious element of dis- 
 grace. Nor is it a mere question of appear- 
 ance. It is not simply that there is a flaw — a 
 black sheep. The influence of that man is 
 constantly for evil. " A little leaven leaveneth 
 the whole lump," and character is one of those 
 potent things which, going out beyond the in- 
 dividual, touches for good or for ill all within 
 its reach. No man liveth unto himself alone. 
 We stamp our impress on the immediate com- 
 munity in which we dwell, and through that 
 community affect for weal or woe the great na- 
 tion of which we are a part. The inexperi- 
 enced, the unwary, all become more or less 
 affected by a bad man's influence, and over the 
 community as a whole the shadow rests. So 
 no man can say that he is but one in a thou- 
 
48 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 sand and it matters not that he is vile, that 
 his character is bad, for not only will his bad 
 character cast a shadow but also will his influ- 
 ence reach and demoralize far and wide. 
 
 But one may say this is all very true of those 
 who are rulers, who hold the offices, who are 
 the leaders in society, whose opinions are 
 quoted, whose power is felt, but as for me, I 
 have neither office nor power, I am never men- 
 tioned in the papers, I live an unnoticed life, 
 and therefore what difference does my charac- 
 ter make in the national life. It is undoubt- 
 edly true that the higher the position a man 
 holds, and the greater the influence he pos- 
 sesses, the more important is his good character 
 to the community. All appreciate this. Cor- 
 ruption in the President or venality in the- 
 Supreme Court would be a terrible blow to the 
 nation's good name. Licentiousness, if any 
 exists, on the part of the nation's represent- 
 atives, is carefully concealed; and Mr. Eoberts, 
 of Utah, appreciates the fact that even a Con- 
 gressman is not permitted to have more than 
 one wife at a time. High position carries with 
 
GOOD CHAEAOTEB A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 49 
 
 it added responsibility. "Noblesse ohlige." 
 Of him to whom ten talents were given ten 
 talents additional were required. Yet it is 
 equally true that he to whom a single talent 
 was given was not excused for leaving that 
 talent idle. No one, however humble, can re- 
 lieve himself from responsibility. He may be 
 but one out of many, but he is one, and con- 
 tributes to make up the general character. He 
 pours his breath into the social atmosphere, 
 and if that breath be poisonous he to some 
 extent contaminates the air. What would be 
 the standing of this nation if only its presi- 
 dents and judges were pure and honest ? Does 
 any one suppose that the character of the na- 
 tion would be determined by the few holding 
 those positions? Indeed, how can we expect 
 that they who occupy representative places will 
 continue pure and honest if the great mass of 
 the people are not? If the atmosphere in 
 which these few live is filled with poison can 
 they escape its effect? Are they not in fact 
 upheld and strengthened in good conduct by 
 their surroundings of good character? Is not 
 
50 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 the integrity of our officials largely owing to 
 the integrity of the American people? I have 
 been thirty-six years on the bench and no one, 
 directly or indirectly, by word of mouth or let- 
 ter, or in any other way, ever proposed, sug- 
 gested, or intimated that any decision I might 
 be called on to make would be for my benefit 
 pecuniarily, politically, socially, or otherwise. 
 If I had had any desire to do wrong I should 
 have had to seek someone to corrupt me. In 
 order to be tempted I should have had to invite 
 the tempter, instead of waiting for the tempta- 
 tion. Would I have been able to say this if the 
 great body of the people among whom my life 
 has been cast had been corrupt ? Could I have 
 hoped to escape temptation to do wrong? So 
 that, after all, the clean lives of those in posi- 
 tion are not a little owing to the good char- 
 acter of those who place them there, and who 
 support them there. 
 
 We are all proud of the fact that this Re- 
 public has maintained so high a character dur- 
 ing the century of its existence. While there 
 are doubtless many things in its history which 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 51 
 
 we wish were not there, yet we rejoice to believe 
 that generally, both in its inner life and in its 
 dealings with other nations, it has striven for 
 those things which make for truth, justice, 
 honesty and purity. While we are justly proud 
 of all its material development, its increase in 
 population, its growth in wealth, and in all 
 those things which go to make up its outward 
 tangible prosperity, we rejoice the more in 
 that which it has done to uphold before the 
 world ideals of the highest kind. We point 
 to its efforts to meliorate the hardships of 
 war, and all that it has done in the way of 
 arbitration and peace; to that which it has 
 done to protect its citizens against oppression 
 and wrong, wherever they may have chanced to 
 be; to all that it has spoken and done for lib- 
 erty; to the grandeur of that civil war, waged 
 to put an end to slavery within its borders ; to 
 its assumption of the burdens of war in behalf 
 of a people struggling for liberty, a people 
 bound to us by no ties of blood, yet so situated 
 that action in their behalf was simply writing 
 the blessed word neighior into the vocabulary 
 
52 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 of nations; and to countless other acts of lofty 
 character, and are proud of our country. And 
 let us ever remember in our rejoicing, that the 
 sources and causes of every noble thing in our 
 country's life are to be found in the thoughts 
 and lives of individual citizens who have suc- 
 ceeded in transferring something of their own 
 high characters into the life of the nation. 
 And so remembering, let us ever strive to dis- 
 charge one of the responsibilities of citizenship 
 by maintaining in our own lives a like lofty 
 character. 
 
 As a nation we stand face to face with a 
 great fact. The century and more of our na- 
 tional life has been lived in a career of self- 
 development, and with an isolation from other 
 nations suggested by the words of wisdom in 
 the farewell address of the Father of His Coun- 
 try. We have stood aloof from the great events 
 of the other hemisphere, endeavoring to main- 
 tain a position of equal justice to all, but of 
 equal separation from all, content to uphold 
 that which we call the Monroe Doctrine, the 
 separation and consecration of this continent 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 53 
 
 to those ideas of popular government which lie 
 at the foundation of this nation's life. But we 
 enter the new century under changed condi- 
 tions. Commerce, whose mandate no law can 
 stay, whose excursions no legislature can 
 check, is bringing us, whether we will or no, 
 into the great council of nations. The ac- 
 cumulated products of our territory are pour- 
 ing into every quarter of the globe, seeking 
 a market. Our marvellous inventive genius, 
 showing itself in wonderful mechanical con- 
 trivances, is looking beyond the bounds of the 
 new continent for places in which it may find 
 some adequate compensation. Japan, one na- 
 tion in the silent Orient, felt the touch of our 
 national activity, and she has passed out of ob- 
 scurity into the great life of the world, and 
 to-day stands as one of its magnificent factors. 
 China, that great mass of an effete civilization, 
 moving yet moving slowly even in the wondrous 
 disturbances which now agitate it, turns with 
 abimdant faith to this nation for help in its 
 time of distress. So, whether we wished it or 
 not, we are forced into a position where our 
 
54 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 national life is not simply to be considered in 
 reference to those within our territory but as 
 an important and dominant fact in the great 
 councils of the world. Shall we in these coun- 
 cils, and in our dealings with others, f oUow the 
 Talleyrand notion that language is something 
 to conceal rather than to express thought, or 
 shall we stand as one nation at least whose pur- 
 poses and life are measured by absolute truth 
 and honesty — a nation which has no secondary 
 and concealed motive in its dealings with oth- 
 ers; a nation which always says what it means 
 and means what it says, and strives to have 
 every utterance in accord with the highest 
 dictates of truth and justice? 
 
 Many of our citizens are to-day troubled by 
 the fact that, as the outcome of the late war 
 with Spain, we have taken distant islands with 
 a large population of a character illy in accord 
 with that of the Anglo-Saxon. We wonder 
 what the outcome of this venture will be. 
 Earnest discussion fills the papers, the halls of 
 Congress, and comes into the great tribunal of 
 the nation. What are the bounds of our power 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 55 
 
 over those people, and what must be, in accord 
 with our constitutional limitations, the measure 
 of our duties to them? As one of that tri- 
 bunal, before which some of those questions are 
 pending, I can, of course, say nothing as to 
 its decisions, but I may say that far above all 
 questions of constitutional limitation, far 
 above all the problems which courts may be 
 called on to solve, is the hopeful and assuring 
 thought that a solemn sense of responsibility 
 fills the American soul. If they who to-day 
 compose the great body of recognized American 
 people shall lift their own lives up into the 
 purity demanded by high character, if they 
 shall measure their intercourse with the dwell- 
 ers in these insular possessions by the rules of 
 true manhood, it is a secondary matter what 
 may be the decisions of the courts, the policy 
 of the Administration, or the action of Con- 
 gress, for we may be sure that the nation will 
 move, with or without constitutional amend- 
 ment, along that great highway which is full 
 of blessing to all within its jurisdiction, and 
 to the great world which surrounds it. 
 
56 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 I want, with all the solemnity of a life that 
 has been earnestly lived, with all that comes 
 from years of experience in varied directions, 
 to appeal to you, young gentlemen, lovers of 
 your country, loyal to all its best interests, with 
 unbounding faith in its future, willing to live 
 and to serve, and to die if need be for its honor 
 and glory, I want to press upon you this after- 
 noon the thought that one grand way in which 
 all can do abundantly for its glory and life is 
 in building up within yourselves that pure and 
 lofty personal character which makes the indi- 
 vidual loved, which gives him power, and 
 causes his life to become a blessing to his com- 
 munity, his nation, and the world. 
 
 The dawn of the new century is a great oc- 
 casion. I wish it were my privilege to enter 
 into its marvellous opportunities, to take part 
 in the wondrous works which it is to see and 
 to do. That privilege belongs to youth — to 
 educated youth, to eager, aspiring, consecrated 
 youth; youth which sees the sunlight flush 
 with its crimson glow the eastern skies and will 
 watch with attendant hearts that glow deepen- 
 
GOOD CHARACTER A PRIMARY OBLIGATION 57 
 
 ing and strengthening into noontide splendor 
 and glory. And yet if I may not be with you 
 to share and see that which is to come, I may 
 to-day join you in Whittier's thanksgiving and 
 prayer : 
 
 Our father's God 1 From out whose hand 
 The centuries fall like grains of sand. 
 We meet to-day, united, free. 
 And loyal to our land and Thee, 
 To thank Thee for the era done 
 And trust Thee for the opening one. 
 
 For art and labor met in truce, 
 For beauty made the bride of use. 
 We thank Thee ; but withal we crave 
 The austere virtues strong to save— 
 The honor proof to place or gold 
 The manhood never bought or sold. 
 
 O make Thou us through centuries long, 
 In peace secure, in justice strong ; 
 Around our gift of freedom draw 
 The safeguards of our righteous law ; 
 And, cast in some diviner mold. 
 Let the new cycle shame the old. 
 
SERVICE A RESPONSIBILITY OF 
 CITIZENSHIP 
 
Ill 
 
 SERVICE A RESPONSIBILITY OP CITIZENSHIP 
 
 A second matter in respect to the responsi- 
 bilities of a citizen, worthy of notice, is the 
 duty of service. It may be said that in a cer- 
 tain sense this form of obligation attends every 
 relation and is binding on both parties thereto. 
 There is no one so high and none so low, as 
 not to owe the duty of service. " I came not 
 to be ministered unto but to minister unto oth- 
 ers," said the Master, and to indicate the nobil- 
 ity and worth of service. He added, "he who 
 would be chief est among you let him be servant 
 of all." But while service may be said to at- 
 tend every relation and be one element in its 
 obligations yet the kinds and modes of service 
 vary with the relation. The service which a 
 child is called upon to render to its parent is 
 different from that which a citizen owes to the 
 
 nation. And so I proceed to mention some of 
 61 
 
63 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 the kinds of service which the citizen owes to 
 the nation, and shall then consider the spirit 
 and manner in which those services should be 
 rendered. 
 
 There are certain services which are willing- 
 ly rendered. For instance, the average Amer- 
 ican is willing to hold oflBce, discharge its duties 
 and receive its emoluments. We seldom have 
 to force a man to take office. Undoubtedly the 
 discharge of the duties of an office to which one 
 is called by his fellow-citizens is an act of ser- 
 vice to the nation. It may be a conspicuous 
 act and sometimes quite profitable. At any 
 rate, a glamour surrounds the holding of office, 
 which makes it very acceptable to many. So, 
 it seems almost a matter of supererogation to 
 say that when one is elected or appointed to an 
 office he owes to the nation the duty of dis- 
 charging its functions. Yet holding and faith- 
 fully performing all the duties of an office is 
 not merely a privilege ; it is an obligation, and 
 one whose neglect may be punished criminally. 
 I have never known an instance of a man being 
 prosecuted for refusing to accept the office of 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 63 
 
 United States Senator. No man need lie 
 awake worrying about his liability to criminal 
 process if he declines to accept the office of gov- 
 ernor. On the contrary, he is more likely to 
 be applauded for repudiating the obligation 
 which election to ofBce imposes than to be 
 prosecuted therefor. There are quite a num- 
 ber always willing to take the burden ofE his 
 shoulders. And yet there are records of judi- 
 cial prosecution and punishment for the failure 
 to accept and discharge the duties of certain 
 minor oflBees. The position of road overseer or 
 constable is not congenial to many, and not 
 unnaturally they seek to escape therefrom. 
 Tenacious of the right to hold each one to the 
 duties of an office to which he has been elected 
 the English Parliament has a pleasant way of 
 enabling a man to resign his seat therein. 
 While private business may not Justify such 
 resignation it is held that he may vacate that 
 office if he accepts another of equal dignity; 
 and so when a member of Parliament de- 
 sires to resign he secures an appointment to 
 the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, 
 
64 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 and then may surrender his place in Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 Another case in which there is a duty of ser- 
 vice, and one enforced by law, is that connected 
 with the military and naval forces of the na- 
 tion. He who enters either, whether volun- 
 tarily or by means of a draft, must endure all 
 its dangers and toils. He may not avoid them 
 without rendering himself amenable to punish- 
 ment. This proceeds upon the theory that the 
 nation, to protect its life and enforce its laws, 
 may compel the active efEort of all its citizens. 
 But believing that the time will come when the 
 war-drum shall beat no longer and the battle- 
 flags be furled, I do not stop to enlarge upon 
 the special duties of military service. 
 
 One important service is connected with the 
 administration of justice. We are called upon 
 to act as witnesses and jurors. How many 
 gladly avoid the discharge of those duties ? It 
 is astonishing when a jury list is summoned 
 to find how many sick people there are on it. 
 I do not wonder that they are sick. I think I 
 should be. The sickness of a juror is like the 
 
OBLIGATION OF SEEVIOE 65 
 
 Sunday headache, which used to be so commoii 
 in college. The jury system as at present ad- 
 ministered, in many States at least, is little 
 more than a relic of semi-civilized conditions. 
 The juror is too often treated as a criminal, or 
 suspected of an intention to become one. Shut 
 up at night, as if for fear he may become a 
 fugitive from justice, given a compensation 
 scarcely exceeding that which a day laborer re- 
 ceives, listening for days to witnesses who are 
 sometimes stupid and often confusing, annoyed 
 by the wearisome wrangles between attorneys 
 concerning the admission or rejection of testi- 
 mony, I do not wonder that a business man 
 seeks to avoid its burdens, and I hope that the 
 time will come when a juror will be treated as 
 though he were an honest man, denied no more 
 of the comforts of home than the judge him- 
 self, paid that which is an adequate compensa- 
 tion for his time and when the unanimity now 
 required and which prompts to all the strenu- 
 ous effort to guard against undue influences 
 upon one, or to secure the kindly assistance of 
 one — a unanimity which is called for in scarce- 
 
66 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 ly any other tribunal on the face of the earth 
 — shall give way to a system in which the con- 
 currence of a reasonable majority of the jurors 
 shall determine the verdict. So, a witness is 
 often insulted by opposing counsel. He is in- 
 terrogated as though he were presumably a 
 liar, and questions are put to him with insinua- 
 tions and in a manner which every honorable 
 man feels like resenting. But notwithstanding 
 all the disagreeable features which attend ser- 
 vice as a witness or juror it is an obligation 
 resting upon the citizen, and one which as a 
 duty he should not ignore. Let him strive for 
 reformation, but meantime not make himself a 
 delinquent. 
 
 Again, there is service at the primaries and 
 the polls. No more important duty rests upon 
 the citizen. The great problem of government 
 by the people depends for its wise solution upon 
 the fidelity with which this service is per- 
 formed. I know there are many to whom a 
 primary is a matter of no moment, a campaign 
 nothing better than a circus, an election day 
 only a holiday ; but to him who appreciates the 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 67 
 
 value of government by the people, who knows 
 that here, in the first instance, at least, the 
 policy of such government is to be settled, who 
 appreciates the dignity of American citizenship 
 and his personal responsibility for the success- 
 ful outcome of the great problem; to him the 
 primary and the polls are sacred . places, and 
 the service he renders there is as important as 
 any rendered on the battle-field or in the halls 
 of Congress. Unfortunately, too often, the 
 one who is most competent to render efficient 
 service in these directions is the one who 
 neglects it. He does not like the atmosphere 
 of the primary or the surroundings of the polls. 
 Conscious of education and intelligence he is 
 afflicted with a daintiness which leads him to 
 avoid the touch of common people. Then 
 when the outcome does not accord with his 
 views he mourns over the decadence of the 
 American people, and the infelicities of our 
 politics. 
 
 On^ service more I must mention, and that 
 is service in the payment of taxes. I have yet 
 to meet the man whose heart was filled with 
 
68 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 gratitude at the privilege of paying taxes. 
 While many unhesitatingly pay them and feel 
 that in so doing they are discharging but a 
 common obligation of all, you are not likely to 
 find one overflowing with effusion of joy be- 
 cause he has been permitted to contribute so 
 much money to the government. Every one 
 knows that the pecuniary burdens we call taxes 
 must be borne; the individual must contribute 
 in order that the government may continue, 
 and yet the ordinary tax-payer is willing that 
 his neighbor shall bear this burden. His 
 patriotism in this respect is like that of Arte- 
 mus Ward in the civil war, a willingness to 
 have all his wife's relations drafted. There 
 has always been great difference of opinion as 
 to the things to be taxed and the modes of tax- 
 ation. Out of these differences have arisen 
 some of the political parties of the day, and 
 disputes concerning these questions have been 
 sharp both in legislative and judicial halls. 
 There is a constant effort by many to shift by 
 legislation the burdens of taxation to the shoul- 
 ders of others, and when they fail in that legis- 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 69 
 
 lation they pursue many a curious and winding 
 way in efforts to escape those burdens. 
 
 I have enumerated these various forms in 
 which service is to be rendered by the citizen 
 to the State in order that the scope thereof 
 may be clearly understood. I do not mean that 
 these are all the services which are due from 
 the citizen, but they are enough to present the 
 matter to the mind. As is obvious, these obli- 
 gations of service are not all continuous. They 
 are not pressing upon the citizen at all times, 
 nor do they rest upon all alike. And yet they 
 are services which may be called for, and in 
 respect to them I notice these things : 
 
 First, whenever due they should be willingly 
 rendered, for every failure impairs to that ex- 
 tent the ability of the nation to do and be for 
 the citizen all that it should do and be. The 
 organization of the political institution which 
 we call the nation is for the purpose of secur- 
 ing the highest weU-being of all the individuals 
 composing it. As declared in the Preamble to 
 the Constitution of the United States, it is or- 
 dained to "establish justice, ensure domestic 
 
70 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
 promote the general welfare, and secure the 
 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- 
 terity." In order that the nation may the 
 most perfectly discharge its duty to the peo- 
 ple, and carry into full effect the purpose for 
 which it was organized it is essential that each 
 citizen and all citizens should render the 
 various services which each and all are called 
 upon to render, whenever they are so called 
 upon; and that they should render them will- 
 ingly. They should lift their eyes above the 
 narrow horizon of their own convenience, their 
 own temporary comfort or annoyance, and see 
 that in the performance of those duties they 
 are simply doing their part in helping the na- 
 tion to its highest usefulness, and securing to 
 it the capacity for the greatest blessings to 
 themselves and their posterity. 
 
 Again, it should be intelligent service. The 
 workings of that great machine called the gov- 
 ernment are not mechanical. Its various parts 
 are not fastened to a central wheel by pulleys 
 and bolts, wheels and cogs, so that when once 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 71 
 
 that central wheel is started all move in unison 
 with mechanical precision. The forces which 
 permeate and move the life of the nation are 
 intellectual and moral. Each one who takes 
 his part in doing any service to the nation 
 must, in order to fuUy discharge his duty, act 
 with all the intelligence he possesses. Science 
 may measure and control the forces which 
 move inert lifeless matter, but science can put 
 no chain or band around those forces which 
 start withia the human soul and which prompt 
 each individual to his activities. In order that 
 the aggregate of the forces which move the na- 
 tion may work out the best it is all important 
 that he who moves any of them, or touches the 
 great springs of its life, shall have a clear un- 
 derstanding of what he is doing and the re- 
 sults of his action, and so become an intelli- 
 gent factor in that life. Very different is the 
 condition of a nation like this from that which 
 obtains in an absolute monarchy where the 
 directing force, the intellectual power, is cen- 
 tred in an individual or a handful while the 
 great mass of the individuals are simply pawns 
 
72 AMEEIOAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 moved by the master minds on the national 
 chessboard. Here each man is an active ruler. 
 Upon him rests the responsibility of govern- 
 ment, and out of the commingled thoughts and 
 purposes of all comes the final movement of the 
 nation. Nor is the obligation of intelligent 
 service limited to the higher forms of service 
 and not binding on those who discharge those 
 of less importance. It may require a superior 
 talent, a larger knowledge, to make a great 
 general than a private soldier, but all history 
 attests that the intelligent soldier, the one who 
 discharges the duties of that service thought- 
 fully, is of far more value than one who is stu- 
 pid and ignorant. In battle, as everywhere 
 else, the personal factor becomes of no small 
 moment, and intelligent service there on the 
 part of all is, like intelligent service elsewhere, 
 a help to success. 
 
 And if intelligent service is called for from 
 any, surely it is from those who have had the 
 benefit of a liberal education. The hod-carrier, 
 the section hand, the street-cleaner, may say 
 that his range of knowledge is limited. He has 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 73 
 
 not had the opportunities of others for study, 
 but the college graduate can make no such de- 
 fence. Of all citizens he is the one to whom 
 is given the largest opportunity for acquiring 
 knowledge, and is the last man in the nation 
 who can plead ignorance as an excuse for lack 
 of intelligent service. He, at least in this re- 
 spect, is charged with the highest responsibil- 
 ity. He goes out from college halls an am- 
 bassador from a great court of learning, whose 
 diploma he carries as his credentials. He is 
 received, and rightfully received, as possessed 
 of knowledge and the power which comes there- 
 from. Ignorance is to him an unconscionable 
 plea. The graduate from this university who 
 when called upon to render service writes ig- 
 norance as his excuse for mistake casts a libel 
 on his alma mater. If you have no moral 
 character you may be a scoundrel, but never 
 ask the community to believe that a Yale grad- 
 uate is a fool. 
 
 Again, it should be unselfish and conscien- 
 tious service. I endeavored to show in my last 
 lecture that high personal character is one of 
 
74 AMEEIOASr CITIZENSHIP 
 
 the obligations of the citizen, and that it is all- 
 important to the life of the nation. Along the 
 same line of thought, it must be said that un- 
 selfish and conscientious action is one of the 
 important elements in a full discharge of the 
 obligations of service. The thought that it is 
 the prime purpose to get as much out of life 
 and give as little to it as possible is unworthy 
 a manly man, and especially one who has been 
 given great advantages in preparing for life. 
 A citizen should be conscientious in the dis- 
 charge not only of duties of high position but 
 in the discharge of every kind of service called 
 for. We expect a president, a governor, or a 
 judge, to be conscientious. We have an equal 
 right to call upon the humblest citizen to be 
 likewise. He should be conscientious as a 
 juror, conscientious as a road overseer, con- 
 scientious in the discharge of his duties as a 
 voter and in the payment of taxes. That there 
 is not infrequently great lacking in this regard 
 in minor matters is obvious. 
 
 A friend told me this of the experience of 
 one of the States : It had been the habit in that 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 75 
 
 State to leave the listing of personal property 
 to the unsworn statement of the tax-payer. 
 The smallness of the assessment roll attracted 
 attention, and finally an act was passed requir- 
 ing the return by each tax-payer to be verified 
 by his oath. The first year the aggregate re- 
 turn of personal property was doubled, but the 
 year thereafter it diminished a little, and stead- 
 ily from year to year it grew less and less. As 
 the State was one where property changes are 
 slight the only satisfactory explanation was 
 that the first year the conscience of the tax- 
 payer pricked him and he made something like 
 a truthful statement. The next year his eon- 
 science hardened and he was willing to drop a 
 little, and so from year to year the hardening 
 process went on and the assessment roll went 
 down. 
 
 Does any one at all familiar with our na- 
 tional life doubt that that which is suggested 
 by this illustration finds abundant repetition 
 everywhere ? The frequent justification is that 
 a neighbor does the same, or that there is a 
 common understanding in the community to 
 that effect. 
 
76 AMEEIOAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 In another direction is also witnessed a fre- 
 quent disregard of the obligations of conscien- 
 tious service, and that is in judicial proceed- 
 ings. The juror yields his judgment to his 
 prejudices. Especially is this true (and true 
 not merely of jurors but of witnesses) in those 
 actions in which there is an effort by law to 
 restrain the vices of the community. It has 
 sometimes been, perhaps not extravagantly, 
 stated that prohibition laws are the greatest in- 
 centive to perjury that the country affords. 
 Certain it is that offences against those laws are 
 exceedingly difficult of successful prosecution. 
 The memory of witnesses is lamentably weak 
 and the reasonable doubts of jurors are multi- 
 plied and magnified. Both witnesses and ju- 
 rors are parleying with conscience, and their 
 action too often springs from objection to the 
 law rather than from a failure of memory or 
 ignorance of testimony. 
 
 And here I must notice that which is attract- 
 ing growing attention, to-wit, the so-called 
 commercialism in politics. That it exists, that 
 it is an evil, that it is freighted with peril, no 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 77 
 
 intelligent person questions. Possibly the ex- 
 tent to which it exists is exaggerated. It is 
 easy for a beaten party or candidate to charge 
 that defeat is owing to the use of money. 
 These things must also be borne in mind : The 
 real cost of carrying on a political campaign is 
 great; halls are to be hired; speakers are to be 
 employed; brass bands and pyrotechnique dis- 
 plays attend parades and conventions; enor- 
 mous masses of publications are circulated. 
 And these campaigns are carried on in modem 
 military methods, with a general commander, 
 whose various lieutenants and agents take their 
 bidding from the central authority and act as 
 officers of the great political army. In this re- 
 spect campaigns differ from those of fifty years 
 ago, for they were more in the nature of spon- 
 taneous inexpensive movements by separate 
 communities having a common purpose. Now 
 a campaign along these new lines necessarily 
 involves large expenditures, and expenditures 
 which cannot be denounced as corrupt. 
 Whether in all respects this mode of campaign- 
 ing is better than that which existed in days 
 
78 AMEEICAUr CITIZENSHIP 
 
 gone by may be doubted, but it is far from just 
 to denounce the expenditures made in conse- 
 quence thereof as evidences of corruption. It 
 must also be remembered that the pecuniary 
 interests which are involved are enormous, that 
 money is more abundant, that many interested 
 can easily afford and are willing to contribute, 
 so that large sums pass into the hands of party 
 managers, and with their possession comes the 
 temptation to make a display. And yet, mak- 
 ing all fair allowances for these various mat- 
 ters, no one can doubt that money is becoming 
 a factor, and a hurtful factor, in our politics. 
 Side by side with this is also the fact that, with 
 the change in our capital cities in the styles 
 and modes of living, the cost thereof has be- 
 come greater, salaries of public officials are 
 more inadequate, and there is the ever-pressing 
 temptation to utilize official position in such 
 way that one may go out of politics no worse 
 off at least pecuniarily than when he went in. 
 I have not time to amplify on this subject, to 
 detail the evidences of the existence of this evil, 
 to repeat the stories which are found in the 
 
OBLIGATION OP SERVICE 79 
 
 daily papers, stories many of which I am glad 
 to believe are but stories, though perhaps too 
 often, like the historical novel, fiction founded 
 upon fact. What I do wish to emphasize is 
 that this evil exists and that it is more of an 
 evil than it was in days gone by. 
 
 As against this, as well as against all other 
 like evils, I appeal to the American sense of the 
 value and duty of high, conscientious service. 
 Each one must realize that so far as he stands 
 proof against its seductive power, keeping him- 
 self aloof from its contaminating touch, he is 
 doing his part to stay its curse and take the 
 bitterness of the sting from the frequent sneer 
 that in American politics the dollar is more 
 than the man. We must impress upon all the 
 solemn fact that the voting booth is the temple 
 of American institutions. Ko single tribe or 
 family is chosen to watch the sacred fires ever- 
 more burning on its altars, or to tend in its 
 services. Each one of us is a priest. To each 
 is given the care of the ark of the covenant. 
 Each one ministers at its altars. He who min- 
 isters at those altars with hands stained with 
 
80 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 corruption is like one who sitteth at the table 
 of the Lord and eateth and drinketh unworth- 
 ily, and thus eateth and drinketh damnation. 
 
 Along the street 
 
 The shadows meet 
 Of Destiny, whose hands conceal 
 
 The molds of fate 
 
 That shape the State, 
 And make or mar the common weal. 
 
 Around I see 
 
 The powers that be, 
 I stand by Empire's primal springs ; 
 
 And princes meet 
 
 In every street. 
 And hear the tread of uncrowned kings ! 
 
 Not lightly fall 
 
 Beyond recall 
 The written scrolls a breath can float ; 
 
 The crowning fact. 
 
 The kingliest act. 
 Of Freedom is the Freeman's vote I 
 
 Our hearts grow cold, 
 
 We lightly hold 
 A right which brave men died to gain ; 
 
 The stake, the cord, 
 
 The axe, the sword. 
 Grim nurses at its birth of pain. 
 
OBLIGATION OF SEEVIOE 81 
 
 The shadow rend, 
 
 And o'er us bend, 
 O martyrs, with your crowns and palms ; 
 
 Breathe through these throngs 
 
 Your battle songs, 
 Your scaffold prayers and dungeon psalms 1 
 
 Look from the sky. 
 
 Like God's great eye, 
 Thou solemn moon, with searching beam, 
 
 Till in the sight 
 
 Of thy pure light 
 Our mean self-seekings meaner seem. 
 
 Shame from our hearts 
 
 Unworthy arts, 
 The fraud designed, the purpose dark ; 
 
 And smite away 
 
 The hands we lay 
 Profanely on the sacred ark. 
 
 To party claims 
 
 And private aims 
 Eeveal that august face of Truth, 
 
 Whereto are given 
 
 The age of heaven. 
 The beauty of immortal youth. 
 
 So shall our voice 
 Of sovereign choice 
 Swell the deep bass of duty done. 
 
83 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 And strike the key 
 Of time to be, 
 When God and man shall speak as one ! 
 
 I do not doubt the outcome. Not do I rest 
 my faith on Matthew Arnold's idea of a saving 
 remnant. The great body of the American 
 people are still keenly alive to a sense of the 
 solemnity of this obligation of service. They 
 do not more than half believe the stories that 
 fill our press. They are a patient, enduring 
 people. They willingly condone offences, be- 
 lieving that the shame which attends will be 
 both punishment to the individual and check 
 against repetition. But if ever convinced that 
 commercialism is controlling our political life 
 they will rise in their wrath and take swiftest 
 and sternest vengeance on all who are in fact 
 or are believed to be tainted with this curse. 
 
 Finally, let me add, live your life in the full 
 sense of the nobility of the citizen's service. It 
 is, of course, trite to say that every honest ser- 
 vice is noble, to whomsoever and in whatsoever 
 cause rendered; but if we link in our minds 
 the service we render with the cause to which 
 
OBLIGATION OF SERVICE 83 
 
 it is rendered we may often have a clearer 
 vision of its real nobility. We see not merely 
 that we are rendering willing, intelligent, and 
 conscientious service, and therefore have the 
 peace of mind which comes from the conscious- 
 ness of duty done^ but we become filled with 
 the greatness of that to which the s.ervice is 
 rendered, and whose well-being finds its highest 
 promise in the fidelity of our efforts, and so 
 there comes to us as in no other way a realiza- 
 tion of the nobility of that service. And this 
 sense of nobility extends to every kind of ser- 
 vice the citizen may render, no matter whether 
 it may be what the world calls high or what it 
 may regard as low. The end ennobles the 
 work. Paul had that idea when, in the 12th 
 Chapter of the 1st Corinthians, he illustrated 
 the co-working of all christians to the same end 
 in different services by a comparison of the 
 body with all its members, saying : " But now 
 are they many members, yet but one body. 
 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have 
 no need of thee : nor again the head to the feet, 
 I have no need of you. Nay, much more those 
 
84 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 members of the body, which seem to be more 
 feeble, are necessary. . . . And whether 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with 
 it; or one member be honored, all the members 
 rejoice with it." Equally, therefore, may he 
 who is rendering the humblest form of service 
 to this great Eepublic rejoice as being a co- 
 worker with him who is performing the high- 
 est, assured that without fidelity on his part 
 the efforts of others will lose something of their 
 value, and sure that he equallv with them is 
 a part of this nation and a maker of its destiny. 
 In the days of the Caesars "I am a Eoman 
 citizen" was a proud, exultant declaration. 
 It was protection. It was more; it was honor 
 and glory. Twenty centuries of advancing 
 civilization have given to the declaration, "I 
 am an American citizen " a higher and a nobler 
 place. It stands to-day in the forefront of 
 earthly titles. It proclaims a sharing in the 
 greatest opportunities. It is a trumpet-call to 
 the highest fidelity. It is the diploma of the 
 world, the highest which humanity has to 
 bestow. 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 
 
IV 
 
 OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 
 
 The next form of obligation to which I wish 
 to call your attention is that of obedience. It 
 is a necessity of every organized community 
 that there should be laws and .rules to control 
 the actions of individuals. Without them a 
 state of anarchy would exist, each man being a 
 law unto himself, and the diverse purposes and 
 wishes bringing about constant collisions. It 
 is true laws and rules place some restraint on 
 human action, but it does not follow therefrom 
 that they at all interfere with liberty in its 
 truest sense. For liberty does not imply li- 
 cense, absolute freedom of action, but simply 
 the right to do that which one deems best, sub- 
 ject to the limitation that it does not interfere 
 with the equal rights of other members of the 
 community. Of course a Eobinson Crusoe 
 
 may have absolute freedom, for alone on an 
 87 
 
88 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 island there is no one having rights to be 
 abridged by anything he may do. And, paren- 
 thetically I may say, if every one who feels that 
 the slight restraints of the law are trespasses 
 upon his liberty would hie away to some lonely 
 island in the South Seas and there luxuriate 
 in the liberty he craves, our benedictions would 
 go with him as well as our prayers that he never 
 return. But when even his man Friday comes 
 to live with Crusoe then his absolute freedom 
 of action must stop on the hither side of Fri- 
 day's rights. And each additional person com- 
 ing to live with or near him, having his own 
 rights may by virtue thereof somewhat restrain 
 Crusoe's action. So it is that the more there 
 are in a community and the more closely they 
 live together, the more numerous are the neces- 
 sary restraints upon the action of each. This 
 necessity of restraint is the source of that mys- 
 terious and illy defined attribute of government 
 which we call the police power, a power which 
 always has a wider field of action in a city than 
 in a village, and in a village than in a farming 
 neighborhood. 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 89 
 
 In a government by the people law is the ex- 
 pressed will of the majority. Back of it stands 
 the power of the organized community. That 
 power exists to compel obedience to law, and to 
 many, therefore, law stands simply as the rep- 
 resentation of force; something which must be 
 yielded to, not because there is a pleasure in 
 so doing but because there is a necessity there- 
 for and unfortunate penalties for not yielding. 
 So, to them law is something which always 
 stands in antagonism. The ofificers of the law 
 are their enemies, and they feel a secret pleas- 
 ure whenever they see them baffled in their ef- 
 forts to execute it. It is popular to sneer at 
 and ridicule the policeman, although without 
 him we would be at the mercy of the worst 
 elements. 
 
 It often happens that the meaning of a law 
 is debatable, is disputed. Within the nation 
 we have tribunals to determine such matters of 
 dispute, but if a tribunal de^des the meaning 
 against our contention, not infrequently then 
 that tribunal becomes itself the object of an- 
 tagonism, and we look upon it as simply an- 
 
90 AMEKICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 other instrumentality by which we are coerced 
 into that which we do not wish and declare 
 that we have become again the victims of mere 
 arbitrary power. 
 
 I may here note in passing the difference be- 
 tween that law which obtains within a nation, 
 or municipal law as it is called, and interna- 
 tional law, the body of rules which regulate the 
 intercourse of nations. In respect to the lat- 
 ter, there is neither tribunal to determine what 
 is the law, nor organized force to compel obedi- 
 ence. The separate nations construe for them- 
 selves, and, when selfish interests require, abide 
 by their own interpretations, or defiantly re- 
 pudiate the law entirely. The contrast be- 
 tween that condition and that of law within a 
 nation where there is a tribunal to determine 
 the meaning and a power to enforce obedience 
 is obvious. 
 
 I do not mean to say that there are no cir- 
 cumstances under which disobedience to law 
 may become a duty. Half a century ago there 
 was great discussion in this country upon the 
 question of the "higher law," and that there 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 91 
 
 is a higher law I have no doubt. The law of 
 righteousness carries a demand of obedience 
 above any mere human enactment, but never- 
 theless the instances in which the higher law 
 will conflict with the law of the nation are so 
 rare that it does not seem profitable to use much 
 time in discussing them. It certainly ill be- 
 comes one as an excuse for disobedience to create 
 a mere imaginary conflict between municipal 
 and the higher law. Human nature is so consti- 
 tuted that when a law does not suit us we look 
 with great complacency upon the suggestion 
 that it conflicts with some higher law, and that, 
 therefore, we ought to disobey it. Often one 
 fancies that he has grave religious doubts when 
 it is a mere matter of a disordered liver. As 
 Mrs. Bateman, one of the characters in " The 
 Farringdons," says of husbands in general, and 
 hers in particular : 
 
 " The very best of them don't properly 
 know the difference between their souls and 
 their stomachs; and they fancy that they are 
 a-wrestling with their doubts, when really it is 
 their dinners that are a-wrestling with them. 
 
92 AMEEIOAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Now take Bateman hisself, and a kinder hus- 
 band or a better Methodist never drew breath; 
 yet so sure as he touches a bit of pork, he be- 
 gins to worry hisself about the doctrine of Elec- 
 tion till there's no living with him. . . . 
 He'll sit in the front parlor and engage in 
 prayer for hours at a time, tiU I says to him, 
 * Bateman,' says I, ' I'd be ashamed to go 
 troubling the Lord with a prayer when a pinch 
 o' carbonate of soda would set things straight 
 again.' " 
 
 One may often wisely solve the doubtful 
 conflict in his mind between duties as did the 
 good Quaker on shipboard when the vessel was 
 attacked by pirates. A man of peace, he would 
 do no fighting, but as he saw a pirate climb- 
 ing up the side of the vessel by a rope, he said 
 to him, " Friend, dost thou wish the rope ? 
 Thou shalt have it," and suiting the action to 
 the word drew his knife, cut the rope and 
 dropped both rope and pirate into the ocean. 
 
 It must not be supposed that obedience im- 
 plies a mere passive condition — a simple re- 
 fraining from doing things forbidden by stat- 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 93 
 
 ute. It is an active virtue. The law com- 
 mands as well as forbids; and obedience re- 
 quires the doing of the act which the law 
 commands as well as the not doing that which 
 it forbids. As I indicated in my last lecture, 
 the nation calls for various kinds of service, 
 and in the truest sense a citizen never fulfils 
 his obligation of obedience unless he renders 
 those services. He may not claim that he has 
 discharged his whole obligation by proof that 
 he has never broken a single clause of the penal 
 code. It is the willing active effort that makes 
 obedience a virtue. Submission is not the 
 whole. That may spring from indifference or 
 cowardice. It indicates no appreciation of 
 the dignities or duties of citizenship. In a 
 certain sense it may be true, as the blind Mil- 
 ton wrote, "they also serve who only stand 
 and wait," but in this eager, aspiring, tumultu- 
 ous day of ours, in this stirring, pushing, 
 pressing life of the Republic, he alone enters 
 fully into the spirit of obedience who throws 
 himself joyfully and earnestly forward in the 
 effort to do all that the nation calls for, and 
 
94 AMBKICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 also to secure like action from others. "The 
 letter killeth but the spirit giveth life." One's 
 own attitude toward the law is one thing. His 
 efforts to bring others into the same attitude 
 another and equally important. He must ever- 
 more lift up the law as something sacred, not 
 to be thrown down and trampled in the dust 
 by any one or any party. 
 
 So I pass on to say that the duty upon the 
 part of every one to obey the laws of the nation 
 arises because, in the first place, such obedience 
 insures peace and order. If all obeyed, the 
 criminal courts, now so busy, would find their 
 occupation, like Othello's, gone, and a peace 
 would prevail through the community — a 
 peace not like the order which reigned in War- 
 saw, stifling activities and indicating stagna- 
 tion of life, but a peace in which all the activ- 
 ities of all the individuals of the nation would 
 have fullest play. 
 
 Obedience is a duty because, in the second 
 place, in this government by the people all 
 take part in the enactment of the laws. When 
 many individuals engage in a common enter- 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 95 
 
 prise whose particular actions are to be settled 
 by the judgment of the majority, it is the part 
 of honor to abide by the decision of such ma- 
 jority. Surely the path of honor in such a 
 case becomes the path of duty. It is the essence 
 of government by the people that the will of 
 the majority should control, and no man 
 should put himself in a position of defiance to 
 that will simply because he does not concur in 
 the views of the majority. But, it may be said, 
 that ofttimes laws are unjust, unwise, and op- 
 erate harshly on individuals. Doubtless that 
 is true, but General Grant never said a wiser 
 thing than when he declared that the best way 
 to treat a bad law was to enforce it strictly, for 
 then its odious features would soon arrest at- 
 tention, and the considerate judgment of the 
 majority would repeal it. 
 
 It has been said that popular government 
 was doomed to failure because of the bitterness 
 growing out of election contests; that human 
 nature is such that the result of the struggles 
 at the polls will not always be acquiesced in by 
 the defeated party, and that an appeal to arms 
 
96 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 may be expected from those there beaten, and 
 that when once such an appeal is successful 
 repetitions will follow, until, dismayed and 
 harassed thereby, the community gladly takes 
 refuge in a strong central government with a 
 continuous executive. All social and business 
 interests will prefer even " a man on horse- 
 back " to anarchy and confusion. It is not to 
 be gainsaid that the experience of many so- 
 called republican governments furnish support 
 to this contention. Eevolutions follow one an- 
 other in some of our South American States 
 with almost the frequency of elections, and 
 with far greater regularity than earthquakes 
 and volcanic eruptions. A friend of mine, re- 
 turning the other day from one of those States, 
 told me that while there he spoke to some gen- 
 tlemen about the frequency of revolutions, and 
 received the reply, that unlike their northern 
 neighbors they had neither tennis, nor cricket, 
 nor golf to amuse themselves with, and must 
 have revolutions for their fun. 
 
 We have had in our history one terrible les- 
 son, a lesson which will not soon be forgotten, 
 
OBLIGATION OP OBEDIENCE 97 
 
 and which, in addition to other matters, was a 
 declaration as forceful as could have been 
 made that this people will fight to the last 
 before they will permit to enter into our polit- 
 ical life the idea that any body of men or party 
 can appeal from the ballot-box to the musket. 
 It was a terrible lesson, but perhaps a neces- 
 sary one, and now obedience, at least in respect 
 to the action of parties and sections, to the 
 supreme law of the land, is something which, 
 so far as human foresight can determine, is in 
 this nation to stay. We have since had election 
 contests fuU of bitterness, contests in which 
 the defeated party felt that it had been fraud- 
 ulently deprived of a victory to which it was 
 entitled by the popular vote. But while for a 
 time passions raged with utmost violence, the 
 one great lesson of the past was heeded, and 
 rather than enter upon the bitter experience of 
 revolution the defeated party, although smart- 
 ing under the conviction that the fruits of 
 victory had been stolen from it, was content 
 to wait for a new election. To say that the 
 acceptance of the results of an election is a 
 
98 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 duty resting upon all is simply another way 
 of aflBrming the duty of obedience to the laws 
 and the government. One of the imposing 
 spectacles of our national life is the vision of 
 the cheerfulness with which the great body of 
 our people generally accept the result of an 
 election. As Senator Daniels said, in his ad- 
 dress at the Capital Centennial the other day, 
 " the political clocks of both parties strike the 
 same hours; after election." 
 
 While I do not look for trouble in the way 
 of attempted revolution, there is a form of dis- 
 obedience to constituted authority which is be- 
 coming unfortunately too prevalent and which 
 is freighted with danger. I refer to those dis- 
 turbances which attend what are commonly 
 known as strikes. 
 
 As I have heretofore pointed out, obedience 
 in the truest sense of the term is an active 
 virtue. It calls not alone for personal conduct, 
 but also for active effort to make obedience the 
 universal rule. Industrial combination is a 
 fact of to-day ; large manufacturing and trans- 
 portation enterprises on the one hand, with 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 99 
 
 great bodies of employees on the other. Com- 
 bination and organization exist on both sides. 
 Our constitutional guarantee of equality gives 
 to either party the right to terminate the rela- 
 tion of employer and employe. It is true that 
 if such termination involves a breach of eon- 
 tract an action for damages will lie, which may 
 be something of value against the employer 
 and not much against the employee. But the 
 termination of that relation, whether involving 
 breach of contract or not, carries with it no 
 right of coercion. No matter what injury to 
 the employer, or disturbance of his interests, 
 or inconvenience to the public the summary 
 stopping of work by the employees singly or in 
 mass may produce, the law does not attempt 
 to compel them to work. An equality of right 
 is possessed by the employer. He may termi- 
 nate the relation of employer and employee, 
 and the law will not compel him to reinstate 
 it. If there be a breach of contract he may 
 suffer in an action of damages, but the law 
 does not forcibly re-establish the relation. As 
 the employees may act in a body, so the em- 
 
100 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 ployers may act, and so may they treat them as 
 a body. I am dealing now with the legal rights 
 of the two parties. I take no notice of condi- 
 tions which may exist if compulsory arbitra- 
 tion ever becomes a feature of our law. There 
 may then possibly be coercion. Neither do I 
 stop to take notice of that pressure which 
 comes from public sentiment and which often 
 and justly influences one or both parties to 
 seek to re-establish the relation; nor even of 
 those ethical principles which ought to influ- 
 ence us all, and which doubtless in the days 
 to come may be more and more incorporated 
 into positive law. I am dealing, as I said, 
 simply with present legal relations, and the 
 obligations of obedience to the laws which go 
 hand in hand with those relations. 
 
 While many of these strikes are settled 
 peacefully, yet it is a sad fact in respect to not 
 a few that they are attended by violence, colli- 
 sion, destruction of property, and sometimes of 
 life. It may be true that in many instances 
 the violence and destruction are not the work 
 of the strikers themselves, but of mere sympa- 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 101 
 
 thizers, or even of the mob of the idle and 
 vicious who are sure to congregate where there 
 is a prospect of trouble. But he who calls a 
 mob into being cannot be pronounced wholly 
 guiltless of that which the mob may do. 
 
 It is not my purpose to inquire which in any 
 given case is primarily the most responsible, 
 the employer or the employee. What I wish to 
 emphasize is that these collisions involve a 
 matter of disobedience. It is one thing to 
 exercise a right which the law gives, and in 
 the exercise of that right an individual or a 
 combination is entitled to the fullest protec- 
 tion; but it is an entirely different thing for 
 one party to endeavor to prevent another from 
 exercising an equal right under the law. It 
 makes little difference whether the attempted 
 coercion is by force or intimidation. In either 
 case it is an effort not to change but to break 
 the law. In either it is a matter of disobedi- 
 ence in the truest sense of the term. It may 
 be wise that all who are engaged in pursu- 
 ing the same avocation should be organized 
 into one body, but whether they should be so 
 
103 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 organized or not depends, as the law now 
 stands, solely on voluntary action, and to at- 
 tempt to deny a laborer his right to work, 
 whether he be within or without an organiza- 
 tion, or to deprive him of full protection in 
 that work, implies a plain disregard of the 
 mandates of the law. If it be, as a matter of 
 political economy, wise that there should be a 
 consolidation of all employees into one or more 
 organizations, and that no one should be per- 
 mitted to work except he be a member of such 
 organizations, let the law makers so enact, and 
 whenever a constitutional enactment to that 
 effect is passed, then every good citizen should 
 strive to enforce it. But until such enactment 
 there is no justifiable excuse for attempting by 
 any form of coercion or intimidation to de- 
 prive one of his liberty in respect to labor, a 
 liberty included within what our fathers de- 
 clared to be inalienable rights, "Ufe, liberty 
 and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 Another matter which illustrates both the 
 spirit and result of disobedience, and which is 
 a blot on our national life, is the frequency of 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 103 
 
 lynch law. It used to be said that it was an 
 experience of the frontier, in communities 
 which had not become fully organized and 
 where the forces of the law were not yet in suc- 
 cessful operation. But now it may almost be re- 
 garded as a habit of the American people. 
 Scarcely a day passes that the people of some 
 community have not, as it is said, taken the 
 law into their own hands. The time was when 
 these acts were so rare, and coming only under 
 conditions of terrible excitement and atrocious 
 crime, that they startled us. They were called 
 thunder-storms, and it was claimed in their 
 justification that like thunder-storms they 
 cleared the air. But now they are so common 
 that we pay little attention to them, and look 
 upon them as almost a matter of course. It is 
 a convenient, inexpensive, and expeditious way 
 of putting some worthless scoundrel out of the 
 world, and the fact that there is an occasional 
 mistake as to the real criminal seems to operate 
 in no way to deter from similar actions and on 
 slight provocation. 
 
 Far be it from me to say that there is not in 
 
104 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 the administration of the law that which may 
 be stated by way of palliation. It seems some- 
 times as though legislation was conceived in 
 the spirit of obstruction to the punishment of 
 criminals and of indefinite postponement 
 thereof by appeal, writ of error, and habeas 
 corpus. Appellate courts have a wonderfully 
 quick eye for detecting fine technical errors in 
 criminal proceedings, and back of all stands a 
 tender-hearted Executive responding to the ap- 
 peals of relatives and friends of the criminal. 
 It is not therefore altogether wonderful that 
 an indignant community will take no chances 
 but summarily inflicts the punishment the ac- 
 cused deserves. But we must rise to a higher 
 plane or the peace and order as well as the 
 good name of society will suffer sad shatter. 
 We shall rise to such higher plane only when 
 the moral sense of the community is aroused 
 to the enormity of such transactions. It is 
 useless to scold legislators or lawyers or judges 
 or executives. They will never be any better 
 than the popular sentiment which is back of 
 them. When that public sentiment is aroused 
 
OBLIGATION OF OBEDIENCE 105 
 
 SO as to feel that the safety of the commuiiity 
 demands prompt, stern, imfaltering prosecu- 
 tion of criminals, then it wiU be that legisla- 
 tion will cease to block but will strive to facili- 
 tate; errors will be less obvious; executives will 
 be firmer; justice will be done; criminals will 
 be punished, and lynch law wiU be forgotten. 
 Disobedience to the law will in this respect be 
 simply a matter of history. 
 
 I might go on pointing out other forms of 
 disobedience, and noting the varied results 
 which flow therefrom, but perhaps these are 
 enough. And the conclusion which I wish to 
 draw is the duty and necessity of full, hearty 
 obedience to the letter and spirit of all our 
 laws. Do I lay too much stress on this ? Am 
 I failing to note the many imperfections which 
 attend our laws and the administration 
 thereof? By no means. On the contrary, I 
 fully appreciate the incongruities, the defects, 
 the imperfections. But there is no danger that 
 obedience will tend to perpetuate these defects 
 and imperfections; that the masses continually 
 yielding to things as they are will become so 
 
106 AMEEICANT CITIZENSHIP 
 
 used to them as neither to seek nor desire im- 
 provement. On the contrary, the very spirit 
 of the age is against contentment and acquies- 
 cence. It challenges everything. It is volcanic 
 and iconoclastic, and there is more likelihood 
 of overthrow and revolution. We are in a 
 hurry. We cannot wait the slow processes of 
 growth and time. Given an evil, a defect, and 
 we must strike it down, even if with it go many 
 things of value. Kapid changes are the order 
 of the day, and there is far more danger from 
 the rapidity of those changes than from any 
 supine acquiescence in things as they are. The 
 obedience of the American is not cowardly. It 
 is not from selfishness. It springs from a con- 
 viction that it is duty. And he sees as the 
 reward of duty done the promise of a better 
 day for himself and his dear ones, and the 
 sweet assurance that the nation, of which he 
 is a citizen, in whose past he glories, and in 
 whose future he hopes, wiU thereby be made 
 stronger and better fitted for the full achieve- 
 ment of its glorious mission in the world. 
 
THE DUTY OF STBIVING TO 
 BETTER THE LH^ OF THE NATION 
 
THE DUTY OF STRIVING TO BETTER THE LIFE OF 
 THE NATION 
 
 The last matter which I wish to notice is one 
 that looks forward: The duty of striving for 
 the bettering of the life of the nation. The 
 famous Scotch preacher. Dr. Guthrie, kept 
 over his desk these words declaratory of his 
 purposes in life: 
 
 For the cause that needs asBistance, 
 For the wrong that needs resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 And the good that I may do. 
 
 To every citizen comes the nation's call in 
 this direction. By as much as he appreciates 
 all that the nation is to him, its protection, its 
 helpfulness, its blessing; by as much as he re- 
 alizes that his own possibilities of accomplish- 
 ment are widened and strengthened, and that 
 
 life will be made richer to his children and his 
 109 
 
110 AMEBIC AN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 children's children by its continued growth in 
 all the higher elements of national being; by 
 so much should he listen and respond to its 
 loud call to so order his life and work that all 
 shall tend to the bettering of its life. 
 
 Too many seem to feel that their duty to the 
 nation is a qualified and limited one; that a 
 negative obligation is all really resting upon 
 them; that so long as they do not hurt the 
 national life they are called upon for nothing 
 more. Whatever they may do in the develop- 
 ment of personal character, or in the discharge 
 of social and political duties, is done without 
 any appreciation of its efEect upon the national 
 life. It is enough for them, so far as the 
 Eepublic is concerned, that they do not disobey 
 its laws ; that when called upon they render the 
 personal services demanded, and that their 
 characters and the habits and conduct spring- 
 ing therefrom are such as to keep them out of 
 the police court. To them patriotism as an 
 active virtue means nothing except in time of 
 war, and not too much then. In peace a mere 
 sluggish acquiescence in what is being done 
 
BETTEE LIFE OF THE NATION 111 
 
 suflfices. It never enters into their contempla- 
 tion that the growing well-being of the country 
 depends at all upon their personal efforts. In 
 an easy way they turn over to others the full 
 responsibility for the future. They know noth- 
 ing of that magnificent thing called public 
 spirit. They are content to take what comes, 
 and doing nothing very discreditable are wont 
 to believe that they are numbered among the 
 good citizens. Like the servant mentioned in 
 the parable they take the talent given them 
 and, burying it in the earth, have no thought 
 of returning it with interest. 
 
 As against this negative view of duty I want 
 to appeal for positive affirmative vigorous ac- 
 tion. The poet says: 
 
 We are living, we are dwelling. 
 In a grand and awful time ; 
 
 In an age on ages telling ; 
 To be living is sublime. 
 
 The thought thus expressed I wish to em- 
 phasize, and emphasize it in relation to the 
 duties of every one of its citizens to the great 
 Eepublic. I want to appeal to the moral ele- 
 
113 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 ment in the nature of every student in this 
 great university. I want to lift the obligations 
 of citizenship above the mere question of 
 mathematics, the duty of giving only up to the 
 amount of receiving. I want as best I can to 
 impress upon you that in your obligations to 
 this nation the debtor side always carries a 
 plus. Whatever of comfort, of prestige, of 
 success, of glory, may attend your work for the 
 nation, and whatever else may pass to the 
 credit side of your account, the debtor side is 
 always charged with a larger sum. And I add 
 that the greater the credit side proportionately 
 increased is the excess of the debit side. If in 
 your experiences of life by the considerate 
 judgment of your fellows, or the opportunities 
 of business, you are lifted into positions of 
 power and usefulness, the very fact that your 
 credit side is enlarged above that of the ordi- 
 nary citizen carries with it notice that the 
 debtor side has increased even more rapidly. 
 
 If this nation in its development had 
 reached a state of perfection, or one near it, 
 you might well say that the obligations resting 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 113 
 
 upon you were limited to the duty of helping 
 to preserve that which had been accomplished; 
 but unfortunately whatever we may say about 
 the greatness and glory of our nation, how- 
 ever much we may boast of what it has 
 achieved, we all know that when we place its 
 present life over against a perfect life there is 
 an unfortunate failure. National ideals are 
 not yet with us national facts. We see a glory 
 to be accomplished but not yet realized. We 
 are conscious of shortcomings, defects, delin- 
 quencies, which we hope will some day disap- 
 pear. As each individual has his ideals, which 
 unfortunately he never realizes, so each one of 
 us looks upon the nation and sees that with aU 
 it has done and accomplished there is stiU a 
 vast field of achievement. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the boastings we make 
 of the grand history and the glorious life of 
 this Eepublic, no thoughtful man doubts the 
 magnitude of the work before us. There runs 
 through the present life of the nation a multi- 
 tude of imperfections and shadows. The na- 
 tional life is not perfect. Society as it exists 
 
114 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 to-day has many dark places. We are still far 
 from the Millennial day. I may not notice all, 
 and yet these stand out in bold relief : There is 
 undoubtedly corruption in political life — ^per- 
 haps not all that some despondent persons as- 
 sert, but still there is a commercialism in poli- 
 tics which no thoughtful man can be ignorant 
 of. The equal voice of the voters is not yet 
 secured, and that irrespective of the matter of 
 intimidation. A great many do not cast their 
 votes in accordance with their independent 
 honest judgment. Influences more or less cor- 
 rupt are potent. Notwithstanding aU our edu- 
 cational privileges, our common schools, and 
 the great work they are doing (and I have not 
 the slightest desire to minimize the extent of 
 their work) there is a fearful volume of igno- 
 rance. More than that,, there is in our popu- 
 lation a heterogeneous mass. We are not all 
 Anglo-Saxon. We do not all spring from those 
 races which have true ideas of self-govern- 
 ment. We have a great multitude coming from 
 those nations in which government is a sup- 
 posed enemy, a multitude which has no idea 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 115 
 
 of the meaning of liberty restrained by law. 
 It has yet to be Americanized, to be brought 
 into a realization of the limitations upon per- 
 sonal action which come from the highest ob- 
 ligations of liberty. More than that, we have, 
 notwithstanding our enormous resources and 
 great territory, a large population who know 
 nothing of the blessing of a home, and the pure 
 surroundings which attach thereto. 
 
 Surely in this meagre picture of the life and 
 needs of the nation there is an appeal to every 
 kingly soul. In feudal times it was the boast 
 of the knight that no appeal from the weaker 
 sex went unheeded. Those times have been 
 called, and not improperly, the age of chivalry. 
 I want to revive something of the spirit of that 
 age, in the knightly devotion of each of our 
 citizens to the Republic. The story of Richard 
 Cceur de Lion will to the end of time move 
 every soul, and it is well that it does so. Ideals 
 of heroism, persistence, and devotion should 
 ever be held before the eyes of the young, and 
 not be put one side as no part of the practical 
 life of to-day. On the contrary, there never 
 
116 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 has been a time in the history of the world 
 when ideals towering above the mere struggle 
 for pecuniary personal reward were of more 
 importance. 
 
 Men take the pure ideals of their souls 
 
 And look them fast away, 
 And never dream that things so beautiful 
 
 Are fit for every day I 
 So counterfeits pass current in their lives. 
 
 And stones they use for bread, 
 And starvingly and fearfully they walk 
 
 Through life among the dead, 
 Though never yet was pure ideal 
 Too fair for them to make their Heal. 
 
 The thoughts of beauty dawning on the soul 
 
 Are glorious heaven-gleams, 
 And God's eternal truth lies folded deep 
 
 In all man's lofty dreams ; 
 In thoughts still world, some brother-tie which 
 bound 
 
 The Planets, Kepler saw. 
 And through long years he searched the spheres, 
 and there 
 
 He found the answering law. 
 Men said he sought a wild ideal. 
 The stars made answer, " it is Real 1 " 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 117 
 
 Aye, Daniel, Howard, all the crowned ones 
 
 That, star-like, gleam through time, 
 Lived boldly out before the clear-eyed sun. 
 
 Their inmost thoughts sublime 1 
 Those truths, to them more beautiful than day, 
 
 They knew would quicken men ; 
 And deeds befitting the millennial truths 
 
 They dared to practise then. 
 Till they who mocked the young ideal 
 In meekness owned it was the Real. 
 
 Thine early dreams, which came Uke ' ' shapes of 
 light," 
 
 Came bearing Prophesy ; 
 And nature's tongues, from leaves to '"quiring 
 stars," 
 
 Teach loving faith to Thee ; 
 Fear not to build thine ejrrie in the heights 
 
 Where golden splendors play ; 
 And trust thyself unto thine inmost soul 
 
 In simple faith alway ; 
 And God will make divinely Real 
 The highest forms of thine Ideal. 
 
 In the presence of these ideals the question 
 comes to every young man, what is your pur- 
 pose in life ? Do you look forward to it in the 
 hope of honor, wealth or pleasure, or are you 
 stirred through and through with the thought 
 
118 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 that life means to you possibilities of useful- 
 ness and service ? Are you ambitious ? I hope 
 so, notwithstanding Cardinal Wolsey's words 
 to his protege, " Cromwell, I charge thee fling 
 away ambition. By that sin fell the angels." 
 I agree that ambition which is purely personal, 
 whose boundaries are self and pleasure, is 
 something calling for no laudation or approval. 
 But an ambition not so circumscribed, but 
 which has the idea of usefulness — ^and it may 
 be of a name connected with that usefulness — 
 an ambition which looks to achievement for 
 others, is one worthy of all commendation. It 
 is one which stirs the individual to loftiest 
 deeds and noblest living. I have little respect 
 for one who has no ideals in life; for one who 
 measures the whole purpose and scope of his 
 existence by the loaf and the dollar. Such a 
 one may have all the negative qualifications of 
 a citizen. He may never antagonize the course 
 of things prescribed by the law. He may never 
 fail in obedience to the letter of the statute or 
 in response to any demand for personal service, 
 and yet he may go through life possessed of a 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 119 
 
 character which, though destitute of positive, 
 vices, is equally wanting in positive virtues. 
 He stands a type of those mentioned in the 
 Eevelations as members of the Church of 
 Laodicea : " Thou art neither cold nor hot. I 
 would thou wert cold or hot. So then because 
 thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I 
 will spew thee out of my mouth." 
 
 Among the ideals filling the aspiring soul of 
 every citizen of these United States should be 
 the ideal nation. Neither himself nor his fam- 
 ily, his friends, the community in which he 
 lives, nor even the single State of which he is 
 primarily a citizen should fill the measure of 
 his thoughts and labors — ^but the great Eepub- 
 lic, of which both himself and his family, 
 friends, community and State are but parts, 
 should ever rise like Mont Blanc among the 
 Alps, the supreme object of devotion and toil. 
 
 I do not mean that every one should look 
 forward with the purpose or expectation of 
 being a statesman and holding office, of becom- 
 ing a politician of the respectable kind, or even 
 the favored recipient of a newspaper para- 
 
120 AMERICAN CITIZEITSHIP 
 
 graph. But I do mean that one clear purpose 
 of every life should be to help in making the 
 nation better. It should be a distinct object in 
 life; something which the individual aims to 
 accomplish, and not something which may 
 come as a mere incident to other efforts and 
 purposes. We must live with the idea that we 
 have a solemn duty to this Eepublic; that we 
 are its large debtors, and that the only limit to 
 our obligation is our capacity to help in lift- 
 ing its life to a higher and nobler plane. 
 
 To carry such a purpose into effect we must 
 have both courage and candor. The question 
 which each must ask is not, how can I become 
 most popular, but how can I do the most good ? 
 We often hear the sentiment: our country, 
 right or wrong. A higher thought is: our 
 country, let us make it always right. Times 
 may come in which we have to stand by our 
 country, even though we do not fully agree 
 with what it is doing. In case of a war, and 
 one even which our judgment does not ap- 
 prove, we cannot ally ourselves vdth the enemy. 
 We cannot afford to be traitors. We may be 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATI02Sr 121 
 
 compelled to serve as its soldiers and help it in 
 its effort to victory. And yet we can always be 
 numbered among those who demand that the 
 nation shall only engage in righteous war; 
 that no matter of hate or revenge, no thought 
 of territorial acquisition or eagerness to display 
 our power before the world shall ever lead us 
 into a bloody conflict with our neighbors. We 
 can also ever demand that the end of every war 
 shall be a righteous and just peace. This na- 
 tion must not appear before the world as a 
 highwayman. Stand and deliver must never 
 be the motto of the Eepublic. Victory must be 
 seasoned with justice. If the purpose of the war 
 be accomplished, the end should promptly and 
 rightfully come; and the greater our power, 
 the greater our victory, the higher is our obli- 
 gation to do justice. Noblesse oblige is a rule 
 for nations as for individuals. And that na- 
 tion as that individual stands highest in the 
 world's thought, becomes most potent for good, 
 which in the hour of triumph manifests the 
 most consideration and magnanimity. 
 
 I know that we are sometimes hampered by 
 
12-2 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 I party organizations. A fundamental fact, a 
 necessity in the life of a government by the 
 people is organization into parties of those who 
 agree upon certain lines of conduct. As indi- 
 vidual members of a party we cannot dictate 
 its policy in all things. It may be duty to 
 choose between two parties, each of which does 
 some things which do not accord with our 
 judgment. It may be a choice between two 
 evils; and this sometimes where matters of 
 gravest importance are involved. A notable 
 instance is found in the recent campaign. Ee- 
 publicans, like Senator Hoar, though strongly 
 opposed to the attitude of the present Eepub- 
 lican Administration in respect to the Philip- 
 pine Islands, earnestly supported its continu- 
 ance in power because they believed greater 
 evils would result from the success of Mr. 
 Bryan. Others, like Governor Boutwell, pur- 
 sued an opposite course. No one can doubt 
 the sincerity, the patriotism, the devotion to 
 duty of either. They agreed on one thing. 
 They differed as to the remedy. So will it 
 often be with the most conscientious men. 
 
BETTER LIFE OP THE NATION 123 
 
 Lecky, the historian, speaking of a similar 
 situation in the English Parliament, says: 
 
 " Every one who is actively engaged in poli- 
 tics — every one especially who is a member of 
 the House of Commons — ^must soon learn that 
 if the absolute independence of individual 
 judgment were pushed to its extreme, political 
 anarchy would ensue. The complete concur- 
 rence of a large number of independent judg- 
 ments in a complicated measure is impossible. 
 If party government is to be carried on, there 
 must be, both in the Cabinet and in Parlia- 
 ment, perpetual compromise. The first condi- 
 tion of its success is that the Government 
 should have a stable, permanent, disciplined 
 support behind it, and in order that this should 
 be obtained the individual member must, in 
 most cases, vote with his party. Sometimes he 
 must support a measure which he knows to be 
 bad, because its rejection would involve a 
 change of government which he believes would 
 be a still greater evil than its acceptance, and 
 in order to prevent this evil he may have to 
 
134 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 vote a direct negative to some resolution con- 
 taining a statement which he believes to be 
 true. At the same time, if he is an honest man, 
 he will not be a mere slave of party. Some- 
 times a question arises which he considers so 
 supremely important that he will break away 
 from his party and endeavor at all hazards to 
 carry or to defeat it." 
 
 As Lecky suggests in this last sentence, there 
 are times when one must rightfully break away 
 from party, and either join the opposition or 
 aid in the formation of a third party. This, 
 although inconsiderable in numbers, may be a 
 protest challenging attention and resulting in 
 great good. Ordinarily it is better to work 
 within a party than against it, though there are 
 exceptions to the rule. For years the Abolition- 
 ists were an insignificant handful, and yet their 
 separate action was a constant protest, which 
 prevented the question of slavery from being 
 ignored, and which in the end led to its over- 
 throw. Like John the Baptist, they were ridi- 
 culed, condemned, pictured as clothed with 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 125 
 
 camel's hair and a girdle about the waist, but, 
 like John the Baptist, they were a voice in the 
 wilderness. It may well be doubted whether 
 the same result would have followed had they 
 retained their relations to either of the great 
 parties of the day. 
 
 So to-day the Prohibition party is a constant 
 protest. We may think its policy unwise ; that 
 its action tends more to continue than to over- 
 throw the liquor traffic. Whatever we may 
 think of the effect of its action in temporary 
 results, the beautiful motto which Frances 
 Willard bequeathed as her legacy to the world, 
 " For God and home and native land," is like 
 the voice of the Baptist, "repent ye; repent 
 ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"; 
 and that party's protest and unpractical action 
 may yet prove the forerunner of a new dispen- 
 sation. 
 
 The constant effort of the individual to cre- 
 ate a higher thought in the nation will surely 
 find large results in its life. The new century 
 finds us face to face with new conditions. We 
 are, whether wisely or unwisely, placed in eon- 
 
126 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 tact with and given control over large bodies 
 of comparatively uncivilized peoples. Shall we 
 repeat our dealings with the Indians of North 
 America, and have at the end of this hundred 
 years a second edition of "A Century of Dis- 
 honor/' or shall justice, honesty, and righteous- 
 ness illumine all our association with them, 
 and thus they be led willingly, joyfully, into 
 the glorious life of a better civilization? 
 
 The commercial activity of this nation is in- 
 creasing with wonderful rapidity. No lover of 
 his coimtry cares to stay that activity. Rather 
 let it go on, and in its peaceful flow bring us 
 into intimate relations with all nations, and in 
 that growing intercourse give increased de- 
 mand and greater remuneration for our prod- 
 ucts, industry, and inventive skill. It is pleas- 
 ing to notice, and that too even in the pro- 
 ceedings of Congress, the indications of a 
 growing feeling that there shall be a moral ele- 
 ment in such commercial activity, and that the 
 best development of our commercial supremacy 
 excludes from its scope opium and rum. Com- 
 merce, to bless us, must bless the nations and 
 the peoples with whom we deal. 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 137 
 
 Nineteen centuries ago there broke upon the 
 startled ears of Judea's shepherds watching 
 their flocks beside the village of Bethlehem the 
 only angel's song ever heard by the children of 
 earth : 
 
 It came upon the midnight clear, 
 
 That glorious song of old, 
 From angels bending near the earth 
 
 To touch their harps of gold : 
 " Peace on the earth, good-will to men 
 
 From heaven's all gracious king." 
 
 Though nineteen centuries have passed 
 away, still the war-song is sung, the war-drums 
 speak, and the prophetic day seems far o£E in 
 the future. But the day will come, and all hail 
 to the nation and the men who strive to bring 
 it nearer. While our national life has not been 
 clear it may truthfully be said to its glory that 
 this Eepublic has been among the foremost na- 
 tions to speak for peace and to plead for meli- 
 oration of the hardships of war so long as war 
 * shall last. One of the first treaties we made 
 (the Jay treaty of '94 with England) stipu- 
 lated for protection to individuals in case of 
 war, and from that time on in our treaties and 
 
138 AMEEICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 negotiations with other nations we have con- 
 stantly striven to at least soften its hardships. 
 We have entered into more arbitration arrange- 
 ments than any other nation. We have sought 
 to introduce arbitration into the life of the 
 world. We stood shoulder to shoulder with 
 Great Britain in the recent Peace Conference 
 at the Hague, the most urgent for those stipu- 
 lations which tend to prevent the recurrence of 
 war. It is and must be the dream of the future 
 that this nation, baptized from its infancy 
 into the gospel of the Prince of Peace, should 
 take the lead in all efforts in that direction. It 
 is the solemn call to every citizen, and espe- 
 cially to the young, who must soon bear the 
 burdens of national life, to do that which lies 
 within their power to make peace, first, the law 
 of this nation, and, second, the law of the 
 world. There never was a time when public 
 opinion was more potent. And if the accumu- 
 lating voice of public opinion within this Ee- 
 public shall proclaim its adherence to the prin- 
 ciples of peace, other nations will heed and 
 follow. And the time will come — 
 
BETTER LIFE OF THE NATION 139 
 
 " When the whole ■world gives back the song 
 Which now the angels sing. " 
 
 Young gentlemen, you are the sons of Yale. 
 Doubtless, the handful of ministers who placed 
 a few books on a table to signify the beginning 
 of a college, did not foresee how during the 
 two succeeding centuries their venture would 
 grow into this grand university. But they laid 
 the foundations in the belief that during all its 
 years it would be true to the purposes of use- 
 fulness for which it was founded, and would 
 fit the young for public employment in church 
 and civil state. And in her long history Yale 
 has never proved false to those purposes. Out 
 from these halls have gone a mighty multitude 
 who, scattered through the length and breadth 
 of the land, have done noble service in uplift- 
 ing the life of both church and state. In all 
 departments of public service her sons have 
 been found, and before their eyes have glowed 
 the bright ideals of a better life in the nation. 
 Ever have they striven to take the great nation- 
 al heritage they received from their fathers, 
 and pass it on to their children a nobler heri- 
 
130 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 
 
 tage, blessed and beautified by their toils and 
 fidelity. Their blood has crimsoned many a 
 field of battle, as they died for liberty and 
 union. In the councils of the nation they have 
 spoken words which have been strong for truth 
 and righteousness. They have sat in the judi- 
 cial tribunals, and their judgments have looked 
 forward, as they strove to make plain the ways 
 of the law. In all departments of industrial 
 and commercial activity they have been num- 
 bered among the leaders. In school and college 
 and university they have passed on to countless 
 multitudes the learning and wisdom gathered 
 in this great home of knowledge. From the 
 pulpit they have spoken words of comfort and 
 hope, and striven in ten thousand ways to make 
 life sweeter because purer. 
 
 In the shadow of the achievements of these 
 who have gone before you, in the presence of all 
 the precious memories of the past, you, young 
 gentlemen, stand to-day facing the great pos- 
 sibilities of life in the new century. Will you 
 be recreant to the past of old Yale, or will you 
 stand in the future firm for all those things 
 
BETTER LIFE OP THE NATION 131 
 
 which make for the better life of the nation? 
 Will you go on in your various walks in life 
 ever pleading for the higher things, strong for 
 truth, justice, purity and righteousness, and 
 rejoicing evermore in the sweet thought that — 
 
 Grand and hale are the elms of Yale, 
 Like Angels bending o'er you.