Extracts from the 
 
 »» 
 
 GRAND JURY CHARGE 
 
 of 
 
 HON. WALTER B. JONES 
 
 Judge Fifteenth Judicial Circuit 
 Montgomery, Alabama 
 July Term, 1923 
 
Montgomery, Ala. 
 THE PARAGON PRESS 
 1923 
 
Extracts from the 
 GRAND JURY CHARGE 
 
 of 
 
 HON. WALTER B. JONES 
 
 A 
 
 Judge Jones, after explaining to the grand jurors the 
 nature and extent of their duties and the importance of 
 their office, said: 
 
 And now, speaking to you as a channel of communication 
 between the bench and our people, may I not trespass on 
 your time long enough to call your attention, briefly, to 
 an old proverb and to point out where, in. my judgment, we 
 have of recent years departed from its sound advice. 
 
 REMEMBER THE ANCIENT LANDMARKS. 
 
 The wise maxim I refer to is found in the Book of Pro¬ 
 verbs, and there the admonition is given: Remove not the 
 ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. And II 
 want to direct your attention for a few minutes to one or 
 two ancient landmarks which our fathers of old time did 
 set, and which are today being unsettled. 
 
 I trust you will not get the impression from anything 
 said here today that I believe the country is “going to the 
 dogs,” or that I think its condition is such as to make us 
 lose sleep because such is not the case. But I do feel 
 that there are some conditions which deserve the serious 
 consideration of thoughtful citizens, and to which your at¬ 
 tention might be called with profit at this time. Certain¬ 
 ly, it is not improper for a judge in charging a grand jury 
 of his fellow citizens, to “whip the boundaries” of their 
 inheritance a little. 
 
 AN OLD ENGLISH CUSTOM. 
 
 There was once an old custom in England, back in the 
 Anglo-Saxon days when maps were rare, called “beating 
 the bounds.” When a person sold a piece of land it was 
 the custom for the seller to show the buyer over the prop¬ 
 erty, and to point out the corners and marks by which it 
 
 587782 
 
was bounded. In doing so, several small boys were taken 
 along and shown the boundary markers or stones, and 
 sometimes the boys were whipped or even violently bumped 
 on the boundary stones to make them remember. The pur¬ 
 pose of taking the boys along was to insure that witnesses 
 to the boundaries should survive as long as possible. That 
 custom has not prevailed in this country and we do not 
 mark off land that way, but, much more important, there 
 are in our country “ancient landmarks/’ principles of gov¬ 
 ernment and ideals which were established of old by the 
 sacrifices and struggles of our fathers and from which we 
 should not depart, but which should always abide with us. 
 In other words, the boundaries must be whipped now and 
 then to keep us from forgetting these old landmarks. 
 
 LANDMARKS THAT ARE THREATENED. 
 
 As I look back upon the history of our country and recall 
 the events which have taken place within the memory 
 of those who sit here, I am mournfully impressed by the 
 fact that the heaviest legislative and other guns of this 
 period have been trained upon three of the ancient land¬ 
 marks most venerated by our forebears, landmarks whose 
 maintenance means, the safety and happiness of our people, 
 whose destruction means insecurity and misery. Those in 
 America who stand today for the maintenance of a repre¬ 
 sentative government such as our fathers planned, are real¬ 
 ly defenders of a beleaguered fortress, a fortress surround¬ 
 ed by enemies who never sleep. 
 
 The ancient landmarks which I have in mind, particu¬ 
 larly at this time, are three principles of our forefathers: 
 personal liberty, local self-government, and no state inter¬ 
 ference with the private concerns of the indvdual. 
 
 WHAT IS PERSONAL LIBERTY. 
 
 By personal liberty I do not mean the right of the indi¬ 
 vidual citizen to do whatever he pleases, regardless of how 
 his actions affect his neighbor. I do not mean the right 
 of unrestrained action, limited only by the will of the per¬ 
 son acting. That is not the kind of liberty we recognize 
 in America. But I do mean freedom of action, the right 
 of a man to do that which is not morally wrong, and does 
 not interfere with the equal rights of his fellow-man. The 
 personal liberty that is in my mind is the inherent right of 
 the citizen to the utmost freedom in the expression of his 
 
 ( 4 ) 
 
 Southern Pamphlets 
 Rare Book Collectio® 
 UNC-Chapel H1U 
 
opinions, the management of his property, the pursuit of 
 the ordinary callings of life, and the conduct of his private 
 affairs that is consistent with the maintenance of justice 
 and public order. I mean something more than freedom 
 from mere physical restraint or imprisonment; I mean that 
 the citizen has a right to follow such pursuits as may be 
 best adopted to his faculties and which will add to his hap¬ 
 piness. I mean the right of the citizen in all lawful ways 
 to live and work where and how he will, to earn his liveli¬ 
 hood in any lawful calling, and to pursue any lawful trade 
 or avocation. 
 
 Law-makers, both State and National, of late years 
 seem to have had little respect for this ancient landmark. 
 They have been too busy developing a paternal govern¬ 
 ment that is about to crush out all individual liberty, and 
 which has little regard to some of the fundamental rights 
 of the citizen. The flood of laws regulating the private 
 and domestic affairs of the citizen is shaking to its depths 
 the foundations of that venerable principle of personal lib¬ 
 erty. We are burdened and harassed in this country today 
 by governmental censorship, regulation and interference 
 with private concerns. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL HAS SOME RIGHTS. 
 
 In times long past our forefathers, remembering the 
 teachings of history, set up the landmark of individual 
 rights. They held that the true purpose of government 
 was to encourage the people to rely on their own initiative 
 and their own energy, and to protect them in the enjoy¬ 
 ment of their property and their right to administer their 
 own affairs. They held that the individual citizen would 
 be happiest and could best work out his own destiny under 
 a government of few and simple laws, none of which 
 should interfere with his religion, his amusements or his 
 opinions. They held, these old-fashioned statesmen of 
 blessed memory, that the government was based on the 
 consent of the people, founded on their authority, and in¬ 
 stituted for their benefit. They wrote it in the constitu¬ 
 tion that the sole object and only legitimate end of govern¬ 
 ment is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, 
 liberty and property; and it has been thundered down to 
 us from the earliest days that when the government as¬ 
 sumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression. 
 
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
LAWS CAN NOT CURE ALL EVILS. 
 
 But that old-fashioned doctrine is fast being thrown 
 overboard, and the people are permitting their present 
 governmental pilots to steer the ship of state out of its 
 old and safe channels and onto the rocks and shoals of ex¬ 
 perimental and unsound legislation and statutory panaceas 
 for all ills. Too many of our people, and certainly too 
 many in the law-making department of the government, 
 are obsessed with the idea that the law is simply a club 
 which the State should use to hamper and restrain the 
 innocent activities and simple pleasures of the people. We 
 have said that a man has inalienable right to life, liber¬ 
 ty and the pursuit of happiness, and yet these inalienable 
 rights have been recently so circumscribed that it is im¬ 
 possible to locate them with a microscope. 
 
 Only the other day an editorial writer called attention 
 to the statement of a distinguished psychologist who said 
 that a certain legislative body produced nine thousand bills, 
 but that upon applying his brain-scope he found that the 
 membership collectively possessed only eight and one-half 
 ideas on all subjects. 
 
 Legislation is regarded by many as a sure remedy for 
 all ills of the body politic and many believe that the mill- 
 enium can best be hastened by laws extending the author¬ 
 ity of the government, particularly the federal govern¬ 
 ment, over the private lives and affairs of the citizen. And 
 if one law fails, they simply cry out for more law. They 
 little realize that statutes can not make men honest and 
 good; and that the law can not Daedalian-like affix wings 
 on the backs of citizens and assure them a comfortable and 
 safe passage to Heaven. 
 
 Vice-president Coolidge has aptly said: “The attempt to 
 dragoon the body when the need is to convince the soul 
 will end only in revolt.” 
 
 And Professor Roscoe Pound reminds us that in the Sev¬ 
 enteenth Century an undue insistence upon the interests 
 of the sovereign defeated the moral and social life of the 
 individual, and finally required the assertion of individual 
 interests in bills of rights and declarations of rights. And 
 so today there is a like danger that certain social and gov¬ 
 ernmental interests will be unduly emphasized, and that 
 the rights and privileges of the citizens will be greatly 
 abridged by a paternal government. 
 
 ( 6 ) 
 
GOVERNMENT IS FOR BENEFIT OF CITIZEN. 
 
 The idea is becoming too prevalent and too strongly 
 intrenched in this country that the individual citizen exists 
 merely to support a strong centralized government. Peo¬ 
 ple seemingly forget that this government of the people 
 and for the people was instituted by the people for the 
 benefit of every citizen alike, and that he was not created 
 nor does he live to be used solely as a pawn by government 
 and politician. The government was instituted for his 
 benefit, he bears its burdens, he suffers for its mistakes, 
 and it is his government. Let us not forget that all the 
 progress that has ever been made by mankind has come 
 about from the efforts of the people to emancipate them¬ 
 selves from the bondage and thralldom of governmental 
 regulation and control of private affairs. 
 
 PEOPLE ARE AFFLICTED WITH BURDENSOME 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 The inquisitive and officious intermeddling by attempted 
 governmental action in all the affairs of the people is put¬ 
 ting in the hearts of good men and good citizens a spirit 
 of disgust and disappointment, if not of contempt for the 
 law. Law-making bodies all over the country are setting 
 up too many false and absurd standards for the private 
 conduct of the citizen, and the plain, every-day man, the 
 back-bone of the government, is getting sick and tired of 
 it all. 
 
 He feels, and very rightly so, that he is over-governed, 
 over-regulated and over-taxed. He feels the hand of the 
 government on his actions and in his business at every 
 turn. He wants to be let alone, he wants a breathing 
 spell for awhile. He longs for the halcyon days of old 
 when his representatives in the government remembered 
 him as a man to be represented honestly and fearlessly, 
 and as a man, who, however humble his lot might be, was 
 possessed of some personal rights, rights which were as 
 sacred as the Ark of the Covenant, and whose invasion 
 would bring swift and sure the punishment of Uzzah to 
 all who laid profane hands upon them. 
 
 FIFTY-SEVEN VARIETIES OF TAXES. 
 
 The citizen wishes his representatives would cease to 
 regard him, in one aspect, as a little child to be cajoled 
 and toyed with and, in another, as an ever plentiful and 
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
never diminishing source of revenue. His representatives 
 may not always remember him, but they are certain to 
 recall him and his little worldly possessions when the 
 time for the imposition of taxes comes. 
 
 We have in this country a certin very old business 
 which has long and widely advertised its “Famous 57 
 Varieties.” But that figure would hardly be sufficient to¬ 
 day to cover the great number of taxes which consume the 
 substance of the citizen and afflict air his hours. Verily, 
 it is 
 
 Taxes to right of them, 
 
 Taxes to left of them, 
 
 Taxes in front of them, 
 
 Taxes behind them. 
 
 There are property taxes, license taxes, poll taxes, gaso¬ 
 line taxes, mortgage taxes, trial taxes, income taxes, war 
 taxes, inheritance taxes, estate taxes, stamp taxes, nor¬ 
 mal taxes, sur-taxes, excess profits taxes, beverage taxes, 
 tobacco taxes, custom taxes, severance taxes, paving taxes, 
 three mill taxes, excise taxes, corporation taxes, privilege 
 taxes, franchise taxes, amusement taxes, road taxes, and 
 so on down the line without end. And each year finds 
 our Argus-eyed representatives searching with unwearied 
 zeal and diabolical ingenuity for new and additional taxes 
 and subjects of taxation. 
 
 The citizen has been patient and long-suffering under 
 it all, but the day is not far distant when he and his out¬ 
 raged fellows will rise in all their might and power, and 
 drive from the public temples and legislative halls those 
 who have no true conception of the sanctity of the indi¬ 
 vidual rights, but regard the citizen simply as a revenue 
 producing goose. 
 
 MORE LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT NEEDED. 
 
 Another landmark, greatly venerated and respected by 
 our forefathers, has been hammered and chiseled so much 
 by law-makers that it can hardly be located at all. I re¬ 
 fer to the principle of local self-government and home rule. 
 In the old days of our forefathers, whom I believe were di¬ 
 vinely inspired, and certainly who were thoughtful and ob¬ 
 servant students of history, held that home rule was the 
 only true safeguard for life and property. They held that 
 the separate states of this Union should be sovereign, in¬ 
 dependent and free to regulate their own internal affairs 
 
 ( 8 ) 
 
according to the will of their own people, and to the main¬ 
 tenance of this great principle they pledged their honor, 
 devoted their lives and expended their fortunes. 
 
 FEDERAL POWER EXTENDED TOO FAR. 
 
 But that old-fashioned doctrine is fast fading away, and 
 there has been a very distressing trend both in the or¬ 
 ganic law and in legislation to take from “the people of 
 the several states, and from their legislatures and courts, 
 jurisdiction over the privileges and immunities of them¬ 
 selves and their own citizens.” Today there is more and 
 more centralization and the tendency is to give the Na¬ 
 tional government almost unlimited authority and power 
 to make laws. The authority of the states is being en¬ 
 croached upon more and more, and National legislation 
 has been very broadly extended for the purpose of promot¬ 
 ing the general welfare. Additional authority has been 
 delegated to Congress by recent constitutional amendments 
 and the former grants have been liberally construed so as 
 to extend legislation into new fields. “This,” as has been 
 pointed out, “has run its course from the interstate com¬ 
 merce act of the late 80’s, down to the maternity aid law 
 which recently went into effect. Much of this has been 
 accompanied by the establishment of various commissions 
 and boards, often clothed with much delegated power, and 
 providing those already in existence with new and addi¬ 
 tional authority. The National Government has extended 
 the scope of its legislation to include many kinds of reg¬ 
 ulation, the determination of traffic rates, hours of labor, 
 sumptuary laws, and into the domain of oversight of the 
 public morals.” 
 
 I regret to say that even in our own Southland, the 
 home of history’s greatest soldier, who gave his all that 
 the autonomy of the states might be preserved inviolate 
 and home rule not perish from the land of our fathers, 
 there are those who ridicule the ability and capacity of the 
 citizenship of the state to mind their own local affairs 
 without foreign guardianship or interference; who point to 
 every illegal sale of intoxicants, every bum without power 
 or desire to be sober, every failure of a state to confer 
 universal suffrage, every bad road, every epidemic of dis¬ 
 ease, as sufficient reasons for the practical abolition of the 
 states and for the interference of the government at Wash¬ 
 ington. 
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
STRETCHES OF FEDERAL POWER. 
 
 Senator Charles S. Thomas of Colorado, in a masterly 
 address before the American Bar Association in 1921, 
 pointed out these invasions of the state authority and 
 stretches of Federal power, when he said: 
 
 “To enumerate all legislative encroachments would be 
 a difficult task. It will suffice to remind you that the 
 federal government among other activities, through its 
 multiplying bureaus and commissions, now exercises jur¬ 
 isdiction over all the waters of the country, navigable or 
 otherwise, determines the manner of their diversion and 
 the development of their hydroelectric energies, largely 
 controls all commerce within as among the states, regu¬ 
 lar s business and manufacturing concerns, determines the 
 age of workmen to be employed in manufacturing indus¬ 
 tries, regulates their sanitation, has charge of the public 
 health, directs the development of agriculture and the con¬ 
 ditions of labor, undertakes to promote and if possible to 
 create markets for farm products, limits or prohibits is¬ 
 sues of securities by many private corporations and en¬ 
 terprise creates private corporations by special enact¬ 
 ment, has constructed and will eventually operate a vast 
 merchant marine, has become the most extensive landlord 
 in the world, prescribing its own laws for its tenantry, and 
 wholly independent of the states wherein its domains are 
 located, enforces public virtue by resolving prostitution in¬ 
 to a subject of commerce, directs and finances the construc¬ 
 tion of highways with no concern as to their utility for 
 post roads, assumes to guard and enforce the morals and 
 habits of the people, prescribes regulations for and im¬ 
 poses licenses upon the medical profession, investigates and 
 prescribes terms of adjustment of local industrial contro¬ 
 versies, has assumed control over the functions of mater¬ 
 nity, constantly encroaches upon the domain of the state 
 police power, and has extended the jurisdiction of its courts 
 over the entire domain of human controversy. It will soon 
 assume the task of general education. 
 
 “These and other innovations have been made upon the 
 initiative or with the encouragement of the people. Their 
 primary motive has been to limit commercial activities 
 supposedly menacing the rights of the individual, to escape 
 the burden of expense accompanying the exercise of state 
 prerogatives or to promote the liberal local expenditure of 
 federal money. Shirking responsibilities requiring outlay by 
 
 ( 10 ) 
 
shifting both to broader shoulders, and obtaining public 
 money for local consumption, have prompted states to sub¬ 
 mit if not to welcome encroachments upon their powers, 
 to neglect their duties and to ignore consequences. The 
 fiction that the obligations will be cheerfully borne by the 
 larger authority at its own expense, and that undue results 
 will be carefully provided against by that authority is a 
 pleasing one, but it betrays a declining estimate of the es¬ 
 sential virtues of local self-government. Relief from civic 
 responsibility weakens the spirit of loyalty to the home 
 government, and tends to visualize it as subordinate to the 
 greater one, functioning by its direction and acting by its 
 authority. The fact that the cost of local administration 
 is an ever-increasing quantity, reflected in the annual tax 
 bill, notwithstanding the extension of federal activities, 
 provokes angry remonstrance from the citizen but does 
 not seem to arouse the need for his return to the old-fash¬ 
 ioned policy of control and of close attention to home af¬ 
 fairs. It rather stimulates him to greater activities for 
 increasing appropriations by the powers at Washington. 
 More roads, more policing, more sanitation, more exten¬ 
 sions of authority and more money from the national gov¬ 
 ernment accentuate his efforts, the states frequently join¬ 
 ing in the clamor for much of the new legislation. When 
 the citizen and his local government albeit unconsciously 
 co-operate in urging the Congress to become the chief cus¬ 
 todian of the sovereign power, their representatives heed 
 the request and the work of centralization goes on. The 
 states continue to function and will doubtless do so indef¬ 
 initely. But their lines of distinction are becoming more 
 illegible as Washington becomes more and more the uni¬ 
 versal capital and county seat.” 
 
 SOUND VIEWS OF PRESIDENT HARDING. 
 
 While it may be little surprising, it is certainly pleasant 
 to recall President Harding’s warning against centraliza¬ 
 tion. He says: 
 
 “We must combat the menace in the growing assump¬ 
 tion that the State must support the people, for just gov¬ 
 ernment is merely the guarantee to the people of the right 
 and opportunity to support themselves. The one oustand- 
 ing danger of today is the tendency to turn to Washington 
 for the things which are the tasks of the duties of the 
 forty-eight Commonwealths which constitute the United 
 Sates.” 
 
 (in 
 
If this Union is to be preserved the citizens of the re¬ 
 spective states, states without which the Union could not 
 exist, must stand up squarely and strike yeoman blows for 
 the fanes of Democracy, for individual liberty, for local 
 self-government and for home rule. 
 
 GOVERNMENT INTERFERES WITH PRIVATE 
 
 RIGHTS. 
 
 Another great principle which our forefathers laid down 
 for the welfare and happiness of the Nation was that the 
 government should not interfere with the citizen in the 
 management of his private and domestic affairs. They held 
 that there were limits to the authority of the government 
 in dealing with the citizen and that there was a line over 
 which governmental authority should not intrude. They 
 said that there were fields of business and of private con¬ 
 duct which were clearly and unmistakably beyond the in¬ 
 fluence of legislation, and to which neither the police 
 power of the state nor the nation could be rightfully ex¬ 
 tended. They did not deny that a state mig’ht enact all 
 needful legislation to preserve the public order, morals, 
 health and safety, but they did most solemnly affirm that 
 there were constitutional rights which could not be in¬ 
 vaded by the government, and they held that the legisla¬ 
 ture might not under the guise of protecting the public 
 intersts, arbitrarily interfere with private business or im¬ 
 pose unusual and unnecessary restrictions upon personal 
 habits and lawful occupations. 
 
 WHAT CITIZEN MAY EXPECT OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment some of the things that 
 the citizen may justly look to the government to do 
 for him. He has a right to expect the government to se¬ 
 cure him equality of opportunity, to protect him in the 
 enjoyment of the fruit of his labor, to maintain law and 
 order and to see that justice is done to all. We can look 
 to our government to give the citizens a fair and full 
 opportunity in the race of life, but, of course, we must 
 not expect the government to do for the citizen what he 
 should do for himself and be the happier and better for 
 doing. It is equally as true that the citizen has no right 
 whatever to expect the government “to act as his guardian 
 and to require it to assume his responsibilities and obliga¬ 
 tions, correct his misfortunes, discharge his dutes, cancel 
 
 ( 12 ) 
 
his debts, supply his needs and guarantee the success of 
 his business pursuits.” 
 
 While the government may rightfully exercise certain 
 functions of supervision and regulation over the business 
 of the country, yet the government must not hamper the 
 growth and prosperity of business. The government may 
 rightfully demand full publicity, it may rightly prevent 
 unfair trade practices, and it has the right to prevent in¬ 
 justice, but “its functions of regulation and supervision do 
 not properly extend to the imposition of the business dis¬ 
 cretion of government officials against the judgment of 
 those experienced in the business.” Our system of gov¬ 
 ernment was established in order that the merchant and 
 manufacturer, the mechanic and the laborer, might each 
 be left to pursue and provide for his own interests in his 
 own way, untrammeled by burdensome and unnecessary 
 legislative restrictions. Much of the legislation of re¬ 
 cent years is Socialistic, and if continued will destroy the 
 American ideal of personal liberty. 
 
 GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE WITH BUSINESS 
 
 The Government is now poking its nose and reaching its 
 long arm so extensively into the private business opera¬ 
 tions of individuals that initiative is being paralyzed and 
 progress impeded. One prominent Montgomery business 
 man told me only a few days ago that because of the many 
 burdensome laws and bureaucratic regulations affecting 
 his line of business he was compelled to employ an extra 
 bookkeeper and use his entire time in meeting the re¬ 
 quirements of the Government. Another told me that the 
 Government has interfered so much with his business and 
 has given him so many instructions as to running it, that 
 he had reached the point where he would gladly turn his 
 business over to the Government in return for a pension of 
 $50 a year. Another told me that he looked anxiously at 
 every stranger who came into his store fearing that he 
 might be some officious government agent with tidings of 
 additional laws and regulations and desiring to peep further 
 into his private affairs. 
 
 Certainly the time has come to put a stop to all unneces¬ 
 sary and harmful governmental interference with the pri¬ 
 vate affairs of the citizen. He must have some relief, 
 and unless it comes soon the country will suffer a depres¬ 
 sion long to be remembered. 
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
OLD FASHIONED CUSTOMS OUT OF STYLE 
 
 While I have called your attention seriously to the ap¬ 
 proaching destruction of certain venerable landmarks in 
 our government, I do not forget that there are other land¬ 
 marks of less consequence which are also being destroyed. 
 And if in lighter vein I should mention a few of them, I 
 ask your indulgence. 
 
 We are getting away from a great many old-fashioned 
 customs. In the old days people “went in washing/’ No¬ 
 body would think of doing this nowa-days because every 
 body “goes in bathing.” The old-time swimming hole 
 with its shady banks, snags, frogs and muddy water, where 
 we jumped in as nature made us, does not appeal any long¬ 
 er. To properly enjoy ourselves, we must go to some 
 fashionable swimming pool, lined wtih white tile and 
 marble, where the water has been chlorinated by experts 
 and examined hourly by bacteriologists, where life-pre¬ 
 servers are handy, and where each swimmer must be 
 sprinkled with the perfumes of Arabia before entering 
 the pool. 
 
 We do not hear much of “breeches” today, either, but all 
 males wear “trousers”, and instead of keeping them neatly 
 pressed by insertion between the mattress and springs at 
 bedtime, they must be sent to a pressing club for scientific 
 steaming and to get the creases mathematically straight. 
 We also miss the “gallus” which was superseded by the 
 “suspender” and we realize that the latter will soon give 
 way to the belt. That old-fashioned meal, “supper,” which 
 we enjoyed so much when we were boys, is almost a thing 
 of the past. “Lunch” has taken the place of dinner, and 
 dinner has replaced supper. Only old fogies have “supper” 
 nowadays. 
 
 Take for instance the service for the solemnization of 
 matrimony. A good many of our splendid women, forget¬ 
 ting what St. Paul said and not having a proper concep¬ 
 tion of wifely obedience, do not like to be asked “to obey,” 
 and flatly decline to do so. The men are bearing up under 
 this very well, though a great many of the men are re¬ 
 taliating and, in the marriage ceremony, are declining to 
 “endow” their wives with all their ^worldly goods.” and 
 hence these two ancient expressions are seldom heard now. 
 
 In the old days when a young man went courting he 
 first ascertained if it was agreeable for him to pay his ad¬ 
 dresses to the young lady of the house. If it was all right 
 
 ( 14 ) 
 
he would drive up to his sweetheart’s mansion in a digni¬ 
 fied phaeton drawn by a thoroughbred, tie his horse to a 
 hitching post, walk quietly in, remove his hat and pati¬ 
 ently wait an hour or two while his love dressed. Nowa¬ 
 days all that is quite different: the modern gallant cranks 
 up father’s ‘lizzie,’ hits it up about 50 miles an hour, drives 
 up in front of his lover’s bungalow with much screeching 
 of brakes and rattling of tin fenders, keeps his seat, blows 
 the horn violently four or five times, and gets out of pa¬ 
 tience if the fair Juliet fails to rush out at once. 
 
 In music there has also been a marked change. We no 
 longer gather around the family piano or organ and sing 
 the sweet songs of old. Annie Laurie, Sweet Alice Ben 
 Bolt, Old Folks at Home, Juanita, Old Black Joe, When 
 You and I Were Young Maggie, and the Last Rose of 
 Summer, are rarely heard nowa-days except as a begrudg¬ 
 ed encore. The music that delighted our fathers has given 
 way to tunes more pleasing to the modern ear and we now 
 have the Teddy Bear Blues, Hot Lips, Apple Sauce, Mister 
 Gallagher, Li’l Liza Jane, Kitten on the Keys, I’ll See You 
 in Cuba, Cuddle Up Blues, and so on. 
 
 If poor old Terpsichore could stop eating ambrosia and 
 nectar for a few minutes and look down on us from Olym¬ 
 pus she would be quite surprised at our modern dance 
 steps. The stately minuet, the graceful waltz, the polka, 
 the scottische, the reel, the quadrille, and the horn pipe 
 have all been out-lawed by polite society, though the waltz 
 is making a feeble struggle for life. Any one who would be 
 bold enough today to attempt any of these old-fashioned 
 dances on a modern ball room floor would probably be re¬ 
 quested to “get out of the way” or “to speed ’er up,” and 
 if he persisted would doubtless be the laughing-stock of 
 the evening. These fine old steps, which were really dances 
 of beauty and grace, have disappeared and in their place 
 we have the one-step, the tango, the toddle, the Boston, the 
 fox-trot, the bunny-hug and such like, and unless one is 
 quite well acquainted with these modern steps she may 
 expect a glorious time as a wall-flower. 
 
 DOES NOT CONDEMN ALL CHANGES 
 
 If time permitted I could tell you of other marked 
 changes in literature, in art, in commerce and in the social 
 life, all “illustrating a general revolt against the authority 
 of the past,” but what is true of the subjects I have touched 
 upon is also true of the latter things. 
 
 (15) 
 
Of course, I do not condemn all these changes which I 
 have mentioned in lighter vein, for we can not expect, 
 either in government or social life, that the ideals and pleas¬ 
 ure of the past shall suit us today and fit in with our ever- 
 changing and complex civilization. 
 
 ANCIENT LANDMARKS MUST STILL GUIDE 
 
 But presumptively the lessons of the past are true, and 
 as we move forward into the future to that better day yet 
 to dawn for men and nations, let us look now and then to 
 the “ancient landmarks” of our fathers with gratitude and 
 thanksgiving that they yet stand to guide us on the true 
 course. 
 
 ( 16 )