prosperity minus equity." A mere change of hands in the property business, a few from the bottom taking the place of a few on the top, some variations in the middle ranks, a few more at the top, a few less at the bottom, a few more or a few less getting richer, a little less or a little more wretched poverty anywhere, statistics to prove prosperity or adversity, charities, gifts, donations, pensions, piles of intelligence, fine talk in all directions, but-what about the quality of our intelligence, the quality of our prosperity, of our wealth, of our property? We don't seem to have yet discovered the worthlessness and negativeness of quantities apart from the consideration of qualities. Is not progress (sound, normal, scientific development) bound to be more a question of high, commendable qualities than that of mere quantities?

As far as we can see and conceive, all outside of men is normal, scientific, precise, resting on orderly, symmetrical, harmonious unfoldings. Why should human development drop so far below that simple standard, that natural status of existence everywhere else? The only sensible, logical answer is, The will of men at war with the will of God. But is that a full answer? No. The full, correct answer is: "The collective will of men repudiating the will of God." This second answer will give us the key into healthy, normal, scientific conditions, provided we see fit to agree on precise definitions of the words "normal and science" for the purpose of evolving the normal man with conceptions of sensible, scientific development.

The normal man, about whom we talk so often, as if it existed anywhere, or could exist in the midst of a civilization far from normal, far from sensible! And are we on earth to be abnormal, unnatural?

A few years ago we asked a friend of ours, an intelligent fellow when he wants to be intelligent, to give us a definition of the real christian, since he alone can be a somewhat normal man, according to the standards of thought of most of us. We took a copy of his answer and the definition of the normal man or real

christian as his answer suggested to us. The paper in which we copied both definitions came to hand a few days ago. They are as follows:

Our friend's definition: "The normal man or real christian is he that believes in Christ and performs the duties proclaimed by Him."

Our own definition was: "The normal man or real christian is the adult individual who, to the best of his age, education and social or industrial conditions, applies the philosophy of Jesus, not only to his individual conduct, but also to his far more important duties as a social unit or citizen. It is the latter conduct which influences, for good, our whole nation and the whole humanity, when our public conduct fully obeys the golden rule, and influences for evil our nation and humanity, when we don't stand by golden rule laws, and so repudiate Jesus's philosophy of life where it is far more transcendant and vital to all of us. And it is only through that golden rule philosophy, fully implanted in human laws, that we can stop all collective sins by which we feed, intensify and prolong all individualized wrongs, crimes, vices and imperfections."

Most people will say that the first definition is very good, because limited to about 12 words, and the latter or second definition is too long-about 140 wordsand so nobody will take any cognizance of it. Yet, the second definition, if accepted and actualized by the bulk of the important citizens in the important nations, would soon make life worth living to all men, granting to all the rights and happiness and wealth and joys that God wants all men to have for their combined manhood and sound growth.

Give to men short definitions of important words, and they like them because they are not long enough to pin them down to any great eternal, fundamental duties. Make the definitions just long enough to fully specify the grand basic duties by God and nature enjoined upon all of us, and then-how few have time to take in the meaning of what can be read in about one minute! And how many hours we all spend every day or week in trifling readings, talks or

amusements, if they come handy to

us!

And all that does not necessarily imply that we are bad fellows. It rather implies the existence of social conditions which make life harsh and extremely abnormal for 99 per cent. of the race, if not for the whole of it, root and branch, at the top, at the bottom and between, through all the stages of social development. Does not that prove that we refuse to apply science to our collective, national growth and life?

We even hate the word "science" applied to the civil, political, industrial and religious order of our own precious selves. But suppose that we could manage to swallow and accept and act upon the followings concepts: "Science is a group of clear, simple thoughts, unfolding the principal details of the fixed natural principles or processes with which to accomplish certain results with the maximum finish and the minimum time and effort, in accord with and obedience to any given set of laws in the world of matter and mind, in the mere physical or in the complete spiritual order of God's universe, and therefore for the full, symmetrical development of all men in each national or social group, as children of the same universal Father."

Consciously or not, we are yet assuming that government, society, the nation, charters, treaties, constitutions, laws, fiscal processes, tax and money systems,

etc., can all be conceived and enforced regardless of all physical and moral law, discarding all equity, all science, all normal growth, all practical, tangible, real brotherhood, silently trampling upon the most essential commands of the decalogue and treating the golden rule as a mere platitude. We don't mean to do that-oh, no! We simply imagine that whatsoever is called a human charter, constitution or law, shall be necessarily right or needed for the time being, since that is what our good, superior people have practically told us for centuries.

It is so sweet and beautiful to have the glorious freedom of fixing our own duties towards God and each other, and so not to have to listen to the voice of God and nature! And what has humanity been getting through its whole historical course from that sweet or bitter freedom of disobedience to God's physical, mental and spiritual laws? Sorrows and sins individually and collectively because of that collective and individual disobedience, the latter resulting from the former, as the smaller sum is but parcel and part of the larger sum. And what would we all receive, obtain from an ethical, normal, scientific growth in the midst of a normal, ethical civilization? Joys ineffable! Why not? Is not God a logical, sensible being? then, should we not try to be sensible men?

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Commercial Clubs of Boston, Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati:

The committee of arrangements have asked me to make some remarks at the close of this entertainment-I presume, upon the same principle that the old darky woman said she made her apple pie. She first, she said, put in some flour, then some butter, then sugar, and then shut her eyes and threw

some

Why,

If

the work and endeavors of those years in this city this club has been prominent and its course has always been approved by the better class of our citizens. ever there was a class of men who tried to live up to the doctrine of "Noblesse oblige," they have.

It means much to me, for twenty-five years ago I made my first speech to the club and the next year became a member. In those days our friend Taft was walking the streets of Cincinnati in the innocence of his youth and never in those times worried about railroad rates. The Philippines were hardly known. Our city was condensed within the hills, but now, as you have seen, within the last few years it has spread out into a beautiful city.

St. Louis was struggling out on the banks of the two great rivers to get the trade of the southwest.

Chicago was more as it is today—the home of the best and the worst. It reminds me of a seething caldron which boils and boils and then rises, throwing away the refuse, and the refined metal ever growing better and better.

Boston is today the finest city in the country with its parks, its avenues, its buildings, but if we go back for twentyfive years, we find there a Longfellow, a Whittier, a Lowell and a Holmes, and it is a question whether the wealth and the beauty of today make up for the touch of poetry it had then.

After all, my friends, the world has grown broader and better in the twentyfive years. We may see things in a different light, but nevertheless the world has improved all the time. The troubles which my friends Judge Taft, Mr. Tuttle and Mr. MacVeagh alluded to tonight are simply the results of the prosperity of the last five years. We have been so busy making money, enlarging our boundaries and increasing our business that we have failed to correct some things which ought to have been corrected, and hence you have troubles and complaints.

One is that there is a great demand that the government should make the railroad rates. I believe there are very few people in this country who, if they sat down and analyzed their thoughts, would ask for this or who would think it wise, but the people have seen wrongs done; they have known of secret rebates and private contracts; they have felt that they were not being treated fairly, and in their attempt to right this wrong, they have thought that the remedy was to make the rates for the railways. I don't believe this would accomplish what they want, but it would bring injury to business and trouble to the government.

ABUSES CAN BE REMEDIED BY GOVERNMENTAL INSPECTION.

I would recommend that the Interstate Commerce Commission be enlarged in numbers; that its powers of investigation be increased; that it should have a large fund to expend and that they should turn the searchlight on the transactions of the railways and discover these secret agreements by which wrong is done, and right them.

I believe it would be a good thing if there could be the same examination of the railways that there is of the national banks. Why should there not be? It would accomplish wonders. If one of the interstate commerce commissioners with a score of skilled accountants, could go into the offices of any of the railways in the United States any day and say. "Now, bring out your books and vouchers and let us examine them," before a week was gone they would have laid bare the story of any wrongdoing. Then let them prosecute it and publish it and a second examination will probably find that everything is correct.

In any event, you must make up your mind to one thing, whether as private citizens, railway managers or government officials, that what the public want is not lower rates, but they want the

secret understandings which are going on now to be stopped, and they wantand are bound to have it-equal and fair treatment to all.

INDUSTRIAL EVILS MUST BE REMEDIED.

The condition of affairs with reference to labor unions which our friend MacVeagh has alluded to is another one of those things which probably have come to life and grown on account of the times. The arrogance of labor unions and the arrogance of wealth was never more in evidence than at the present time. The captains of industry who thought they could run things to suit themselves must be checked. The labor unions who thought they could beat the captains of industry at their own game must also be held up. The ordinary people have seen both going on just as they did in the French Revolution and have protested against these things and have demanded a remedy.

THE DEMAND FOR MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP.

Why is there such a demand for municipal ownership? It is not because of the bad management of these public utilities, but it is because the people believe them to be managed corruptly, and because they believe and have seen in many cases the managers of these public utilities buy that which should not be sold; have seen them corrupt their public service and debauch their public officials, and they have demanded that this shall stop. And in many cases they have seen no way to stop it, except by municipal ownership.

THE GREAT DANGER OF CORRUPTION.

The great danger to this country is not the danger from railway rates; is not the danger of municipal ownership of your public utilities, but the great danger to the republic is the danger of corruption. When you see men in this country whom you know have corrupted your public officials, who have lived on the graft that they have been able to get from the public service-when the people see them welcomed into high places and given a front seat-when they see men of character and dignity and standing take the hand of the man who has corrupted their officials, who has debauched their public government-then they feel indignant and rise up in public and protest that it shall be changed.

A HIGHER STANDARD OF CHARACTER AND INTEGRITY WANTED.

We want men in office of character; men who are beyond reproach. It is about time we taught our children and those who are to come after us that there are some things worth having and worth making besides dollars. You are drifting just as the old republic of Athens and Rome and Venice, back to a government by an oligarchy of wealth, and not of the people. You must stop, or else the end of this republic, like those of old, is written. What we want and need, as I have said, is a higher standard of character and integrity. To educate the people to this there are no bodies of men better, or whose work would be more effective, than these clubs.

In the field of railroad life, various types of individuality are assembled into a society distinctively a class.

The management of this body polity have incorporated a broad, liberal policy, educational, and with just discrimination throughout the branches of the entire service.

The rules prescribing each individual duty are so harmonized co-operatively that all who are personally associated with these rules are individually more or less responsible, that when such rule is disobeyed, the results are relatively on the shoulders of, not only those who disobey an order, but upon those who

knowingly allowed their co-employes to commit such error.

While, in face of all this, many serious mistakes occur annually, but almost invariably there is a point where accidental results might have been avoided, if some one had not failed to act promptly.

Success in the management rests upon the concrete structure of these dutiesthe principles wherein a deep unity of purpose prevails for the betterment of conditions, and where fellowship exists and discordant factions are extinct.

Railway management strives to educate its employes along lines of system improvement, and the first essential to this endeavor is the establishment of moral force in the individual employe, so marked and permanent that his veracity and conduct with alertness can always be depended upon.

Here naturally follow grades of this moral attribute, of greater or less degree, and it requires the rigid surveillance of the management to bring the scope of this force out plainly, as duties are multiplied from time to time, to reach the point of success.

Raw material coming into the service, while held rigidly responsible for its acts (as the rules are plain and instructive), yet the employe must carry much of its responsibility of mistakes made, as it is their duty to keep watchfully in sight, and with instructions, the act and movements of such new material.

The men are at their best when so disciplined to the work, as it creates character, and character is the foundation upon which the structure of efficient service is established.

The character of men in service depends not alone upon their own and individual conduct with the company, but they must not let a lack of character mar the completeness of subordinate action by a violation of the specific duties by other employes.

The aims of the employe should be high, and unless the choice between higher and lower aims be granted the individual, character can not be established.

If the management in no way discriminates between these two points in

his school for promotion, the improvement of method and the efficiency of service languishes, deteriorates, and becomes deficient, without purpose, and a general disorganization follows, with anarchistic elements in social upheaval through the entire body politic.

Man found his emancipation through work; it enabled him to throw off the slavery of ignorance. The man going to his day's labors goes to his school of emancipation, not only of freeing his mind from ignorance, but the gradual establishing of character, by freeing the individual from himself.

With the proper appreciation shown the man of marked stability of character, the management will always reach to gather in its ripest fruit, and developing the system conditions from this character brought out by its system of integrity.

The day of the intoxicated employe has been spent. No matter how skilled a man may be in his special line, if he be a man who can not extricate himself from periodical debauch, or even temporary indulgences, he is regarded as decidedly unreliable.

The specific duties lie greatly in the individual effort to adhere to this sound teaching of experience, and not encourage undisciplined methods, but to set his light to so shine that its radiance of competent energy will illuminate in general harmony with the great and lesser light of those above and below.

Disciplinary methods are necessary, and men should not feel that its method is a system of endless duty to the system they belong to; but, when properly looked at, its cultivation of the employe brings results whereby the individual learns to govern himself.

Men not forming bad habits progress rapidly under its method, as it has endless opportunities for new thought.

The genius of our great systems is the result of this progressive schooling, as it leads into the very heart of administrative, inventive and constructive achieve ment.

It leaves him who has obtained such improvement so nobly enriched, with his emancipation of conditions, that it