Have Faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. | Page 5

we make of it. Before we decide upon a wholesale condemnation of
the most noteworthy spirit of modern times it would be well to examine
carefully what that spirit has done to advance the welfare of mankind.
Wherever we can read human history, the answer is always the same.
Where commerce has flourished there civilization has increased. It has
not sufficed that men should tend their flocks, and maintain themselves
in comfort on their industry alone, however great. It is only when the
exchange of products begins that development follows. This was the
case in ancient Babylon, whose records of trade and banking we are
just beginning to read. Their merchandise went by canal and caravan to
the ends of the earth. It was not the war galleys, but the merchant vessel
of Phoenicia, of Tyre, and Carthage that brought them civilization and
power. To-day it is not the battle fleet, but the mercantile marine which
in the end will determine the destiny of nations. The advance of our
own land has been due to our trade, and the comfort and happiness of
our people are dependent on our general business conditions. It is only
a figure of poetry that "wealth accumulates and men decay." Where
wealth has accumulated, there the arts and sciences have flourished,
there education has been diffused, and of contemplation liberty has
been born. The progress of man has been measured by his commercial
prosperity. I believe that these considerations are sufficient to justify
our business enterprise and activity, but there are still deeper reasons. I
have intended to indicate not only that commerce is an instrument of
great power, but that commercial development is necessary to all
human progress. What, then, of the prevalent criticism? Men have
mistaken the means for the end. It is not enough for the individual or
the nation to acquire riches. Money will not purchase character or good
government. We are under the injunction to "replenish the earth and
subdue it," not so much because of the help a new earth will be to us, as
because by that process man is to find himself and thereby realize his
highest destiny. Men must work for more than wages, factories must
turn out more than merchandise, or there is naught but black despair
ahead.
If material rewards be the only measure of success, there is no hope of

a peaceful solution of our social questions, for they will never be large
enough to satisfy. But such is not the case. Men struggle for material
success because that is the path, the process, to the development of
character. We ought to demand economic justice, but most of all
because it is justice. We must forever realize that material rewards are
limited and in a sense they are only incidental, but the development of
character is unlimited and is the only essential. The measure of success
is not the quantity of merchandise, but the quality of manhood which is
produced.
These, then, are the justifying conceptions of the spirit of our age; that
commerce is the foundation of human progress and prosperity and the
great artisan of human character. Let us dismiss the general indictment
that has all too long hung over business enterprise. While we continue
to condemn, unsparingly, selfishness and greed and all trafficking in
the natural rights of man, let us not forget to respect thrift and industry
and enterprise. Let us look to the service rather than to the reward.
Then shall we see in our industrial army, from the most exalted captain
to the humblest soldier in the ranks, a purpose worthy to minister to the
highest needs of man and to fulfil the hope of a fairer day.

IV
AT THE HOME OF DANIEL WEBSTER, MARSHFIELD
JULY 4, 1916
History is revelation. It is the manifestation in human affairs of a
"power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." Savages have no
history. It is the mark of civilization. This New England of ours
slumbered from the dawn of creation until the beginning of the
seventeenth century, not unpeopled, but with no record of human
events worthy of a name. Different races came, and lived, and vanished,
but the story of their existence has little more of interest for us than the
story the naturalist tells of the animal kingdom, or the geologist relates
of the formation of the crust of the earth. It takes men of larger vision
and higher inspiration, with a power to impart a larger vision and a
higher inspiration to the people, to make history. It is not a negative,
but a positive achievement. It is unconcerned with idolatry or
despotism or treason or rebellion or betrayal, but bows in reverence
before Moses or Hampden or Washington or Lincoln or the Light that

shone