Page:Frank David Ely -Why defend the nation? Sound Americanism... (1924).pdf/43

Rh Unwilling to pay the price, he nevertheless demands the highest quality of goods. This is pure effrontery. In business, he would be shown the door, and in politics he should be conducted to a well marked exit from the national stage.

The pacifist starts wrong, and stubbornly or ignorantly stays wrong. We prefer to believe the latter. If he justified the definition given of him by Webster it would be one thing; but he states his wishes and desires as a postulate, and therein he is wrong. No more can the Nation secure the effect called peace without righteousness in the people than we can stay the floods of the lower Mississippi when all of its great tributaries pour into it the cumulative floods of those vast regions to the north which stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. To effect this we must stay the rainfall or the melting of the winter snows, or find means to turn the tributary waters aside, to flow elsewhere. And to insure peace we must find means to better control the passions and inherent nature of man and to soften their manifestations. We have the means to accomplish this, in education and Christianity; but these are not being sufficiently or always intelligently employed. As stated above, education, sentiment, Christianity, and fear play the leading roles in shaping the lives of men and the destinies of nations. Education provides the essential “know how” to success; sentiment and religion inspire men and cause selection and elimination of methods and acts; fear controls abuse. Education is the motor; sentiment and Christianity the selective gear lever; and fear is the brake. With such equipment we should welcome the signal “full speed ahead!”

Experience teaches that even minor desirable changes in long established customs demand heroic effort to bring those changes about. The twelve-hour working day in the steel industries is a recent example of the tenacity of established practice, as its final relinquishment was a marked proof of the power dormant in public opinion. Gain its favorable expression, and the world is yours—but be sure you champion a worthy cause.

The English are noted for declining the most innocent proposals simply because “it isn’t done;” and that reason, more often than otherwise, is the best that could possibly be given, for it denotes a respect for precedent which is the direct result of deep-seated regard for established law and institutions.