Can they be blind to the benefits conferred by our churches? Security of life and property is not entirely due to criminal laws, to a sheriff in each county, and to an occasional policeman. The conscience comes first; the law comes afterward.
Law is but the crystallization of conscience; moral sentiment must be created before it can express itself in the form of a statute. Every preacher and priest, therefore, whether his congregation be large or small, who quickens the conscience of those who hear him helps the community. Every church of every denomination, whether important or unimportant, that helps to raise the moral standards of the land benefits all who live under the flag, whether they acknowledge their obligations or not.
But lack of appreciation on the part of those outside the Church would not disturb us so much if all the church members lived up to their obligations. How much is it worth to one to be born again? Of what value is it to have had the heart touched by the Saviour and so changed that it loves the things it used to hate and hates the things it formerly loved? Of what value is it to have one"s life so transformed that, instead of resembling a stagnant pool, it becomes like a living spring, giving forth constantly that which refreshes and invigorates? What is it worth to the Christian, and what is it worth to those about him, to have his life brought by Christ into such vital living contact with the Heavenly Father, that that life becomes the means through which the goodness of G.o.d pours out to the world?
But, I go a step farther and ask whether the Church as an organization--not any one denomination, but the Church universal--appreciates its great opportunities, its tremendous responsibility, and the infinite power behind it. If the Church is what we believe it to be it must be prepared to grapple with every problem, individual and social, whether it affects only a community or involves a state, a nation, or a world. There must be _some_ intelligence large enough to direct the world or the world will run amuck. We believe that G.o.d is the only intelligence capable of governing the world, and G.o.d must act through the Church or outside of it. If the Church is not big enough to act as the mouthpiece of the Almighty--not in the sense that the Church ought to exercise governmental authority, but its members, seeking light from the Heavenly Father through prayer, should be able to act wisely as citizens--if, I repeat, the Church is not big enough to deal with the problems that confront the world, then the Church must give way to some more competent organization. Christians have no other alternative; they _must_ believe that the _teachings of Christ can be successfully applied to every problem that the individual has to meet and to every problem with which governments have to deal_. I have in another lecture in this series called attention to Christ"s all-inclusive claim set forth in the closing verses of the last chapter of Matthew, but I must repeat it here because it is the basis of what I desire to say on this branch of the subject. Christ declared that _all_ power had been given into His hands; He sent His followers out to make disciples of _all_ nations; and He promised to be with them _always_, even unto the end of the world. If the Church takes Christ at His word and claims to be His representative on earth it cannot shirk its duty.
If Christians are as grateful to G.o.d, to Christ, and to the Bible as they should be, they will give attention to every problem that affects the individual, the community, and the larger units of society and government. They will consider it their duty to _carry their religion into business and politics_ and to apply the teachings of Christ to every subject that affects human welfare. In another lecture I call attention to the Church"s duty to reconcile capital and labour, and to teach G.o.d"s law of rewards.
The third gift to which I would call your attention is the form of government under which we live. Ours is a government in which the people rule from the lowest unit to the highest office in the nation. Nearly all of our officials are elected by popular vote, and those appointed are appointed by officers who are elected. The tendency is everywhere more and more toward popular government. Some people are afraid of Democracy but a larger number of people believe that "more democracy is the cure for such evils as have been developed under popular government." The Christian is a citizen of the republic as well as a member of the church and must _practice_ his religion. I have not time to speak of our government in detail; it is rather my purpose at this time to call attention to the gift of popular government as we find it in the nation.
Let us begin, then, with a presidential election. I shall not yield to the strong temptation to describe a presidential election; suffice to say that our campaigns begin with the election of delegates to a National Convention (I hope they will some day begin with the nomination of presidential candidates at primaries held by all the parties, in all the states, on the same day). The campaigns last long enough to make the candidates so weary that they gladly resign themselves to any result if they can only live to election day.
The campaigns increase in intensity week after week and expire, or explode, in a blaze of glory the night before election, at which time the committees of the leading parties set forth the reasons that make each side certain of success. On election day a hush spreads over the land and the voters wend their way to the polling places, where each voter is permitted to register a sovereign"s will. Usually by midnight the wires flash out the name of one who is to be added to the list of Presidents. We give him a few weeks to rest and get ready and then, on a certain day in March and at a certain hour, he goes to the White House door and knocks. The occupant opens the door, and with a wearied look upon his face, and yet a smile, says, "I was expecting you just at this moment." Then the man on the inside of the White House goes out and becomes a private citizen again, while the man on the outside goes in, takes the oath of office and is clothed with authority such as no other human being, but a President, ever exercised.
He writes an order and ships go out to sea with their big-mouthed guns; he writes another order and the ships return. At his command armies a.s.semble and march and fight, and men die; at his word armies dissolve and soldiers become citizens again. This goes on for just so many years and months and weeks and days--for just so many hours and minutes and seconds, and then there is another knock on the White House door and another man comes with a new commission from the people.
Is it not a great thing to live in a land like this where the people can, at the polls, select one of their number and lift him to this pinnacle of power? And is it not greater still that the people are able to reduce a President to the ranks as well as to lift him up? When they elevate him he is just common clay, but when they take him down from his high place they separate him from those instrumentalities of government which despots have employed for the enslavement of their people.
And why is it that we live under a government resting upon the consent of the governed, and in a land in which the people rule? Because throughout the centuries millions of the best and the bravest have given their lives that we might be free. Every right of which we boast is a blood-bought right, and bought by the blood of others, not our own.
Would you not think that people who inherit such a government as this would be grateful for the priceless gift and live up to every obligation of citizenship? It would seem so, and yet those acquainted with politics know that the difficult task is to get the vote out. Even in a hotly contested presidential election we never get the full vote out. If ninety per cent of the vote is polled we are happy; if eighty-five per cent, is polled we are satisfied. If it is an intermediate election the vote may be less than eighty per cent., or even seventy-five. In a primary, which is often more important than an election, the vote sometimes falls below fifty, or even forty per cent.
And what excuses do men give? Often the most trivial. One man says that he had some work to do and could not spare the time--as if any work could be more important than voting in a Republic. Another was visiting his wife"s relatives and a family dinner made it inconvenient for him to return in time to vote. A few years ago I met a man on the train who told me that he had not voted for ten years. When I asked him why, he explained that he had voted for a neighbour for a state office--he declared that the neighbour could not have been elected without his help--and yet when the election was over the successful candidate failed to invite him to a dinner given to celebrate the victory. "And," he added, "I just made up my mind that if I could be so deceived by a man who lived next door to me I did not have sense enough to vote, and I have not voted since."
We are all liable to make mistakes, but a mistake at one election is no justification for failure to vote at other elections. We must do the best we can; and we must not be discouraged if the men elected do not do all that we expect of them. The government is not perfect and never will be, no matter what party is in power. When the Democrats are in power I can prove by all the Republicans that the government is not perfect; when the Republicans are in power I can prove by the Democrats that the government is not perfect. Governments are administered by human beings; we must expect honest men to make mistakes and we must not be surprised if, occasionally, an official embezzles power and turns to his own advantage the authority entrusted to him to use for the public good. We should punish him and try to safeguard the people. The initiative and referendum are valuable because they enable the people to protect themselves from misrepresentation.
But even if the government could be made perfect to-day it would be imperfect to-morrow. Times change and new conditions arise that make new laws necessary. As the remedy cannot precede the disease and cannot be applied until the public becomes acquainted with the disease and has time to choose the remedy, there is always something that needs to be done. If Christians do not make it their business to understand their government"s needs and to propose laws that are necessary, others will.
Are any more worthy to be trusted than Christians?
Even const.i.tutions must be changed in order that our government may be in the hands of the living rather than in the hands of the dead. Those who wrote our Const.i.tution were very wise men and yet the wisest thing they did was to include a provision which enabled those who came after them to change anything that they wrote into the Const.i.tution.
Jefferson thought a const.i.tution should be brought up to date by every generation. Nineteen changes have been made in our Const.i.tution by amendment since the Const.i.tution was adopted and four of these have been adopted within the last ten years. I venture to call attention to the later ones for two purposes; first, to show how long it takes to amend the Const.i.tution and why; second, to remind you that these four great amendments have been adopted by joint action by the two great parties.
It required twenty-one years to secure the amendment providing for popular election of United States Senators after the amendment was first endorsed by the House of Representatives at Washington. For one hundred and three years after the adoption of the Federal Const.i.tution the people tolerated the election of Senators by legislatures before there was a protest that rose to the dignity of a Congressional resolution.
A Republican President, Andrew Johnson, recommended the change in a message to Congress. Some ten years later, General Weaver, a Populist Representative in Congress from Iowa, introduced a resolution proposing an amendment providing for the popular election of Senators, but no action was taken at that time. In 1902 a Democratic House of Representatives at Washington pa.s.sed a resolution, by the necessary two-thirds vote, submitting the proposed amendment. Hon. Harry St.
George Tucker, of Virginia, was the chairman of the committee when this resolution pa.s.sed the House. A similar resolution pa.s.sed the House on five separate occasions afterward (twice when the House was Democratic and three times when it was Republican) before it could pa.s.s the Senate.
The amendment was finally submitted by joint action of a Democratic House and a Republican Senate and was ratified in a short time, Democratic and Republican states vying with each other in furnishing the necessary number. In 1913 it became my privilege, as Secretary of State, to sign the last doc.u.ment necessary to make this amendment a part of the Const.i.tution. I have dwelt upon this contest at some length in order to call attention to the time it took to secure the change and to the fact that the two parties share the honour of making the change.
It took seventeen years to secure the amendment to the Const.i.tution authorizing an income tax. The Income Tax Law, enacted in 1894, was declared unconst.i.tutional by the United States Supreme Court, by a majority of one, in 1895. In 1896 the fight for a const.i.tutional amendment was inaugurated and the amendment was ratified and became a part of the Const.i.tution early in 1913. This amendment, like the amendment providing for popular election of United States Senators, required many years, and for the same reason, viz., that the people were not alert as they should have been, not as vigilant as they should be.
In the case of the Income Tax Amendment also, as in the case of the other, the two parties contributed to the change in the Const.i.tution and share the glory together. The first amendment brought the United States Senate nearer the people and opened the way for other reforms; the second made it possible to apportion more equitably the burdens of the government.
The Income Tax Amendment was adopted just in time to enable the government to collect the revenue needed for the recent war. During the seventeen years covered by the struggle for this amendment the government was impotent to tax wealth; it could draft the man but not the pocketbook. What would have been the feeling among the people if we had entered the late war under such a handicap? How would conscription have been received if it applied to father, husband and son and not to wealth also?
And then, too, the Income Tax Amendment came just in time to answer the last argument made in favour of the saloon. Those engaged in the liquor traffic, after being defeated on all other points, ma.s.sed behind the proposition that the government needed the revenue from whiskey, beer, and saloons. As soon as the government was able to collect an income tax the friends of prohibition were able to look the liquor dealers in the face and say, "Never again will an American boy be auctioned off to a saloon for money to run the government; we now have other sources from which to draw."
The third of the amendments was also a long time in coming and was finally brought by joint action of Democrats and Republicans. It is not necessary to trace the growth of this reform. Suffice it to say that the Christian churches were the dominating force behind the prohibition movement and that the South played a very prominent part in driving out the saloon. More than two-thirds of the Senators and members from the Southern States voted for the submission of National Prohibition after nearly all the Southern States had adopted prohibition by individual act. The first four states to ratify were Southern Democratic States--Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, and South Carolina. It is only fair, however, to say that the West contested with the South the honour of leading in this fight, and that the Northern States finally did nearly as well as the Southern States in the matter of ratifying. And it is better that the victory should be a joint one, expressing the conscience of the nation regardless of party, than that it should be merely a party victory.
But the real credit for leadership belongs not to any party or to any section, but to those whose consciences were quickened by the teachings of the Bible. Total abstinence was naturally more prevalent among church members than among those outside of the church, and this, of course, was the foundation upon which prohibition rested. The arguments against the use of liquor are the basis of the arguments in favour of prohibition.
Because liquor is harmful the saloon is intolerable.
I venture to set forth the fundamental propositions upon which the arguments for prohibition rested.
First: G.o.d never made a human being who, in a normal state, needed alcohol.
Second: G.o.d never made a human being strong enough to begin the use of alcohol and be sure that he would not become its victim.
Third: G.o.d never fixed a day in a human life _after_ which it is safe to begin the use of intoxicating liquors.
These three propositions can be stated without limitation or mental reservation. They apply to all who now live and to all who ever lived; and will apply to all who may live hereafter. To these may be added three propositions which apply especially to Christians.
First: The Christian is a Christian because he has given himself in pledge of service to G.o.d and to Christ. What moral right has he to take into his body that which he knows will lessen his capacity for service and _may_ destroy even his desire to serve?
Second: What moral right has a Christian to spend for intoxicating liquor money needed for the many n.o.ble and needy causes that appeal to a Christian"s heart? The Christian, repeating the language taught him by the Master, prays to the Heavenly Father, "Thy kingdom come;" what right has he to rise from his knees and spend for intoxicating liquor money that he can spare to hasten the coming of G.o.d"s kingdom on earth?
Third: What right has a Christian to throw the influence of his example on the side of a habit that has brought millions to the grave? We shall have enough to answer for when we stand before the judgment bar of G.o.d without having a ruined soul arise and testify that it was a Christian"s example that led him to his ruin. Paul declared that if meat made his brother to offend he would eat no meat. What Christian can afford to say less in regard to intoxicants? If the Christian drinks only a little it is a small sacrifice to make for the aid of his brother; if the Christian drinks enough to make stopping a real sacrifice he ought to stop for his own sake, on his family"s account and out of respect for his church.
While the harmfulness of liquor was the foundation upon which the opposition to the saloon was built, it may be worth while to add that popular government, by putting responsibility upon the voters, compelled the Christian to vote against the saloon licenses. In all civilized countries the sale of liquor is now so restricted that it cannot be lawfully offered for sale without a license. As the license is necessary to the existence of the saloon--as necessary as the liquor sold over the bar--the Christian who voted for a license became as much a partner in the business as the man who dispensed it, and he had even less excuse.
The manufacturer and the bartender could plead in extenuation that they made money out of the business and money has led mult.i.tudes into sin.
For money many have been willing to steal; for money some have been willing to murder; for money a few have been willing to sell their country; for money one man was willing to betray the Saviour. The Christian who voted for licenses had not even the poor excuse of those who engaged in the business for mercenary reasons. As the consciences became awakened, therefore, Christians, in increasing numbers, refused to share responsibility for the saloon and what it did.
Science contributed largely to the final victory. People used to say that drinking did not hurt if one did not drink too much. But no one could define how much "too much" was. The invisible line between "just enough" and "too much" is like the line of the horizon--it recedes as you approach until it is lost in the darkness of the night.
Science proved that it is not immoderate drinking only, but _any_ drinking that is harmful, and, therefore, that the real line is that between not drinking and drinking.
Science has also demonstrated, as I have shown in another lecture, that drinking decreases one"s expectancy, according to insurance tables; a young man at twenty-one must deliberately decide to shorten his life by more than ten per cent. if he becomes an habitual drinker.
But, what is worse, science has shown that alcohol is a poison that runs in the blood, so that the drinking of the father or mother may curse a child unborn and close the door of hope upon it before its eyes have opened to the light of day.
Business aided us also, as large corporations increasingly discriminated against those who drank.
Patriotism furnished the last impulse; war threw a ghastly light upon the evils of intemperance and upon the sordid greed of those engaged in the liquor business.
The reform will not turn back. Enforcement will become more strict in this country as its benefits are more clearly shown and prohibition will spread until the saloon will be abolished throughout the world. Although now past sixty-one I expect to live to see the day when there will not be an open saloon under the flag of any civilized nation.
We are now able to prevent typhoid fever, the individual being made immune by a treatment administered before he has been exposed to the disease. Total abstinence resembles this preventive; no total abstainer is in danger of alcoholism.
But we also have a preventive for yellow fever, namely, the destroying of the breeding place of the mosquito which carries the germ of the disease. Prohibition resembles this preventive. The saloon was found to be the breeding place of alcoholism and prohibition strikes at the source of the danger. These two, total abstinence and prohibition, will eliminate the drink evil as typhoid and yellow fever have been eliminated.
The fourth amendment adopted in recent years extended equal suffrage to women. Like the three to which I have referred, it was a long time coming and came at last by joint action of the two great parties.
A majority of both parties in both Senate and House voted for the submission of this amendment and it required both Democratic and Republican states to ratify it. The opposition which the amendment met in the South was not due to lack of confidence in women, for nowhere in the world is woman more highly estimated or more fully trusted. Such local opposition as there was was due to the race question. Now that woman can express herself at the polls, her influence will be felt as much in the South as in other sections; it will throughout the United States seal the doom of the liquor traffic. The women will stand guard at the grave of John Barleycorn and make sure that he will never know a resurrection morn.
Drawing their inspiration from the Bible, even to a greater extent than the men do, the women will hasten the triumph of every righteous cause.
They will throw their influence on the side of every moral reform. The adoption of the single standard of morals will be made possible by woman"s advent into politics. Her ballot will make it easier to lift man to her level in the matter of chast.i.ty and to distribute more equitably than man has done, the punishments imposed for acts of immorality.
Woman has come into power in politics at a time when she can aid in the promotion of world peace by compelling the establishment of machinery which will subst.i.tute reason for force in the settlement of international disputes. Her first great triumph at the polls may be the fulfilling of the prophecy, spoken more than two thousand years ago, that swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and that nations shall learn war no more. She will be repaid for all her patience and her waiting if now, by her ballot, she can make it unnecessary for another mother"s son to be offered upon the altar of Mars. That this nation is in a better position than ever before to lead the world in every good cause is due to the gifts that have come with American citizenship, only three of which I have had time to mention.
Every citizen should be honest with himself, examine his own heart and answer to his own conscience. What estimate does he place upon the education which he has received? What value does he put upon the religion that controls his heart? How highly does he prize the form of government under which he lives? Let him put his own apprais.e.m.e.nt upon these three great gifts; these sums added together will represent his acknowledged indebtedness to society; then let him resolve to pay so much of this incalculable debt as is within his power.
We live in a goodly land. No king can shape our nation"s destiny; not even a President can have the final word as to what our nation is to be.