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The Commoner
VOL. 14, NO. 11
8
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tooast of a world-wide advance and their claim Is
founded upon fact. In all matters except in the
scloncq of life, man has made wonderful pro
gress. Tho mastery of the mind ovor the forces
of "nature seems almost oomploto, so far do wo
surpass tho ancients in harnessing the water, the
wind and tho lightning.
For ages, tho rivers plunged down tho moun
tain sides and exhausted their energies without
any appreciable contribution to man's service;
now they are estimated as so many units of
horsepower and wo find that thoir fretting and
foaming was moroly a language which they em
ployed to toll us of their strength and of their
willingness to work for us. And, while falling
water is becoming each day a larger factor in
burden bearing, water, rising in the form of
steam, is revolutionizing tho transportation
methods of tho world.
Tho wind that first whispered its secret of
strongth to tho flapping sail is now turning the
whool at tho well.
Lightning, tho dread demon that, from tho
dawn of Creation, hns been rushing down its zig
zag path through tho clouds, as if intent only
upon spreading death, has been metamorphosed
into an errand-boy, brings us illumination from
tho sun and carries our messages around the
globe.
Inventive genius has multiplied the power of
a human arm and supplied tho masses with com
forts of which the rich did not dare to dream a
few centuries ago. Science is ferreting out the
hidden causes of diseaso and teaching us how to
prolong life. In every lino, except in tho line of
character-building, the world seems to have been
made ovor, but the marvelous changes by which
old things have bocomo new only emphasizes the
fact that man, too, must be born again, while
they show how important are material things to
touch the soul of man and transform him into a'
spiritual being. Wherever the moral standard
is being lifted up wherever life is becoming
larger in the vision that directs it and richer In
its fruitage, the improvement is traceable to the
Bible and to tho iufluonce of tho God and Christ
of whom tho Bible tolls.
Tho atheist and tho materialist must confess
that man ought to bo able to produce a better
book today than man, unaided, could have pro
duced in any previous age. Tho fact that they
have tried, time and time again, only to fail each
time more hopelessly, explain why they will not
why they cannot accept tho challenge thrown
down by the Christian world to produce a book
worthy to take the Bible's place.
They have prayed to their God to answer with
Are prayed to inanimate matter with an
earnestness that is pathetic they have employed
in the worship of blind force a faith greater than
religion requires, but thoir Almighty is asleep.
How long will they allow tho search for the
strata of stono and fragments of fossil and de
caying skeletons that are strown around the
house to, absorb their though1 to the exclu
sion of tho architect who placed it all?
How long will tho agnostic, closing his eyes to
-the plainest truths, cry "night, night," when the
sun in his meridian's splendor announces that
noon is here.
To the young man who is building character I
present tho Bible as a book that is useful always
and everywhere. It guides tho footsteps of tho
young; it throws a light upon tho pathway dur
ing tho mature years, and it is the only book that
one cares to have beside him when the darkness
gathers and, he knows that the end Is near. Then
he finds consolation In the promises of the Book
of Books and his lips repeat, oven when his
words are inaudible, "Yea, though I walk
through tho valley of the shadow of death, I shall
fear no evil, for thou art with mo, thy rod and
thy staff they comfort me," or, "I go to prepare
a place for you, and where I am there ye may
ho also."
And one moro word to the young man who
-would plan his life on a large scale. What think
ye of Christ? I do not present him merely as
the highest type of man but rather as the Bible
presents him, as tho Son of God and Saviour of
the world as he presents himself when he says,
"I am the way, the truth, tho life." Do you hove
difficulty In believing in His Divinity? It is he
cause you have measured Him by the rules that
apply to man. Take him. out of the man class
and put him in the God class, and then it will
not bo difficult to understand him. Measure him
hy tho task which ho came to perform it was
not a man's task. Measure him by the record he
has made. Why, if he was but a man, has not
our civilization produced another of his kind?
Why aro oven his enemies compelled to admit
tho magic of his name and tho wonder-working
influence of the philosophy he taught? Why are
his words as potent today as when the fishermen
of Galilee became his disciples as convincing as
they were when "tho common people heard him
gladly" upon the Mount of the Beatitudes?
Are you in doubt about his power to perform
.
0
.
THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
It has long been the honored custom
of our people to turn in the fruitful au
tumn of tho year in praise and thanks
giving to Almighty God for His many
blessings and mercies to us as a nation.
The year that is now drawing to a close
since we last observed our day of Nation
al Thanksgiving has been, while a year
of discipline because of the mighty forces
of war and of change which have dis
turbed the world, also a year of special
blessing for us.
It has been vouchsafed for us to re
main at peace, with honor, and in some
parts to succor the suffering and supply
the needs of those who are in want. We
have been privileged by our own peace
and self-control in some degree to steady
the counsels and shape the hopes and
purposes of a day of fear and distress.
Our people have looked upon their own
life as a nation with a deeper compre
hension, a deeper realization of their re
sponsibilities as well as of their blessings
and a keener sense of the moral and
practical significance of what their part
among the nations of the world may
come to.
The hurtful effects of foreign war in
their own industrial and commercial af
fairs have made them feel the more fully
and see the more clearly their mutual de
pendence upon one another, and have
stirred them to a helpful co-operation
such as they havo seldom practiced he
fore. They have been quickened by- a
great moral stimulation. Their unrals--takable
ardor for peace, their earnest
pity and disinterested sympathy for those
who are suffering, their readiness to help
and to think of the needs of others have
revealed them to themselves as well as
to the world.
Our crops will feed all who need food;
the self-possession of our people amid
the most serious anxieties and difficulties
and the steadiness and resourcefulness
of our business men will serve other na
tions as well as our own.
The business of the country has been
supplied with new instrumentalities and
tho commence of the world with new
channels of trade and intercourse. The
Panama Canal has been opened to the
commerce of nations. The two continents
of America have been bound in closer
guise of friendship. New instrumentali
ties of international trade have been cre
ated which will be also new instrument
alities of acquaintance, intercourse, and
mutual service. Never before have the
people of the United States been so sit
uated for their own advantage or the ad
vantage of thoir neighbors, or so equip
ped to serve themselve3.
Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, presi
dent of the United States of America, do
hereby designate Thursday, the 2Gth day
of November next, as a lay of Thanks
giving and prayer, and invite the people
throughout the land to cease from their
wonted occupations and in their several
homos and places of worship render
thanks to Almighty God.
In witness whereof I have hereunto
set my hand and caused the seal of the
united states to be affixed.
Done at tho city of Washington, this
28th day of October, in the year of Our
Lord, one thousand, nine hundred and
fourteen and the Indepenaence of the
United States of America, the one hun
dred and thirty-ninth.
WOODROW WILSON.
By the President
ROBERT LANSING,
Acting Secretary of State.
miracles when he walked among men? He is
.performing them today. The Christ who can
today open the eyes of a young man, who sees
nothing but the body and knows nothing but the
pleasures that come through the" flesh tho
Christ wh'o can open the eyes of such an one to
the larger vision of tho spiritual life could havo
opened the eyes of the physically blind. Do you
question His power to raise the dead? Go into
any rescue mission and hear the testimony of
those who, after years of dissipation and of
crime, have come under the influence of his grace
and havo been born again; behold the change
tho Christ who can take a man from the gutter,
one who has fallen so low that even his own
flesh and blood have abandoned him, and lift him
up, cleanse his heart and fill it with a passion for
service such a Christ could break the bonds of
tho tomb.
I am done. If I have succeeded in impressing
upon your mind the importance of planning a
life upon a high plane and upon a large scale, I
have accomplished my purpose. But I shall be
happier still if among you there is one young
man whom I have been able to help one who
has been made stronger to resist temptation and
whose conception of life's possibilities has been
enlarged, for one life, filled with love of God and
devoted to the welfare of his fellows, can bring
incalculable blessings to a community, a state, a
nation, or a world.
. . THAT ARGENTINE CORN
Just about a year ago the stand-pat republican
papers were in hysterics over the threatened ruin
of the farmers of this country through the in
troduction of "cheap" Argentine corn. By this
time our markets were to be inundated with a
golden stream from the South American repub
lic. Samples of this corn were purchased and
placed in store windows over tho country for tho
purpose of furnishing a concrete example of the
blue ruin that was facing American agricultural
'Interests. .
.What are the facts? According to the Journal
of Agriculture (St. Louis), a trifle over 10,000,
Q.Q0 bushels of Argentine corn were, imported
'into the United States between July "11913, and
June13, 1914, a little less than nine months of
the time being nnder the new tariff act. During
the same period over 145,000,000 bushels of Ar
gentine corn were sent to Europe.
As every farmer knows, 10,000,000 bushels
doesn't cut a very wide swath in the big field of
home needs, and as Congressman, Vollmer point
ed out, "it wouldn't make a respectable break
fast for the hogs of Iowa." At present the price
of corn is too high to make it eyen profitable for
the farmers to feed it to their hogs without
heavy supplementary rations.
When the news reached the Philippine islands
that the democratic congress was about to pass a'
measure which extended to the natives a greater
share in their government, in partial fulfillment
of the democratic pledge to give them independ
ence as soon as a stable government can be es
tablished, 50,000 Filipinos joined in celebration.
Which merely proves that confidence in the Wil
son administration is not confined to the borders
of tho states themselves.
George W. Perkins has come around to the
democratic position that a great association like
the New York stock exchange, made up of private
individuals who determine the methods by
which prices are established, shall be placed
under public regulation. The 'hanks that fur
nish the money to grease the machinery and the
corporations whose stocks are traded in are un
der public control, he says. Why not the ex
change itself?
Tho big cify Is developing a new sort of men
ace the disinclination of citizens to take part
in elections. The city of New York has five and
a half millions of people. Of this number, one
In nine persons, or 660,000 registered, and but
600,000 voted the other day. The proportion of
voters who vote to population is less than in the
country districts, where men must go miles to
exercise the franchise.
.
New York recently indulged in a debate over
whether it would he proper to allow the women
stenographers in the municipal building to hold
afternoon teas therein after hours. The debate
came to a sudden ending when some one rose
up to inquire if this would be any worse inter
ruption to public business than allowing male
employes to surround highballs at different pe
riods of the day.
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