It may be that the diffusion of wealth works in an analogous way.  As the little red schoolhouse is builded in the college, it may be that the fostering and protection of large aggregations of wealth are the only foundation on which to build the prosperity of the whole people.  Large profits mean large pay rolls.  But profits must be the result of service performed.  In no land are there so many and such large aggregations of wealth as here; in no land do they perform larger service; in no land will the work of a day bring so large a reward in material and spiritual welfare.

Have faith in Massachusetts.  In some unimportant detail some other States may surpass her, but in the general results, there is no place on earth where the people secure, in a larger measure, the blessings of organized government, and nowhere can those functions more properly be termed self-government.

Do the day’s work.  If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it.  If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that.  Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don’t be a stand-patter.  Expect to be called a demagogue, but don’t be a demagogue.  Don’t hesitate to be as revolutionary as science.  Don’t hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table.  Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.  Don’t hurry to legislate.  Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.

We need a broader, firmer, deeper faith in the people—­a faith that men desire to do right, that the Commonwealth is founded upon a righteousness which will endure, a reconstructed faith that the final approval of the people is given not to demagogues, slavishly pandering to their selfishness, merchandising with the clamor of the hour, but to statesmen, ministering to their welfare, representing their deep, silent, abiding convictions.

Statutes must appeal to more than material welfare.  Wages won’t satisfy, be they never so large.  Nor houses; nor lands; nor coupons, though they fall thick as the leaves of autumn.  Man has a spiritual nature.  Touch it, and it must respond as the magnet responds to the pole.  To that, not to selfishness, let the laws of the Commonwealth appeal.  Recognize the immortal worth and dignity of man.  Let the laws of Massachusetts proclaim to her humblest citizen, performing the most menial task, the recognition of his manhood, the recognition that all men are peers, the humblest with the most exalted, the recognition that all work is glorified.  Such is the path to equality before the law.  Such is the foundation of liberty under the law.  Such is the sublime revelation of man’s relation to man—­Democracy.

II

AMHERST COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, BOSTON

FEBRUARY 4, 1916

We live in an age which questions everything.  The past generation was one of religious criticism.  This is one of commercial criticism.