I would not be understood as making a sweeping criticism of current legislation along these lines.  I, too, rejoice that an awakened conscience has outlawed commercial standards that were false or low and that an awakened humanity has decreed that the working and living condition of our citizens must be worthy of true manhood and true womanhood.

I agree that the measure of success is not merchandise but character.  But I do criticise those sentiments, held in all too respectable quarters, that our economic system is fundamentally wrong, that commerce is only selfishness, and that our citizens, holding the hope of all that America means, are living in industrial slavery.  I appeal to Amherst men to reiterate and sustain the Amherst doctrine, that the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.

III

BROCKTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

APRIL 11, 1916

Man’s nature drives him ever onward.  He is forever seeking development.  At one time it may be by the chase, at another by warfare, and again by the quiet arts of peace and commerce, but something within is ever calling him on to “replenish the earth and subdue it.”

It may be of little importance to determine at any time just where we are, but it is of the utmost importance to determine whither we are going.  Set the course aright and time must bring mankind to the ultimate goal.

We are living in a commercial age.  It is often designated as selfish and materialistic.  We are told that everything has been commercialized.  They say it has not been enough that this spirit should dominate the marts of trade, it has spread to every avenue of human endeavor, to our arts, our sciences and professions, our politics, our educational institutions and even into the pulpit; and because of this there are those who have gone so far in their criticism of commercialism as to advocate the destruction of all enterprise and the abolition of all property.

Destructive criticism is always easy because, despite some campaign oratory, some of us are not yet perfect.  But constructive criticism is not so easy.  The faults of commercialism, like many other faults, lie in the use 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.