-210 The Hon. Walter Mines Page [June 12, 



iLan ordered pomp and authority, which are too likely to become 

 content with themselves. 



In its anialiramatiun uf men— and it does amalg-amate all that 

 ;ire near enough akin in their family stocks to be personally acceptable 

 to one another— this democracy has so far produced not a clearly -cut 

 new type such as would satisfy an ethnologist, but a type that rom- 

 bines tlie qualities of the Xoith European races, of which the British 

 type is the ])ackground — the British type that is itself an eailier 

 amalgamation of all these same races. And the American is an 

 amalgamation under the favom'able conditions of a mobile social 

 organization, and on a continent . yet new enough to offer ureat 

 freedom of natural opportunity. We believe that this amalgama- 

 tion will preserve the strongest of all these stocks as your e.irlier 

 amalgamation did. 



After these introductory words, I now direct your attention to 

 one principle that runs through many apparently contiadi<-tory 

 poHtical and social activities — .i principle that will help to classify and 

 to interpret them. But I Av.irn you that this principle is a mere 

 co'umonplace to those who only half believe in it, or who give it 

 only an intellectual assent, and are not willing to live their lives by 

 it. AVhen it becomes a rule of conduct, however, it is not a common- 

 pLice, but a sort of social and political Decalogue. 



The fundamental article in the creed of the American democracy 

 — you may call it the fundamental dogma, if you like — is the 

 unchanging and unchangeal)le resolve that every human being shall 

 hive his opportunity for his utmost development — his chance to 

 become and to do the best that he can. 



This is the professed aim of most systems of society ; Init in the 

 American democracy it is a living creed — the very breath that main- 

 tains it. I think you will find that the effort to keep society mol)ile, 

 s<j that every man may have his utmost opportunity, runs through 

 oiu- life and explains most of the social, the educational, and the 

 political activities in the Republic. Many activities, movements, 

 ideas, legislative acts, and popular crusades that are apparently 

 unrelated, classify themselves around this continual effort. 



Keeping this key in mind, let me very hastily review certain 

 recent events in our social, educational, and political life - to see if 

 the key does not fit them. 



First, let me take as an example, the so-called •'anti-trust" 

 agit.ition of the last decade. When certain companies grew into 

 very powerful business organizations, which in the United States are 

 commonly called " trusts," the popular displeasure with them and 

 the popular fear of them found expression in anti-trust legislation, 

 both in many states and in Congress. Under the Congressional Act 

 certain trusts were by the Supreme Com-t resolved into their con- 

 stituent parts — into the smaller companies of which they had been 

 built. Other trusts, fearing a similar fate, voluntarilv dissolved. It 



