Among .Reformers 39 



are absolutely essential. The absence of either 

 makes the presence of the other worthless or worse. 



If there is one tendency of the day which more 

 than any other is unhealthy and undesirable, it is 

 the tendency to deify mere "smartness," unaccom 

 panied by a sense of moral accountability. We shall 

 never make our Republic what it should be until as a 

 people we thoroughly understand and put in prac 

 tice the doctrine that success is abhorrent if attained 

 by the sacrifice of the fundamental principles of 

 morality. The successful man, whether in business 

 or in politics, who has risen by conscienceless swind 

 ling of his neighbors, by deceit and chicanery, by 

 unscrupulous boldness and unscrupulous cunning, 

 stands toward society as a dangerous wild beast. 

 The mean and cringing admiration which such a 

 career commands among those who think crookedly 

 or not at all makes this kind of success perhaps the 

 most dangerous of all the influences that threaten 

 our national life. Our standard of public and pri 

 vate conduct will never be raised to the proper level 

 until we make the scoundrel who succeeds feel the 

 weight of a hostile public opinion even more strongly 

 than the scoundrel who fails. 



On the other hand, mere beating the air, mere 

 visionary adherence to a nebulous and possibly 

 highly undesirable ideal, is utterly worthless. The 

 cloistered virtue which timidly shrinks from all con- 



