6o 
Roosevelt JJ'ild Life Bulletin 
the opposite of our method, ^\'h^ch is right? If Germany is right, 
then she is acquiring from us one of our most precious metals on 
terms very advantageous to her and very (hsadvantageous to us. 
Duty of Science Toward the Public. Twenty-five or thirty-five 
years ago, before science and invention had perfected electrical 
intercommunication, such arrangements as these did not and could 
not exist. But today they can and do. Not only this, but in the 
judgment of all thoughtfvd men they are l)ut in their infancy, for 
science and invention are making stupendous strides in perfecting 
instantaneous intercommunication of thought and the more rapid 
transportation of our bodies and commodities from point to point. 
When this war shall have finished, the conquest of the air will have 
been accomplished. The wireless will be a practical, everyday 
instrument. The submarine telephone w^ill doubtless be in opera- 
tion, and international lines will then mean about as little as state 
lines mean now, all because of what science has accomplished. 
Surely, you men of science have vast accomplishments to your 
credit. You have reason to be exceedingly proud of a great record 
of achievement ; but is it not high time that you '' did your bit " 
by making it plainer to the people as a whole what your accomplish- 
ments mean to them in their work-day lives, making them under- 
stand that while you ha\e destroyed an old order of things you 
have created a new and l^etter order of things. Would it not be 
highly beneficial to our country if some of your meetings and dis- 
cussions were given over almost wholly to the task of enlightening 
the people as to why it is that old methods must be discarded for 
new methods? ^^ ill you not give your splendid talents to plain 
talks with the multitude, for a great crisis confronts the world? 
It is the crisis of changing in a night, as it were, from the age 
of the ox team to the age of the flying machine. Certainly no such 
stupendous revolution has confronted the world in all its history, 
and unless our people can comprehend it all. can understand it all, 
they will not be qualified to deal with it in their homes, in their 
business, and above all, at the polls where representati\es are 
selected bv them to make new laws and discard old ones. 
