of the ninth, assailed
me for sending my message to the dead man's wife. I knew the editors of
this paper, and the editor who was their predecessor. They had led
lives of bodily ease and the avoidance of bodily risk; they earned their
livelihood by the practice of mendacity for profit; and they delivered
malignant judgment on a dead man who, whatever his faults, had in his
youth freely risked his life for a great ideal, and who when death was
already clutching his breast had spent almost his last breath on behalf
of humble and friendless people whom he had served with disinterested
loyalty.

There is no greater duty than to war on the corrupt and unprincipled
boss, and on the corrupt and unprincipled business man; and for the
matter of that, on the corrupt and unprincipled labor leader also,
and on the corrupt and unprincipled editor, and on any one else who is
corrupt and unprincipled. But where the conditions are such, whether in
politics or in business, that the great majority of men have behaved in
a way which is gradually seen to be improper, but which at one time did
not conflict with the generally accepted morality, then the warfare on
the system should not include warfare on the men themselves, unless
they decline to amend their ways and to dissociate themselves from the
system. There are many good, unimaginative citizens who in politics
or in business act in accordance with accepted standards, in a
matter-of-course way, without questioning these standards; until
something happens which sharply arouses them to the situation, whereupon
they try to work for better things. The proper course in such event is
to let bygones be bygones, and if the men prove by their actions the
sincerity of their conversion, heartily to work with them for the
betterment of business and political conditions.

By the time that I was ending my career as Civil Service Commissioner
I was already growing to understand that mere improvement in political
conditions by itself was not enough. I dimly realized that an even
greater fight must be waged to improve economic conditions, and to
secure social and industrial justice, justice as between individuals
and justice as between classes. I began to see that political effort was
largely valuable as it found expression and resulted in such social and
industrial betterment. I was gradually puzzling out, or trying to puzzle
out, the answers to various questions--some as yet unsolvable to any of
us