a Christian basis. Where graft is taken out of politics,
officials become devoted public servants. The reproach has been made
against a man of great ability that at the end of his life his name is not
connected with any great cause or measure for the welfare of the people.
Whether the judgment was just or not, that point of view is the one to
take.

Can business be brought under the law of service? Or is commerce
constitutionally incapable of it? There are many indications that a
conscious spiritual change is coming over those men in business who have
enough intellect and character to look beyond immediate needs. The type of
business leadership which took millions out of filthy factory towns, wore
out women and took the youth out of children, cleared twelve per cent from
slum tenements, kept men and women from marriage by underpayment, and kept
the cradle empty by high prices and fear of the future--this type of
leadership is antiquated. It belongs to a pre-Christian and pagan age. It
is only a question whether business leaders will voluntarily turn their
back on such misuse of power or have a change forced on them. Those who
mark time on the old methods will become moral derelicts, and their wealth
will not forever screen their moral obtuseness.

The nation needs leaders who will persuade conservative farmers to use
scientific methods; who will teach our wasteful people the value of
self-restraint, and the beauty of cooperative buying and selling; who will
teach our communities that it is a sin to rob our own children by leaving
soil, water, and forests poorer than we found them; who will give the
people good housing without taking the unearned increment; who will
organize the dangerous industries for safety; who will place the relations
of leaders and workers in industry on a basis of justice and goodwill so
that industrial peace can be attained. Is such an object satisfying to a
young man of business capacity, or does he want to build a million dollar
house and populate it with one child? It is confessed that civilization
has been succeeding on the technical side and failing on the ethical. The
more the machinery of life is concentrated in the hands of a limited group
of business leaders, the more important does the social enlightenment and
moral objective of these leaders become to society. To which of the two
types do we belong?

IV

Will a life of service satisfy the capable and call out their best powers