of old, exclaim "Give me
where to stand and I will move the world." Let me advise you to stand
where you are. That's the place. Act well your part, and you shall have
accomplished all that is expected of you. My friends, a country like
ours is not governed by law, or courts of justice, or judges, however
wise or puissant. It is governed by public sentiment. Once poison it,
and courts are impotent and judges powerless. Therefore we are
responsible, each and all of us, according to our talents and influence,
for the public sentiment of the day. If it is healthy and just, it is we
who have made it so; if it is unhealthy and unjust, it is we who have
made it or permitted it to become so. And what is this all-powerful, but
imperceptible, entity, this potent influence which controls presidents,
cabinets, congresses, courts, judges, juries, the press and--I regret to
say it--the pulpit? What is public sentiment or public opinion? It is
the multiplied, accumulated opinion of all the people. Every word spoken
or written by man or woman goes to make up this great stream of public
opinion, just as every drop of dew or water goes to make up that mighty
river which divides this imperial continent and turns the spindles of
the ten thousand factories which hug its shores. Hence we are all
responsible for our contribution to the public opinion of the day,
whether our contribution be a raindrop or a Niagara. We are responsible
for what we say and what we leave unsaid, for what we do and what we
leave undone, for what we write and what is unwritten. We are
responsible for the errors we have committed and for those we have taken
no part in overthrowing. So, whether we realize it or not, we are
consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, directly
or indirectly, according to our opportunities and our influence,
responsible for the public sentiment which secures or deprives every
citizen of his rights and of the opportunity for the highest
intellectual and industrial development.

I know that it is sometimes said that we have done very little. Be that
as it may. Thirty years is but a brief time compared with the centuries
in which Norman, Saxon, and Dane have been fusing into the English race.
And yet, we have something to remember when great names are counted,
something to show when great deeds are told. At the same time I would
not have you sit supinely down and wait for the millennium. Far from it.
It is said that all