success. Those ideals will be the greatest
capital with which you can be endowed. They will attract to you
everything that makes life desirable and without them you can have
neither self-respect nor the respect of others.

And as a last word let me recommend you not to be carried away by those
gusts of prejudice and passion that sweep periodically through the
community. There is a contagion in these things that it is hard to
resist, and so much that to-day passes for thought is not thought at
all, but merely the automatic, unreflecting acceptance of wild theories
that are enunciated with so much force that they seem to be almost
axioms. Your study of history will show you that the world has always
been subject to these waves of emotion, that are sometimes religious,
sometimes political, and seem for the time to carry everything before
them. We are passing through such a period now, a period of intense
unrest, of revolt against conditions that we ourselves made, against
methods that we ourselves created and sanctioned. I advise you to look
askance upon every movement that in the language of the day is called
popular. Do not accept a theory or a doctrine because it is popular,
but on the other hand do not reject it for that reason. Do not permit
yourselves to be carried off your intellectual feet by indignation or by
protest. Demand of every political theory that it stand and deliver its
credentials, and before you allow it to pass into the realm of your
adoption, see to it that you understand it in all its bearings and that
you have traced its results so far as is possible to your foresight; let
the final test be one of human justice and of honesty, and then with
courage use your power to aid in the formation of public opinion,
remembering that public opinion is after all the great controlling
force.

Transcriber's Note.

The typographical error "resistent" has been corrected. Variations of
hyphenation from the original document have been retained.

End of Project Gutenberg's Morals in Trade and Commerce, by Frank B. Anderson

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