Excerpt from Report of Proceedings of the American Mining Congress: Tenth Annual Session, Joplin, Mo;, November 11-16, 1907

So this public conscience has gone on and on, day by day, correcting some evil day after day, remedying some wrong. If things had gone on as they were a few years ago, when bribery was the accepted thing, when lawlessness was looked upon with indifference then the end of the Repub lic itself might well have been prophesied, for we were going the way that other nations have gone who went to their death during the flight of time through the ages. This is not the first nor the oldest republic by any means. If we were to live three centuries longer and then die, we' would go down into history as the most brilliant but shortest-lived of all the republics the wrecks of which are strewn along the shores of time.

Rome had a republican form of government for seven hundred years Florence for three hundred years; Venice for eleven hundred years. All of these republics have long ago tottered off the stage of the world into oblivion. What caused the death of those republics? They did not die for lack of wealth. Many of them'or all of. Them were richer when they fell than ever before, but they ceased to exist for lack of men. They did not die for lack of money, but for lack of morals. They did not die for want of material wealth but lack of moral health. This nation today does not rest upon the wealth of a few people, but it rests upon the moral character and the integrity of the average individual. Poets have sung of the Golden Age that lies buried far back in the history of the world. I believe that the Golden Age is before us, not behind us, and it will come about when there is more of the Golden Rule in our daily lives and less of the rule of gold. (applause) It will come about when - the doctrine of brotherhood becomes the standard for governmental action, and private conduct. I believe that the world is getting better and better every day, not worse. Even now wealth is not worshipped with the same devotion that it used to be, and gold is not regarded with the same awe as in days gone by. The ideal of the young man is becoming more and more to get right and to stay right, rather than to get rich and stay rich. A new Standard has been established - new, yet old - just plain, common, simple honesty, that's all.

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