Jeniffer electronic book

Flexible though the national ideal may be, its demands are in one
respect inflexible. It is the strenuous and irrevocable enemy of the
policy of drift. It can counsel patience; but it cannot abide collective
indifference or irresponsibility. A constructive national ideal must at
least seek humbly to be constructive. The only question is, as to how
this responsibility for the collective welfare can at any one time be
most usefully redeemed. In the case of our own country at the present
time an intelligent conception of the national interest will counsel
patient agitation rather than any hazardous attempts at radical
reconstruction. No such reform can be permanent, or even healthy, until
American public opinion has been converted to a completer realization of
the nature and extent of its national responsibilities. The ship of
reform will gather most headway from the association of certain very
moderate practical proposals with the issue of a deliberate, persistent,
and far more radical challenge to popular political prejudices and
errors.


Pages:
644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668