Each atom counts something, two make a molecule
and the world is made up of them--at least it was in my college days.
Therefore, what we are here for is to make the best possible effort to
help along the general weal, and it is no excuse, because we cannot play
a large part, that we should play no part at all and should feel no
sense of responsibility for what we can do.
What then of conditions of civilization in our country in the last
half-century? The Civil War grew out of a great moral and social issue.
It was a moral issue on the part of the North and a social issue on the
part of the South. Material considerations were subordinated. After the
war we had a pretty hard time in getting over its immediate effects. The
panic of 1873, which prostrated all business, was the result of the
excesses of the war, the overissue of legal tender and the feverish,
unhealthy expansion that followed. In 1878, we resumed specie payments.
I presume no country in the world ever showed such an enormous expansion
and such material growth as ours between 1878 and 1907.
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