njustice to individuals
sometimes. We might imagine that something like this would occur.

A newspaper one day says: "We are exceedingly pained to hear that the
Hon. Mr. Blank, who is running for Congress in the First District, has
permitted his aged grandmother to go to the town poorhouse. What renders
this conduct inexplicable is the fact that Mr. Blank is a man of large
fortune."

The next day the newspaper says: "The Hon. Mr. Blank has not seen fit to
deny the damaging accusation in regard to the treatment of his
grandmother."

The next day the newspaper says: "Mr. Blank is still silent. He is
probably aware that he cannot afford to rest under this grave charge."

The next day the newspaper asks: "Where's Blank? Has he fled?"

At last, goaded by these remarks, and most unfortunately for himself, Mr.
Blank writes to the newspaper and most indignantly denies the charge; he
never sent his grandmother to the poorhouse.

Thereupon the newspaper says: "Of course a rich man who would put his own
grandmother in the poorhouse would deny it. Our informant was a gentleman
of character. Mr. Blank rests the matter on his unsupported word. It is a
question of veracity."

Or, perhaps, Mr. Blank, more unfortunately for himself, begins by making
an affidavit, wherein he swears that he never sent his grandmother to the
poorhouse, and that, in point of fact, he has not any grandmother
whatever.

The newspaper then, in language that is now classical, "goes for" Mr.
Blank. It says: "Mr. Blank resorts to the common device of the rogue
--the affidavit. If he had been conscious of rectitude, would he not have
relied upon his simple denial?"

Now, if an extreme case like this could occur, it would be bad enough.
But, in our free society, the remedy would be at hand. The constituents
of Mr. Blank would elect him in triumph. The newspaper would lose public
confidence and support and learn to use its position more justly. What I
mean to indicate by such an extreme instance as this is, that in our very
license of individual freedom there is finally a correcting power.

We might pursue this general subject of progress by a comparison of the
society of this country now with that of fifty years ago. I have no doubt
that in every essential this is better than that, in manners, in
morality, in charity and toleration, in education and religion. I know
the standard of morality is higher. I know the churches are purer. Not
fifty years ago,