LAWS LEADERS
LAWS—VALUE OF. We need good laws just as a
carpenter needs good instruments. If he has not tools,
the best carpenter alive cannot do good work. But the
best tools will not make a good carpenter, any more
than to give a coward a rifle will make him a good
soldier. (Outlook , March 25, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XIX,
148; Nat. Ed. XVII, 106.
LAWS—VIOLATION OF. Every time a law is
broken, every individual in the community has the
moral tone of his life lowered. (At Tuskegee Institute,
Tuskegee, Ala., October 24, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XVIII,
473; Nat. Ed. XVI, 352.
LAWS. See also ADMINISTRATION; LEGISLATION;
PROSPERITY.
LAWYERS—CONTRIBUTION OF. A lawyer is not
like a doctor. No real good for the community comes
from the development of legalism, from the
development of that kind of ability shown by the great
corporation lawyers who lead our bar; whereas good
does come from medical development. The high-priced
lawyer means, when reduced to his simplest expression,
that justice tends to go to the man with the longest
purse. (Letter to W. R. Nelson, July 1912.) Roosevelt in
the Kansas City Star, p. xxiii.
LAWYERS AS STATESMEN. There is not a greater
delusion than the belief that a lawyer is, per se, also a
statesman. On the contrary, the mere lawyer is rather
more unfit than, say, the mere dentist, or mere
bricklayer, or mere banker, to be a public man. The
ablest lawyer often has had public experience of one
type or another which makes him more apt than the
ordinary business man to be able to excel in public life;
but it is not because he is a lawyer at all; it is because
he has great ability and a certain knowledge of public
affairs. I could go still further and say that to be a great
lawyer is, while a good thing in a judge, very far from
being the most important thing. (To H. C. Lodge, April
11, 1910.) Lodge Letters II, 374.
LAWYERS.See also JUSTICE; LAW; LEGALISM.
LEADERS—DEMANDS UPON. We, the men who
compose the great bulk of the community, wish to
govern ourselves. We welcome leadership, but we wish
our leaders to understand that they derive their strength
from us, and that, although we look to them for
guidance, we expect this guidance to be in accordance
with our interests and our ideals. Outlook , July 9, 1910,
LEADERS—DUTY OF. A council of war never
fights, and in a crisis the duty of a leader is to lead and
not to take refuge behind the generally timid wisdom of
a multitude of councillors. (1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 623;
Nat. Ed. XX, 535.
LEADERS—NEED FOR. In order to succeed we
need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are
granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to
make their dreams come true; who can kindle the
people with the fire from their own burning souls. The
leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an
instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast
aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more
when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent
where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be
won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword
for all of us is spend and be spent. It is of little matter
whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause
shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. (At
Carnegie Hall, New York City, March 20, 1912.) Mem.
Ed. XIX, 222; Nat. Ed. XVII, 170.
LEADERS—RESPONSIBILITY OF. Doing our duty
is, of course, incumbent on every one of us alike; yet
the heaviest blame for dereliction should fall on the
man who sins against the light, the man to whom much
has been given, and from whom, therefore, we have a
right to expect much in return. We should hold to a
peculiarly rigid accountability those men who in public
life, or as editors of great papers, or as owners of vast
fortunes, or as leaders and moulders of opinion in the
pulpit, or on the platform, or at the bar, are guilty of
wrong-doing, no matter what form that wrong-doing
may take. (At Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, N.
Y., May 20, 1901.) Mem. Ed. XV, 313; Nat. Ed. XIII,
447.
LEADERS—RISE OF. If during the lifetime of a
generation no crisis occurs sufficient to call out in
marked manner the energies of the strongest leader,
then of course the world does not and cannot know of
the existence of such a leader; and in consequence there
are long periods in the history of every nation during
which no man appears who leaves an indelible mark in
history. If, on the other hand, the crisis is one so many-
sided as to call for the development and exercise of
many distinct attributes, it may be that more than one
man will appear
P. 508.
[303]