MONUMENTS MORAL SENSE
MONUMENTS. We have not too many monuments
of the past; let us keep every bit of association with
that which is highest and best of the past as a reminder
to us, equally of what we owe to those who have gone
before and of how we should show our appreciation.
(At N. Y. Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington,
D. C., November 16, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XII, 456; Nat.
Ed. XI, 215.
Mem. Ed. XII, 535-536; Nat. Ed. XI, 262-263.
MOOSE. The true way to kill the noble beast,
however, is by fair still-hunting. There is no grander
sport than still-hunting the moose, whether in the vast
pine and birch forests of the Northeast, or among the
stupendous mountain masses of the Rockies. The
moose has wonderfully keen nose and ears, though its
eyesight is not remarkable. Most hunters assert that it is
the wariest of all game, and the most difficult to kill. I
have never been quite satisfied that this was so; it seems
to me that the nature of the ground wherein it dwells
helps it even more than do its own sharp senses. (1893.)
Mem. Ed. II, 200; Nat. Ed. II, 173.
MORAL INFLUENCE OF GREAT MEN. Every
great nation owes to the men whose lives have formed
part of its greatness not merely the material effect of
what they did, not merely the laws they placed upon the
statute-books or the victories they won over armed foes,
but also the immense but indefinable moral influence
produced by their deeds and words themselves upon the
national character. (Forum, February 1895.) Mem. Ed.
XV, 3; Nat. Ed. XIII, 3.
MONUMENTS. See also OBELISKS; WHITE HOUSE.
MOODY, WILLIAM H. It is the universal testimony
of all who knew him that as justice he grew and
developed with extraordinary rapidity. As district
attorney of Massachusetts, as congressman, as
secretary of the navy, and as attorney-general he had
rendered signal service to his country; indeed, his
record as attorney-general can be compared without
fear with the record of any other man who ever held
that office. Much was rightly expected of him when he
was made justice of the Supreme Court; but what he
did and the attitude he took during his lamentably
short term of office showed that these expectations
would be far more than realized. He was not a man
who was misled by a formula. His clear eye always
saw into the heart of things. No devotion to the theory
of national power prevented his deciding in favor of
the rights of any State wherever it was obvious that
through the exercise of its rights by the State lay the
only chance of securing the rights of the people. On
the other hand, no theory as to the rights of the States
caused him to refrain from giving effect to a just
expression of the popular will when that popular will
could find effective expression only by the exercise of
the powers of the Federal Government. It is not a
difficult thing to find an upright man who as judge
will do justice between individuals; but it is a very
difficult thing to find the far-seeing statesman who on
the bench will with wisdom and firmness shape the
course of governmental action so that the national and
State governments shall completely cover the whole
field of governmental action in order that there shall
be left no neutral ground wherein astute men,
protected by contradictory judicial decisions, may
work wickedness uncontrolled by either State or
nation. Mr. Justice Moody was one of these men. He
rendered noteworthy service to the country even
during his short term on the bench, and had he been
able to continue on the bench he would have rendered
such service as hardly any other man now in public
life can hope to render. (Outlook , November 5, 1910.)
MORAL INFLUENCE. See also HEROES; LEADERS;
LEADERSHIP.
MORAL SENSE. If courage and strength and intellect
are unaccompanied by the moral purpose, the moral
sense, they become merely forms of expression for
unscrupulous force and unscrupulous cunning. If the
strong man has not in him the lift toward lofty things
his strength makes him only a curse to himself and to
his neighbor. All this is true in private life, and it is no
less true in public life. (At Colorado Springs, Col.,
August 2, 1901.) Mem. Ed. XV, 326; Nat. Ed. XIII,
457.
____________. If a man's efficiency is not guided by a
moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he
is, the more dangerous to the body politic. Courage,
intellect, all the masterful qualities, serve but to make a
man more evil if they are used merely for that man s
own advancement, with brutal indifference to the rights
of others. It speaks ill for the community if the
community worships these qualities and treats their
possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities
are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as to
the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is
shown. It makes no difference whether
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