It ought not to be necessary for me to warn you against mere sentimentality, against the philanthropy and charity which are not merely insufficient but harmful. It is eminently desirable that we should none of us be hard-hearted, but it is no less desirable that we should not be soft-headed. I really do not know which quality is most productive of evil to mankind in the long run, hardness of heart or softness of head. Naked charity is not what we permanently want. There are of course certain classes, such as young children, widows with large families, or crippled or very aged people, or even strong men temporarily crushed by stunning misfortune, on whose behalf we may have to make a frank and direct appeal to charity, and who can be the recipients of it without any loss of self-respect. But taking us as a whole, taking the mass of Americans, we do not want charity, we do not want sentimentality; we merely want to learn how to act both individually and together in such fashion as to enable us to hold our own in the world, to do good to others according to the measure of our opportunities, and to receive good from others in ways which will not entail on our part any loss of self-respect. It ought to be unnecessary to say that any man who tries to solve the great problems that confront us by an appeal to anger and passion, to ignorance and folly, to malice and envy, is not, and never can be, aught but an enemy of the very people he professes to befriend. In the words of Lowell, it is far safer to adopt “All men up” than “Some men down” for a motto. Speaking broadly, we can not in the long run benefit one man by the downfall of another. Our energies, as a rule, can be employed to much better advantage in uplifting some than in pulling down others. Of course there must sometimes be pulling down, too. We have no business to blink evils, and where it is necessary that the knife should be used, let it be used unsparingly, but let it be used intelligently. When there is need of a drastic remedy, apply it, but do not apply it in the spirit of hate. Normally a pound of construction is worth a ton of destruction.