By using
the new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on
the old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use
of future generations.
In that purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and
spirit. Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been
unlearned. We have always known that heedless self-interest was
bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the
collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality
has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality
pays. We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the
practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an
instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally
better world.
This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly
success as such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the
abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary
decencies of life.
In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so
easily condoned. Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse
hardheartedness. We are moving toward an era of good feeling. But
we realize that there can be no era of good feeling save among men
of good will.
For these reasons I am justified in believing that the greatest
change we have witnessed has been the change in the moral climate
of America.
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