Richard T. Ely > Quotes

“The law of society is service. This is the supreme law of society from which no one can escape with impunity. Ethical teachers now approach unanimity in the assertion that the criterion of right conduct is social well-being. The welfare of society is the test of conduct in the individual. It would be interesting to take four great writers--a theologian, a jurist, a professor of natural science, and a student of society--and to discover their entire and complete harmony in the view that the purpose of the rules of right individual conduct is the welfare of society.”
― Richard T. Ely

“Under the command of “an economic general staff,” the industrial army would “go to work to relieve distress with all the vigor and resources of brain and brawn that we employed in the World War.”
― Richard T. Ely

“God works through the State in carrying out His purposes more universally than through any other institution.”
― Richard T. Ely

“Now, it may rationally be maintained that, if there is anything divine on earth it is the State, the product of the same God-given instincts which led to the establishment of the Church and the Family.”
― Richard T. Ely

“The negro race, while endowed with a splendid physique and with great power for work, is neither progressive nor inclined to submit to regularity of toil, such as an industrial civilization demands.”
― Richard T. Ely

“The sad fact, however, is not that of competition [that feeble persons compete for employment and, so, drive down wages], but the existence of these feeble persons.”
― Richard T. Ely

“The moral effect of taking boys off street corners and out of saloons and drilling them is excellent, and the economic effects are likewise beneficial. [Advocating military conscpription]”
― Richard T. Ely

“The fullest unfolding of our national faculties requires the exclusion of discordant elements--like, for example, the Chinese.”
― Richard T. Ely

“May I dare assert that something could be said for military training as affording a disciple of life? Possibly there may be other objections to military training; but, as I have observed it, and particularly in Germany, it does afford this.”
― Richard T. Ely