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Show B0URKE COCHRAN ADDRESSES THE KNIGHTS OFTOLUMBUS . i New York, Oct. 12. In an address before the Knights of Columbus in Car-I Car-I negie hall to celebrate the anni versary of America's discovery, W. Bourke Cockran reviewed the march of civilization civil-ization and declared the only blot to'be seen on it to the present day is the divorce di-vorce practice. The great private fortunes he considered consid-ered to be of value to the nation, while the labor problem, he said, is only a step in the march of progress. "There has been growth." he said, "since the beginning of the world. Progress is the law of the universe and the nations who came before this one the men who lived and accomplished things before Columbus were simply the links in a chain which has not yet become completed. "The present condition of society here is full of promise. We have the greatest great-est fortune of the earth greater than Rome ever dared dream of and though philosophers say that where wealth accumulates ac-cumulates men decay, I see no cause for despair. "When a large fortune is not gained by robbery, by fraud or by the manip- I I ulation of the laws, then it can be but a boon to the nation. j "My neighbor's prosperity increases I my own and that of the earth, j "Nor do modern fortunes tend to the j increase of luxury. On the contrary, men become more self-denying. I see no sign of decay In the human race here. "The labor question , is in process cf solution, and every row is a step toward to-ward this. A laborer cannot get more pay than the value of his product, for then the product ceases to be made. Nor can he get much less, on account of the element of competition. The laborer la-borer of today is not a servant, but a partner of his employer, and their good rests in a mutual understanding. "But the blot I see on civilization is the increase in the number of divorces. In the ancient state the supreme importance im-portance of life was to increase the importance im-portance of the state. Today the end of life is the individual good; but. the individual good lies in the prosperity of the family, and it is at this that thi divorce strikes. "If not checked, it will destroy the family. "The remedy to this, as I see it, is to realize that matrimony is a state, not a contract, and - divorce must be stopped. Divorce strikes at the virtue of our women, and this virtue is what preserves the state. "The divorce is the one foul growth upon our soil, and upon its riddance depends de-pends the fate of our future. "If we are. to choose between divorce and polygamy, give us polygamy.". |