"We are passing from an age when the emphasis in all our legislation has been upon property over into an age when the emphasis is going to be more and more upon life. Not that we shall fail to recognize the sacred rights of property. I am one of the first to acknowledge the sacred rights of property. Why? Not because of its material intrinsic value,—no, not that,—but because property represents crystalized human life. That is the reason it is sacred. But when it comes into competition, in warfare with human life itself the decision of the future is going to be more often in the interest of life and less often in the interest of property. Do you realize that ninety-five per cent of all our statutes on our books here in this State, and throughout the country, deal with the protection of property, and only about five per cent of them deal with the protection of life? That was inevitable, for it is a part of our evolutionary, or growing-up process. But the time is coming when, if there is a conflict between stocks, bonds and dividends on the one hand and men, women and children on the other, the emphasis is more often going to be given in favor of the men, women and children."
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