government's responsibility to enforce such a standard must be an unjust
judgment. Indeed, no such standard can ever be forced. It must come, not by
superior force, but from the changed nature of man, from his willingness to
be altogether just and merciful.

A third consideration is that it is not merely useless but injurious for
government to attempt too much. It is manifest that to enable it to deal
with the new conditions I have described we must invest government with
authority to interfere with the individual conduct of the citizen to a
degree hitherto unknown in this country. When government undertakes to
give the individual citizen protection by regulating the conduct of others
towards him in the field where formerly he protected himself by his freedom
of contract, it is limiting the liberty of the citizen whose conduct is
regulated and taking a step in the direction of paternal government. While
the new conditions of industrial life make it plainly necessary that many
such steps shall be taken, they should be taken only so far as they are
necessary and are effective. Interference with individual liberty by
government should be jealously watched and restrained, because the habit of
undue interference destroys that independence of character without which in
its citizens no free government can endure.

We should not forget that while institutions receive their form from
national character they have a powerful reflex influence upon that
character. Just so far as a nation allows its institutions to be moulded
by its weaknesses of character rather than by its strength it creates an
influence to increase weakness at the expense of strength.

The habit of undue interference by government in private affairs breeds the
habit of undue reliance upon government in private affairs at the expense
of individual initiative, energy, enterprise, courage, independent manhood.