Here, in this land of ours, five hundred million men and women and children can be supported and educated without trouble. We can afford to double two or three times more. But what have we got to do? We have got to educate them when they come. That is to say, we have got to educate their children, and in a few generations we will have them splendid American citizens, proud of the Republic.
We have no more patriotic men under the flag than the men who came from other lands, the hundreds and thousands of those who fought to preserve this country. And I think just as much of them as I would if they had been born on American soil. What matters it where a man was born? It is what is inside of him you have to look at—what kind of a heart he has, and what kind of a head. I do not care where he was born; I simply ask, Is he a man? Is he willing to give to others what he claims for himself? That is the supreme test.
Now, I have got a hobby. I do not suppose any of you have heard of it. I think the greatest thing for a country is for all of its citizens to have a home. I think it is around the fireside of home that the virtues grow, including patriotism. We want homes.
Until a few years ago it was the custom to put men in prison for debt. The authorities threw a man into jail when he owed something which he could not pay, and by throwing him into jail they deprived him of an opportunity to earn what would pay it. After a little time they got sense enough to know that they could not collect a debt in this way, and that it was better to give him his freedom and allow him to earn something, if he could. Therefore, imprisonment for debt was done away with.
At another time, when a man owed anything, if he was a carpenter, a blacksmith or a shoemaker, and not able to pay it, they took his tools, on a writ of sale and execution, and thus incapacitated him so that he could do nothing. Finally they got sense enough to abolish that law, to leave the mechanic his tools and the farmer his plows, horses and wagons, and after this, debts were paid better than ever they were before.
Then we thought of protecting the home-builder, and we said: "We will have a homestead exemption. We will put a roof over wife and child, which shall be exempt from execution and sale," and so we preserved hundreds of thousands and millions of homes, while debts were paid just as well as ever they were paid before.
Now, I want to take a step further. I want, the rich people of this country to support it. I want the people who are well off to pay the taxes. I want the law to exempt a homestead of a certain value, say from two thousand dollars to two thousand five hundred, and to exempt it, not only from sale on judgment and execution, but to exempt it from taxes of all sorts and kinds. I want to keep the roof over the heads of children when the man himself is gone. I want that homestead to belong not only to the man, but to wife and children. I would like to live to see a roof over the heads of all the families of the Republic. I tell you, it does a man good to have a home. You are in partnership with nature when you plant a hill of corn. When you set out a tree you have a new interest in this world. When you own a little tract of land you feel as if you and the earth were partners. All these things dignify human nature.
Bad as I am, I have another hobby. There are thousands and thousands of criminals in our country. I told you a little while ago I did not blame the South, because of the conditions which prevailed in the South. The people of the South did as they must. I am the same about the criminal. He does as he must.
If you want to stop crime you must treat it properly. The conditions of society must not be such as to produce criminals.
When a man steals and is sent to the penitentiary he ought to be sent there to be reformed and not to be brutalized; to be made a better man, not to be robbed.