The moral question in itself--its
relation to my own life and that of my friends--I reckoned I had
solved; but I now had to ask myself how far I was justified in
not only breaking the law, but in being the cause of a like
breach in others, and others younger than myself. I have never
allowed the _dictum_ of the law to interfere with what I deemed
to be a moral development in any youth for whom I am responsible.
I cannot say that the trial made me alter my course of life, of
the rightness of which I was too convincingly persuaded, but it
made me much more careful, and it probably sharpened my sense of
responsibility for the young. Reviewing the results of the trial
as a whole, it doubtless did incalculable harm, and it
intensified our national vice of hypocrisy. But I think it also
may have done some good in that it made those who, like myself,
have thought and experienced deeply in the matter--and these must
be no small few--ready to strike a blow, when the time comes,
for what we deem to be right, honorable, and clean.
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