of any people are of more significance to her than clods of coal, or timber on her hillsides. Of what use would it be to conserve the material resources of any nation if we conserve them only for a deteriorating racial stock? The nation has come to realize that the men and women who compose it are its largest wealth, and that this treasure must be guarded more sacredly than our mines, our forests, or our water power. We have seen, accordingly, a whole new body of legislation growing up, that would have made our fathers stand aghast, fixing the conditions of employment, the age of employees, the sanitary condition of homes and mills, the hours of work and the care of women. The expenditure of immense sums for the protection of the life and health of factory labourers is now readily recognized even by "soul-less corporations," which formerly fought against all such outlay, as money well invested. In all the nation to-day we realize that there is a more precious wealth than our material wealth. I saw an interesting illustration of this new frame of mind a little while ago in a statement issued by some leading men in Tennessee dealing with the excessive death rate among the negroes of the South. They pointed out that among nine millions of white people the death rate is 160,000, and that among the nine millions of the negroes the death rate is 266,000. In other words, among the negroes,
