Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-11-04
The sins Of American Good.Nssure

An intelligent foreigner, travelling in Ameri-
ca, was asked what he regarded as the most
prominent Characteristic of the people of the
best natured people on the face of the earth {"
His Judgment was entirely just There is mother
people, of anything like equal intelligence, that
80 absolutely refuses to be irritated by the i'm
positions and annoyances of life. II an Ameri-
can is cheated in a shop, he simply refrains from
entering the shop again. Instead of returning
and demanding his rights, he pockets his bad
bargain, because he does not like a quarrel, and
cannot afford to take the trouble of it. After
paying for q seat in q horse-car, the American
holds himself ready to yield his right TO any
his right until he is packed, standing like a
bullock in = cattle-train, with fifty others
one-half of whom, in England or France, never
would have been permitted to step foot upon
the platform. The American consents that
there shall be no such word as comples, at
tached to any public conveyance. If a railway
conductor, or a hotel clerk. or a shepkeeper's
clerk, or any other person whose business IL is
to be courteous to the public, puts on airs and
snubs the American customer, it is the ordinary
habit of that customer to stand its rather tn an
protest and insist on the treatment which he
ought to receive. Rogues get into office and
with big hands In the public purse, help them,
selves 10 It's contents, and continue ., do this
year after year, the owners of the purse all the
time knowing the fact, yet being too easy and
gcod-natured 70 make even an oatcry. Every
body is busy, nearly everybody is prosperous,
and 50 the evils that would stir the blood of an
Englisbman to boiling, and arouse all his COM
bativeness, are quietly ignored or carefully
1t is not a pleasant thing to saw. or to ref,ec,
upon, but the plain truth is that there is some
thing cowardy and unmanly in all this We
have no special admiration of the loneliness
of his personality. The hedge-ho is not aS
agreeable bird, and we have no wish to see il
substituted for the American eagle; but a
bundle OF quiiis is better calculated to cona-
who stands stiffiy in his tracks and saws
/" Touch me not!" presents a very much raore
respectable appearance than the man who
encounters in his way. We are all very much
afraid Of hurting the feelings Of somebody,
when we know, or ought to know, that some
ing would do somebody so much good as to have
his feelings hart. We forget that there are
things Of inflnitely greater Importance than bad
peoples feelings-things to which we owe inf
nitey higher duty. A man has no moral right
to permit himself to be robbed or cheated. If
he tamely submits to such q crime he becomes
accessory TO 1t, and encourages the rascal at
whose hand he had suffered to make a victim of
the next unsuspecting customer.
The CHARACTERISTIC American good mature not
only encourages and confers impunity upon all
American character. 1t begets a federation of
every kind Of moral evil that brings at last in
sensibility to it. There cannot be a very
wide moral difference between the man who
commits crime and the man who weakly
tolerates it. The active sinner is, IL ANYTHING
the Drawer and the nobler of the two. He at
least manifests courage which the other does
not. There is nothing that America needs
more than the bold and persistent assertion, in
every practical way, Of its sense of what is fair
and honest, and right and proper and courteous,
between man and man. If every good man
would stand squarely by this, even at the sacri-
flee of his reputation for good-nature, he would
find himself growing better day by dav: he
would find that the good elements of society
were rapidly gaining influence, and that rogues
were growing careful and getting scarce.
Corporations like those which manage our
railroads will impose upon the public just as long
as the popular good-nature will permit them to
do so. Their primary object is to make money.
They will furnish to the public Just such accom-
mOdations as the public win be content with
and those accommodations win be INSULT Gent
and mean unless the public demand more and
better.
There are more evils than we can count that
grow directly or indirectly out of our national
good-nature. Our hearts need hardening, and
our backs need stiffening. We ought to pos
sess more msnlihess, and we ought to exercise
it. To insist upon our rights in a manly and
temperate way is to give a lesson in Chris
tanity. 1t makes us stronger and more self
respectful, and restraints the spirit of law
lessness around us. One prominent rea-
son why crime thrives and the public
morals go from bad to worse is that they meet
with no rebuke. The good people bemoan the
facts i'm a weak way among themselves, but they
refuse to meet the evils they bewail, front to
front, with open challenge and bold conflict
Crime is coward in the presence of courageous
virtue, and shrinks and crawls whenever II
boldly asserts itself. Now, virtue shrinks and
crawls, while crime struts the streets and deals
out such privileges to retiring decency and cow
ardly good nature as IL can afford 1t even imi-
tates our good nature, and smiles upon us from
the high places of its power and privilege, and
laughs over its prOfits-and its Enthusiastically
for November.