Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1873-05-22
How to Build Turnpikes
and Railroads.

while others, possessing equa.
natural advantages, are decay
ing, is almost universally to be
found hidden in the fact that
the former are blessed with a few
men of liberal public spirit who
recognize the truth that they are
intrusted with important inter
ests beyond their own personal
enterprise; that a far-reaching
chain of future possibilities is
linked to their present prospect
ty. Not alone thephysical COM
fort, but the moral health of flu
ture generations depends upon
the energy with which all judi
cious plans for promoting the
public welfare are fostered.-
Just as our fathers had to bear
the heat and burden ofsubduing
the wilderness, so our share Of
theiyet incomplete pioneer work
devolves upon us the duty of
laying broad and deep the foun-
dations of future prosperity,
comfort and happiness.
The penalty of our times is ac-
tive life and earnest work; not,
indeed, without PRESENT. emuner-
alton, but a moderate one COM
pared with the grander results
to accrue to the humanity that
shall succeed us. Ours is the
age of builders, as the last was
the period of forest destroyers
and wild beast slayers, albeit we
have no scarcity Of moral drag
ons to conquer. Those who
work faithfully now may leave
behind them monuments more
significant and, enduring than
the perplexingrelics bequeathed
to us by the. lost races of Aztecs
and mound builders. mall pub
lie enterprises the few must do
the work. 1t is idle to look for
great results from the spontan-
eous action of the community,
or to expect that the present
century will see the burden Of
public duties and sacrifices adj
justed by nice avordupois,
which will load every mans
shoulders with the exact proper
ton they ought to bear. 1t is
not, generally, those who are
most interested, but those who
feel the most interest who push
forward the undertakings which
ought to be moved by the COM
mon impulse of the whole.
All this has a very general APP
plic&tion, and a special one to
Lincoln county. The most
pressing Of public wants to-day
is the want of more public spirit
of the working kind. 1t is not
enough that the prominent men
of a community, prominent Ell
Their from length Of residence or
length of purse, are prompt IN
the payment of their taxes, lib
eral men in their contributions
to public objects, and conscien-
tious in all fittings of mint, an
Use and cummin; society de-
mands something more of them
as the price of their prominence.
That something is leadership,
labor, sacrifice Of time as well as
of money for the common veal.
Good citizens are desirable, but
leading citizens, in fact as well
as name, are much more valuable
constituents ola growing county.
How many men there are who
cannot see that the expression
of their willingness to ''to do
their share" is not all they owe
to the public. We could name
persons, men who are always
''ready to do their SHARE" but
who from a long cultivated and
chronic ditfidence in public mat
ters, cannot be made to see that
their''share" consists in leading,
in stimulating others to action
by their own example of activi-
ty, in assuming responsibility
sometimes, in setting the ball in
motion,