The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-10-05
Q We cHoosE

community or a class has arrived. Some
years ago a humorous writer who had travel
ed extensively through tropical reg ions, grave
" assured us that the shirt collar was the un-
falling mark and index of civilization. Where
the shirt collar made its appearance the
amenities and conveniences of civilized life
might be looked for, whereas, among a peo-
pie whose Threats were never subjected to the
benign pressure of the orthodox choker we
must expect nothing but a state of barbarism
varying in degree from the wild, free life OF
the Indian warrior of the plains to the utter
savagery of the Fejee cannibal. Another
philosopher assures lis that in woman's po-
sitlon in the society of any people we are
furnished with an unfailing gauge Of that. peo-
pies civilization. According to this theory
that nation whose women are employed in
coarse, manual labor of the field or the for
est is uncivilized in a degree corresponding
with the severity of that labor and the hard
ships attending it. If we observe a woman
chopping wood unless, indeed, she is en-
gagged in cutting a club with which to per-
suade the head of the family to yield a prop |
er observance to her precepts of home dis
cipline. in which case her occupation indi-
Gates the very highest type, the consummate
flower of civilization-but under ordinary
circumstances, if we observe a woman chop
ping wood in the forest, then we may expect
| to find in her husband either the Inoccasined
and painted, good for-nothing ''brave" Of the
| wigwam, or else a white mar who ranks
about as high in the scale of civilization as the
ordinary run of Indian cut-throats. On the
| other hand, when we see a lady attired in the
latest style of the "pinafore" dress, and en-
| gagged in the congenial occupation of Wheel
ing before her a fifty-dollar baby carriage,
hen we instinctively feel that her husband
belongs to a superior order of the genus homo;
that he is a pillar of the church, a prominent
citizen, and all that sort of thing, and further
healthy bank account--or, at all events, that
he needs one most decidedly.
Other measures of civilization have been
adopted, but for our part we think we have
in the political habits of thought of a people
or a class the closest indicator of the intelli-
gence as we'll as the civilization of that class.
When the radicals blindly thrust the suffrage
upon the ignorant, degraded, field hand Of
the southern plantations, this individual look
ed upon the new privilege as something pc
culiarly his own--as something to be used for
bis own especial advantage in whatever man
ner lie could best turn it to account. His vote
he considered as his own property fully as
much as the chicken raised at his cabin, and
why it was right and proper for him to sell
the chicken but not to sell the vote was some
thing he could not in the least comprehend.
That view marks the lowest depth of politi-
Cal degradation to which it is possible for the
free citizen of a free country to descend. A
F little higher up in the scale we reach the
ssforty acres and a mule' inducement, by
which, for the sake of certain rewards tC
!, come, a "citizen" of the above class was con
strained to adopt and adhere to a certain fix
ed policy-to stick to the party that hae
l bought HIM by such promises instead ofsei
, ling his vote on each individual instance a
= the best price offered, regardless of party
This, though a slight improvement, was still
I q long way down, an infinitely long way be
= low the highest grade of political thinking
the grade in which the citizen a~tfiliates wit
a one party or the other, not through consider
atoms of private advantage, o. through pei
sonal bias of any kind, but through the eS
: ercise of his reasoning faculties, an exercls
which enables him to judge for himself be
cause he thinks for himself. Men who thu
decide for themselves in matters of polite
are always free from the domination of den
agogues. Their views are liable to chang
true enough. They may be prevailed upo
- to leave one party and join another, but the
are thus changed only by means of a success
full appeal to their reason, and not in obed
a ence to the dictum of any personal "boss
who has kindly undertaken to manipula
them as may best answer his Owl purpose
They have an intelligent understanding
what they are about, and when they desc
one party to join another the change ind
N Gates merely that they have seriously retlec
, ed upon new facts placed in their possessio
= or upon old facts presented in a new ligl
! their reflection leading to the acceptance
q views ana DelleIS dltercnt from tnOSe 1Orme
ly held. But the man whose political cour
a. is guided by a selfish regard for his own p
vate advantage, or else by personal consider
tons of any kind whatever, is almost alwa
IN bound to be duped and hoodwinked. In o.
q, case he is deceived by some "forty-acres-an
a-mule" promise, given by those who have
further use for him than to dispose of !
of vote and in the other he is almost ~invaIiat
made the plant tool of some ''friend" W
he uses him as an instrument for the acco
e. plishment of his own selfish purposes, and
,rt strument whose docility and pliancy only {