Jamestown alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1878-1882, 1881-09-30

when unprincipeled men 90. direction
is political agencies, using them to sub
serve selfish and mercenary ends, a gen
eral looseness of public morals and a grow
ing obliquity in all the channels of indus
try may be expected. 1t is this that
diifuses the spirit of faction and fraud
among the people-that pervcrts the pub
lie conscience and deadens the moral sen
sibilities-that prepares the way for tu-
mults and broils, for murder and assass-
nation, revolution and anarchy. This
was the rock on which Greece and Rome
split-on which the Italian cities struck
and went down in the deep sea of oblivion
and on which the South American Repub-
lies are even now being drifted until their
perpetuated and shameless revolutions
have become the scorn and by-word Of the
world of mankind.
1t is time now for this people to wake
up to the magnitude of the issues that arc
upon thcm-timc to rcpudiate the men
who seek to corrupt our civil service by
auctioning off the spoils of party vic
tory to the highest bidder-time to repu-
diate the measures by which they would
fence up the avenues to place and power
cades of bribery and purjury and by arts
challenge the admiration of demons,
ought to sutfusc with the blush of conscious
shame the checks Of patriots and states.
men, time for the moral agencies Of tho
land, burying the ornamental in the use
full and the theoretical in the practical, tc
rise in the majesty of their power and
with their mission burning on theil
hearts and with God, truth and humanity
inscribed on their upliftcd banners and &C
forth to achieve the moral regeneration OF
society,-time and opportune occasion this
to diiluse among the young men of the ma
ton the personal characteristics of then
fallen chicftain-his sense of justice, his
respect for human rights, his moral force,
his manly independence, his generous
patriotism, his sublime faith in God, his
firm and balanced selfhood.
With these characteristics and a mental
nature richly gifted with the larg-
est and profoundest capabilities and in
spired by the abiding genius of deep
moral and religious principle, he became
the foremost man in Anerlca-the brill
liant, untarnished representative of the
highest principles Of personal and politi-
cal purity,-great among the greatest in
the serene and balanced force and digni-
ty which abdicate none Of the prerogatives
OF manhood, though all the beasts of
Bashan below, and which grow more ad-
amantine and firm as the stormy elements
of opposition combine and multiply.
The impulse of a sincere love or the sor-
rows of dark bereavement may justify a
truthful culogium of the good and great,
and seldom fail to move the tongues OF
men to spontaneous notes of praise, when
the veil of the unseen hides a genuine no
bleman from view. And now the heart
OF the nation pants for relief from the al
most insulferable burden of its woe and
would break if there were no voice to give
it uttcrance. And, besides, it is the mis-
sion OF such 4 character as this to break
the slumber of the world-to flash light
into its dim aud cheerless corners-to
rouse the indo'ent by Il revelation Of hu-
man possibilities, and to encourage the
earnest toilcr and direct his paths. Let
then, we say, this character be drawn by
artist men. Let philosophy analyzc it.
Let the genius OF the painter and the
sculptor be invoked. Let poetry and mu-
sic, the highest and most spiritual Of the
fine arts, celebrate its virtues. Let lofty
and commanding eloquence, from forum
and from pulpit, thrill and thunder till
in the sluggish souls Of men, from sea to
SCit, Sllitil "t:NC dilIl Slup tlAC CCllOCo VI u
nobler life. Let al the arts by which the
story Of true greatness can be told, be sum-
moncd to the task
In the lowly pursuits of extreme youth
in the irksome task of student life-in
the wcightier responsibilities Of college
profcssorship-in tile patriotic work of
rallylng freemen to defend their tlag-in
the din and rush and roar of contending
hosts and whistling bullets and bursting
shells on the battle fields at Shiloh and
Corinth and in the deadly breach at
Chickamauga-in the mastery debates of
Congress on vital and all absorbing themes
in his skillful gathering up of the reins
of power and his matchlcss adjustment OF
the forces of government at the brilliant
opening of his administratlon-and in the
final heroic struggle with death until ex-
hausted nature sank to rest in pleasant
dreams of the home he loved so well-Mr.
Garfield gave to all he tried to do Tie
touch of finish and perfection. There WI.
an esthctic element in his nature which
delighted in work we'll done how. ;cl
humble; and over all the achievements OF
his active and laborious life it shed a
freshness and Il glow like the flush OF
the morning. 1t was this habit Of doing
well what he essayed to do, that made
him conspicuous in every realm of effort
to which his varied duties called him. lie
has left behind him as a living heritage
for the young, this glorious example as
student, teacher, lawyer, soldier, orator
statesman, ruler and christian. 1t was
this habit that gave symetry and round
ness to his life, beauty and polish to his
uttcrances and completeness to all he did
That he might accomplish this, it was his
constant intellectual habit to master al
the general principles of any subject with
which he had to do and the minutest de.
tails of their application to the work III
hand. Hence that magnificent breadth
Of mind which grasped the very poles Of
thought on all related themes. Hence the
stores of knowledge which made him seem
when speaking on absorbing topics the
breathing center of cloud of light
Hence that sharp intuition, that quick per.
ception, that correct judgment, that lofty
but cultured imagination, that lordly rea.
son which 'sstraight from premise to con-
clusion goes''-that all his works display
Yet not in the esthetic elements of his ma.
ture, nor yet in the intellectual did hi:
supreme greatness lie. He laid his foun.
dation deep on the eternal laws of thai
higher realm and built Oh those founda
tions that neither time nor changes car
destroy. He stood tower of consciou.
strength for right amid all the tumults Of
party strife and all the allurements ot
place and power; and as he 'sthat walketl
righteously and speaketh uprightly, thai
despiseth the gain of expressions anC
shaketh his hand from the taking of bribes
and shuteth his ears from hearing o1
blood and his eyes from seeing evil shall
dwell on high,'' so he walking with vic.
torious step over the high places of the
earth has doubtless reached the reward Of
the righteous in the invisible realm whith.
er he has gone. But his life here deeply
rooted in God was constant exhibition Of
the power Of christian faith and the love.
illness of christian graces.
That temperance of nature which calmly
held the reins of passion and curbed it:
impetuous coursers with mighty strength
in the hour of captious contradiction
that pushed aside the flowing bowl which
the hand of courtly fashion witt
many winning smile and bland
ishment held out-which lifted higf
amid the swelling tide of pub
lie frauds, the waving banners of honesty
and truth, choosing to suffer thu
humiliations of poverty rather than tt
stain the spotless vesture of his soul by al
+L,+ 4o~lor rrr,,{,,oes 90 1o,-,