Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1883-01-10

| Slaple OF our lODIeSC uaV-ureamS-
But the third view is more hopeful
and patriotic. According to it, this
change marks the ginning of a
new epoch in our political lite Those
who cherish it argue that thousands
of our best citizens, relieved of :he pres
sure of national a.xiete@, ANA una ~
ing 10 live forever in the past, are be-
| ginning t0 study the nature and de-
tails of State and municipal govern
ment as never before; are awak ug to
| the business and scientific character of
political problems, and have determin-
ed to thrust aside every individual, and
every contriyancc, that stands be-
tween them and the management of
their own affairs They will no lon
ger be contented with the automatic
activity in politics they demand q
conscious share of this noblest pursuit
of civilized men. The people have
come to claim their own, without the
Intervention of middlemen.
If this view be correct, then the oc-
cupatiOn of the pr, fessional politician
is gone He belongs to a doomed
species; he has outlived the only en-
vironment adapted to his Iourishment,
and must shortly pass away. That
! this is true, is indicated by our line
age, our traditions and the character
of our recent progress. We are the
descendants of men who Gefed kings
| and parllamentS; we are children of
men who destroyed the congressional
caucus, and created the national con-
vention. Our citizens are meeting in
| their oranges and trades-unions, in
their industrial leagues and CONNER
cial guilds, and are becoming keenly
alive to the every day bearings of pol
itics upon their own and their chill
dren's welfare. Even the primary
meeting, once treated as utterly be-
yond the pale of law, the sport of the
jugg ler and the rogue, has become the
subject of legislative enactment and
protection. Nay more, even the prom
i5es Of party platforms conform To the
quickenel senses of the people, and the
peccssi.y of other and better methods
has received a certain grave and rev.
erential recognition in party deliver
ances.
But Rome was not built in day,
nor can the political habits of half
century be transformed by simple de-
cree, even though registered at
the ballot-box. If, therefore, condemn
ed political methods are to become per-
manently disreputable, the thoughtful
citizens of this Commonwealth must
be ever on the alert, ready at any no.
ment to reassert their strength and to
claim the fruits of their own victory.
Politicians are willing enough in the
day Of the peoples power. But the
leaders of new epoch must be some
thing more than mere redectors of cur
rent thought and feeling. They must
be sagacious and intrepid, more ready
to serve the people than themselves.
Such leaders can live only in an at
mosphere Of intelligence and civic
courage, The people then must be
prompt and generous in the support of
real merit but at the same time they
must make every public servant under
stand that he is a servant and not a
master, and that each and all, the
highest and the lowest, whether paid
by the year or paid by the day, must
render faithful and unremitting service.
The people must tolerate no spurious
economies, no counterfeit reforms, no
mere partisan strategies, no judicial
perversions, no legislative excesses, no
administration in the interests of
persons or classes, or even in the ex-
elusive interest of parties. They must
be quick to discern, swift to censure
what is clearly wrong, and equally
swift to praise what is clearly right.
They must make the men in power feel
that the eyes of thousands are upon
them, and that the day of judgment is
always going on. But above all, they
must never suffer the conviction TO
take root that the recent changes were
only freaks of ircumstances-only
spasms of an unstable public mind
only the caprices of irritated and tran
sient feeling
The Titans will never conquer the
Gods if the Gods awake to the combat;
the basor forces of society can never
permanently overmaster the purer, if
the purer will only add to their con-
victi0nS, courage-if their will power
once becomes as active as their intelli- !
gence. The enemies of good govern
ment will not be idle. Never so very
numerous, they multiply themselves
indefinitely by their unceasing dill
LII II
only be counteracted by vigilance, an
energy, an ingenuity, in some proper
ton to their own.
For one, | have faith in the con-
sciounsess and intelligence of our
Commonwealth, and its ability to !
cope with and overcome the evils
which have hitherto or may hereafter
beset US. To despair of the virtue of
the citizen is to despair of self-govern-
ment, and to despair, of selfgovern-
ment is to believe that the frame of
human society is without n soul.
We are beginning the third century |
of our existence as a State The rem
iniscences of the hour are well adapted |
to stir within US reflections upon the |
possibilities of organized society, the |
secret of right government, and the |
duties of the free citizen in the free |
State. But thoughts without resolu-
tion have a sickly hue. Sonorous
phrases count for nothing alongside of
quiet deeds. Patient participation IN
public affairs will do more to redeem
our politics from the spoier than the
sublimest political philosophy, and the
intensest sentiment, if never embodied |
in action.
To you, the first Legislature in the
new century | now submit my final
recommendations. | bespeak for them |
your painstaking and earnest consider
alton. In the growth of our Constitu-