St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-05-30
Gbe Californian.
~. John.bury, Thursday, May 30, 1859.
JOHN BRIGHT AND SUNDA Y SCHOOL
POLITICS.

JOHN BR1GHI AND SbNDAf SChOOI<
POLITICS.
Such a life and career are of the ut
most service to young men of the
English-speaking race both in Eng
land and America, by reminding them
that meanness and trickery and lit
tleness of every kind are not essential
to the highest success. The runners
with what is known in this country
as the party machine sneer compla-
Gently at Sunday school politics, and
unavoidabl in wicked world. But
the facts are against them. There
was never a great result achieved in
our history which did not spring
from Sunday school politics. Amer
lea IS the child of the Sunday school,
not of the saloon. Our independence,
the formation and preservation of
the Union, and emancipation, were
not the fruit of saloon or machine
politics They were the result of
honest conviction and of sincere NOR
al effort and devotion. The saloon
follows majorities, but the Sunday
school makes maJOritIeS.
Bright and Golden were as savage
ly denounced in England when they
began the Corn Law agitation as
Garrison and Phillips in this country
when they raised the cry of aboli-
ton. The dependence of all of them
was the popular conscience and good
sense. They invoked the moral senti-
ment in public affairs, and there is a
constant effort in all great public
discussion to plant the question up
on that ground, because of the in
stinctive confidence that it is immu-
table. Even the liquor interest, the
saloon itself, seeks this security. To
close the saloon, says its advocate,
is to shut up the poor mans club
which means that it would be in
equitable, it would result in injustice
1t is sometimes urged that it is alb
surd to deride politicians in country
where politics are chief and funda-
mental interest, and where it is a
primary duty of the citizen to be in
terested in politics. Without refec-
ton this appears to be a not I'M
reasonable remark But it would be
as wise to say that in a commercial
and trading country, where the
great mass of people are engaged in
business, it is absurd to object to
dealers in wooden nutmegs and sand
ed sugar. If primary and vital con-
dition of business be dishonesty, a
community which is characteristica1-
ly business community is a nest of
Sharpers. If we cannot denOunce
confidence men without maligning
merchants, it is because merchants
are swindlers
This is equally true of the sphere of
politics. In our current nomencla- |
ture the word politician has come to
describe person who devotes him
self to politics for his selfish advan-
tage- This, however, is treachery to
politics, which, truly understood, are
concerned with the public welfare
and not with private gain. I'm
dOubtedly in just and comprehen-
s1ve sense statesman is politician, |
because he deals with the polity of |
the state. But the word is not cur
rently used i'll that sense. Indeed so |
has the word politician
become the description of a self-seeker |
that it is used as the antithesis of |
statesman, and to say that a man is
a statesman but not a politician is
to say that he makes politics a ser
vice to the commonwealth and not |
a trade for his own benefit For the |
very reason, therefore, that in a re-
public politics should be the active |
concern of every citizen, the politi- |
clan, or the man who seeks his own
personal advantage under the false
pretense of the public welfare, ought
to be branded as an enemy of the
state.
All the trickery and meanness and
of politics belong to the
sphere of the politician in this sense,
and for the public benefit the dis
tinction should be constantly en-
phasIzed. The public man whose
conduct and career illustrate the diff
ference between the statesman and
the politician is a national benefac-
tor. He sweeps away the cobwebs
Of sOphistry which gather about the
of ardent and ambitious
youth, who, hearing with doubt and
the plausible saving that
we must fight the devil with fire, for
gets that the spirit which alone eff
fectually OvercOmes the devil SAYS,
simply, Get thee behind me- The
power of the politician, however, is
as undeniable as that of the saloon,
which is one of his chief allies; and
MS power is never more insidious
and dangerous than when he at
-ernpts to laugh away the convic-
tons and instincts of youth, or
to bride it with its own generous
All this seductive endeavor is
brought to shame by a life like that
Of John Bright, and this, more than
any particular policy or measure
which he advocated, is his inestima-
Die service 1t is the influence of his
character rather than the special
achievements of his advocacy which
$ the true title of his renown.-
George William Curtis, in Harper's
for June.
DDECC rOMNHENTC