Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1889-08-05

in office as long as they were Wiling
to stay, and sometimes longer, and
when for a man to buy his own nom
nation or election and not to be ash
AIMED to tell what it cost him would |
have been reckoned as utterly myth
zeal as any story to be found in the
chronicles of Brobdingnag. | like to
remember that the last graduate OF
Harvard that filled the presidential
chair was utterly deaf and bind to
the claims of party, and lost his re-
election because he would not utter a
word of lift finger to secure 1t. Inc
editor of the most influential news
paper in the country went expressly
to Washington to offer the president
the controlling influence of his paper
on the pledge of certain items OF
government patronage, and failed TO
make himself understood, and return
ed with amazed admiration for man
for whose sacrifice of open-faced IN
tegrity he did not believe that the
world could offer a price high enough.
l fervently hope that our college Will
never furnish another president until
it can give the country one equally
infiexible in his uprightmess. 1t has
been a most gratifying fact that among
those that have taken q prominent
part in the endeavor to stay the
plague that infests and threatens our
political life large portion are grad
yates of Harvard College. [ trust
they will find among you ready re-
cruits and vigorous allies. Among
the chief causee of the condition of
things is the Indifference of very
many citizens of superior education,
high character and large potential in
fiuence. Such men are overprone,
! in the common phrase, to keep out OF
politics. If this habit continues it
will grow, for it is in such quarters
that example spreads rapidly, and
the issue must be the lapse of govern
ment, as of the ancient republics, into
Kakistocracy and thence, it may be,
in refuge from the horrors of dem
ocratic tyranny into the more toler-
able absolution of q single despot.
If | was younger man l would go
into politics heart and soul, with vote
and tongue and pen. | would fain
persuade you that an active interest
iu the public affairs of your respect
i've communities and of the nation is
so far your imperative duty that you
can not respect yourselves if yot neg
lect it. l would urge you to speak,
vote and act that you can justify
Yourselves to your own consclences.
Yours will be, or ought to be, among
the leading minds of your generation,
and in all matters of public opinion
and action there are scores or humid
reds of tight-minded but faint-hearted
men who spring up all ready to follow
in the right track, but will remain in
ert and acquiescent till they have a
leader. You will be rightly ambitious
of influence, and trust that you will
win all of it that you deserve, all OF
it that you deserve, all of it that you
can respect yourselves in using. Ii
is a Christian minister tibet | have
your invitation to speak to you, AND
and l would be unworthy equally OF
your respect and my own if | lei
such an occasion pass without some
earnest words for religion. Take
Christ for your model of character
Govern yourselves by his precepts
Give his religion a fair trial. If the
result is not firm faith in all thai
he processes to be and trust .fol
the life beyond in him who has
taught you how to live here, you
have a right to your indifference, t.
skepticism. Till then you have NJ
l such right; for self-respect, if NJ
r other motive, requires that you eithe
: verify or falsify to your own consci
} business the claims of one who ha
: given his home to these nineteel
: centuries, who has been the most ell
e cient force in human history, and VIII
c has been from the first and is nov
e most revered and loved by the yer.
+. men and women who are themselve
4 most worthy of reverence and love-
r DR.. Pedbodys Bdccalduredte q
f HdrUdrd.