Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-06-30
POTTER ON PENSIONS.
Bishop Potter Creates Great Sensation
in the City Of Boston.
Degrading to Citizenship and De-
structiye to Patriotism.


Harvard was held this afternoon. Col
T. W. Higginson presided. The orato
was Ri. Rev Henry c. Potter, D. D.
LII. D.
The speaker, after brief reference Il
the pleasures of these reunions, said tina
all that was personal, and had chiefly Il
do with ones self. Continuing he said
1.-The Scholar and the State. This il
my theme during the few moments tina
your rare favor vouchsafes to me. For
give me if speak to il with the plainnes
which, as 1 am profoundly persuaded
the hour demands, even if your judg-
ments may not quite approve.
1.-The republic at this moment is con-
fronted by three conspicuous dangers
which, while they may not be those
which all of US may own as most grave,
have, nevertheless, typical and repre-
| sentative character whose sig nificance is
not easy TO overes innate. Let me speak
| of them briefly for q few moments, and
| then of those more particular obligations
which their existence deyolyes upon
scholars No system of government has
won more hearty encomiums from those
trained under alien skies and rule than
| remarkable review of our political iusti-
buttons by that eminent and gifted Eng
lishman, Professor James Brice, to
whom we owe the two volumes entitled
THE American Commonwealth, can
rise from them without profound sense
of the great possibilities of so nobIy con-
ceived and so firmly balanced system
of government, instituted under condi-
tons so exceptionally favorable to its
success. But, as De Tocqueville pointed
out long ago, the excellence and deli
cacy of Il vast civic mechanism only the
more demands intelligent, prudent and
reverent handling. With that rare fore
sight and penetration which will make
him for all time teacher to this people,
he wrote, nearly three fourths of q CEN
fury ago: 1t would seem as If the
rulers of our time sought only to use men
to make things great; l wish they would
try a little more to make great men; that
they would set less value upon the work
and more upon the workmen; that they
would never forget that nation cannot
long remain strong when every man be-
longing TO it is individually weak, and
that no form or combination of social
policy has yet been devised to make an
energetic people out of a community of
pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.
''And yet one would think that no
system had ever been devised more eff
fectually to disparage the work and to
degrade into pusillauimous and enfee-
bled citizenship the workman, than that
system OF civil service which, for the last
fifty years, and never more Insistently
than of late, has been trying to establish
itself among the people. A policy of
favoritism which makes partisan service
the substantial basis for political prefer
ment and fine disdain for the element
of personal fitness, whatever the place or
task, which exacts only so much COM
Potency as can rescue the place holder
from absolute disgrace; this has come to
be the war-cry which treats every politi-
cal contest as simply scramble for poll
tical emolument. That such view of
the service of the government should be
held by some Tuscan bandit escaped out |
of the Transvaal pine businesses to prey |
upon our unsuspecting institutions would |
not be occasion for surprise. But that it |
has come TO be the deliberate conviction |
of men in high places among US, and that |
this new gospel of INSCRIPTIONS self
seeking is openly proclaimed as the only
spell powerful enough to maintain q
healthy and active interest in our politi-
cal institutions-that, in other words,
there is no instinct of patriotism strong
enough to constrain man to active
in the political life of the
unless there bangles before him
all the while the possible prize which he L
may snatch out of the sordid and shamsS4
less strife-thIs certainly, is a teaching
which may well make all
honest people flush with keen
and indignant shame. For in close
touch with it, there stands plainly
enough the inevitable corollary that no
nan who serves the state only from such
motives will scruple TO sacrifice public
interests to private ends whenever he can
afely do so. And, indeed, that no
higher sense of civic obligation than this |
is widely prevalent Is indicated by the
painful fact (to which one finds it diff
,ult to allude with becoming delicacy {
md reserve) that great parties and great {
,ersonages are able in this matter to
firm on platform and in official pronun- !
and with such unctuous SOL
mnity virtue which, in practice, they :
ind it no less easy with open and brazen
to fout and disregard. Such
gentlemen, disguise it or dis
ute it as men may, never can be belit- !,
led or urged as mere partisan issue.
t is an issue of morals; it is a question =
f common honesty; for men in civic =
over are simply the servants of the =
tate, and the public service is public :
rust, abuse or pervision or malfeasancs
\ which is not less, blu. u greater !.
rhine than unfaithfulness to private
rust. :
"And that brings me to speak of an .
sAer danger which threatens; the safety 7
fsfhe public, ana concerning which / !.
hink the duty of all scholars is equally
lear and imperative.
"Out of the evils to which have Just
sferred there has grown, not unnatu-
ally, another, which, in its enfeebling
nd oorrupting possibilities, is g matter s
Z portentious import. Mr.. Lecky, in
is History of European Morals, - has 4
rawn an impressive picture of the deca- v
ence of Roman greatness under the de- \
,riorating influence of Roman con-
uests. Enriched by the wealth wrung
ON her barbaric neighbors, with DOM S
lant class, flushed with success and de-
Inflated by Indulgence, the impe- F
al policy soon became one pre-eminently :,
profuse indulgence. Il was easier TO
-ibs the unemployed to silence than to n
svise efficient methods for their employ v
ent, and powerful citizens provided for ;
eir trains of dependents by largesses d
corn and of money paid directly from a
10 public treasury. There was thus Il
ourad IN them n docile and suhsarviauk