Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-26
VOL. XIV. NO. 254

tine argus eyes OF a thousand critics.
1t has given free and healthy circulation
10 the curiosity of man and has made him a
student Of ali that concerns himself.
An early result of this awakening Of the
popular mind was. naturally enough, the
REIMBURSEMENT of political relations. No
sooner did man discover his ability TO
think than he sought freedom to act. He
could not remain pigmy when his mind
was tilled with giant thoughts: he could
rot be content in the dust when he had
learned to look uudismayed upon the sun.
At first there was "a serious collision. The
mad hopes of those intoxicated with new
found aspirations pressed rudely against
the jealousies of Herod. The disasters to
provocative that followed, taught every
tyrant 10 tremble when he heard the low
murmurings OF the multitude. Then began
those concessions from the powers that
were to democracy that have gone on and
on until dominion over every enlightened
people has been transferred by gradual
stages to itself. Government has ceased to
be the toy of man and has become the in
strument Of men. The crown remains the
gaudy relic of other days; the sceptra
hangs not by the side of the king, but glim-
mers in the grasp of the populace.
The richest contribution OF the press 10
modern politics is a spirit of independence
that estcems vassalage 10 party as little
less debasing upon public morals than the
feudal sytSem.
b. degrees the press has worked away
from the rutS of politics until it has become
a distinct factor, especially in all English
speaking countries. Though in the moment
of engagement it may act with regular or
CARNATIONS, it is rather as an equal ally
than Us Il member of them. The press, the
representative press. owes and aCknowi-
edges no allegiance to the party machine.
1t stands for the principles, not for the cogs
and wheels and belts of politics. 1t is
building up in every intelligent community
an independent sentiment, based upon the
prerogatlve of the individual, that offers
the best assurance against the decadence OF
republican institutions.
The factor that has most stubbornly re-
sisted The persuasive influences of tho
press has been the law. Built upon prece-
dent, it could have but little sympathy with
a force intensely iconoclaStic. 1t has rather
viewed the progress of the press with
jealousy that has not always been inactive.
When the world was governed by tho
winks and mods of deSpots it was the read
lest whip to scourge rebellious vassals 10
obedience, and thus it shared, by reflex of
its worst aspects, something of the awful
dignity of the throne. The topping OF
that power left it TO the mercy of those to
whom it had shown no mercy and they pro-
ceeded to extract its fangs.
The revolution that enthroned the people
unthroned the law and seated reason in its
place. Only with barbarians and slaves ara
threats and penalties vital forces.
Stripped OF the purple dignity with which
royal favor had clothed it, the law comes
down to us the single mourner for the an
cient days. Their faded gew-gaws it still
sports with childish vanity, and their men,
cries are warmed by every page of recent
legal lore.
There only does the Sixteenth century
lap over into the eve of the Twentieth cen.
fury There only have the footsteps of
progress ever marked the coming of an un-
welcome guest.
In an age distinguished above all other
things for its exaltation of reason and its
reputation of venerable superstitions, the
law dares to defy the consciences of man
kind by adopting as its rule of action not
the sense of Justice that animateS even the
virtuous of heather race, but the technl-
cal and lifeless formula of periods that
would have been as presumptuous in die
tating to this age as would the comet in
blazing out d pathway,for the sun.
Education the press has iiberalized and
given it new and broader meaning. In this
field of labor it met the warmest welcome.
In the schoolmaster. the high priest OF pro-
gress, il found worthy and hearty COLA
borer, dedicated By his high calling to the
advancement of mankind and singularly
free of concern for selfish interests.
The old education was made up OF things
and men, the new concerns men and things;
the old looked through the prism of the
eye the new through the telescope of the
Imagination; the old taught the intellect to
crawl the new teaches it to fly; the old
made philosophers, the new creates philan-
throphists.
But the requests of knowledge to the
Nineteenth century, far as they exceed its
gifts to other centuries, are to be valued
not so much for their largeness as for their
universally.
The period to which all ages before it ran
and from which all decades since have
coursed was marked not by the coming. of a
king, but by the advent of pauper.
Surrounded by a court of fishermen, and
with a deserted hut for his palace, the
Prince of Heaven set up the standards of
His earthly kingdom on the lonely beach of
Gallilee. There He organized regiment OF
cottagers which went forth in the power of
faith to conquer potentates and Kingdoms,
and to build sovereignty firmer than the
adamant of time.
BY such example the world was taught
the intrinsic value of humanity and the
worthlessness Of its suit and trappings;
that all schemes for the redemption of man
kind, to be successful, must begin at the
bottom round.
The conception of the public school was
Christiike in wisdom and in benevolence.
1t meant bread to millions of furnished in
tellects; it was the herald of hope to those
who were becoming conscious OF the appar-
ent hopelessnes of their condition.
The free school system is the prop and
of our republic, and the only sure
of any government built upon
the just equity of man. Without it there
can be no equality TO command the atten-
ton of political science. Flushed with an
excess of zeal, the trainers of the nations
charter crammed into its first paragraph
fallacy.
That all men are not born equal is la
mentable fact that stares US in the face on
every hand. But if it were true, it would
be Swallowed by the glory Of the fact that
here the child of the unfortunate need not
remain unequal to the child of fortune.
We have no CHASTITY faces looking back
ward in vain for glimpses of ancestral
dignity, and upon their children with the
horror of the despair of shame.
Wherever the log school house Of the
state is erected is seen the birth of ambi-
ton and the flush of hope, and is heard
pHans of general content.
The undagging devotion OF the press to
this cause is a subject of history. Were it
worthy of no other tribute it might well be
with this: You have aided to
make the entrance to the halls of knowledge
an open door"
1t would be impossible TO illuminate tina
intellect without lighting up the soul Of
man. As the missionary of reason the press
has had much to do with shaping the theo-
lopical prooress of the world