Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-24
ON POLITICAL IDEALS
William C. Wilkinson, L. Id, Writes
the Third of the Series of
LETTERS TO YOUNG CITIZENS.
The Necessity of Standard in Forming
Judgments of Men.
STATESMEN OF THE PRESENT CENTURY

r Statesman, IN SGate, or IN some leature OF
condition, real or imaginary, in State,
conceived as admirable and desirable. The
most attractive and therefore the most in
spring and controlling of all political ideals
are those which are incarnate in men. OF
these last alone let us here speak. Your
choice of your ideal (whether in politics or
elsewhere) will in part reflect your own
present character and in part it will react
powerfully to affect and conform your char
acter. You will inevitably ever more and
more like what you habitually contemplate
and admire. Hence it is of the highest i'm.
portance to you that you choose your ideal
wisely.
Naturally, you will look first near you to
find your ideal. Your ideal will very likely
be some political leader of your own country
and time. 1t may even not improbably be
some political leader whom you have heard
speak-perhaps one with whom you are
personally acquainted. In such case, you
NAV hardly know that he is indeed your
ideal; but your ideal he will be nevertheless,
and all the more effectively that he is uncon-
sciously such. You cannot do better than
to arouse yourself, bring yourself up short,
with the question, the challenge, who is,
without my knowing it, or with, my
political ideal? Then the further question:
Is he worthy? Why worthy? Is he the
worthiest? For no man is to be accounted
worthy to occupy place like that in your
thoughts, your imaginations, unless he be
the noblest type of political leader that
exists. Only the worthiest is worthy. See
to 1t that you shall have chosen the
worthiest.
Do Not Be Dazzled by Nearness.
Now, of course, in order to make quite
sure that you choose the worthiest, you
need to have a wide range and variety of
examples from which to choose. Enlarge
therefore your horizon. Sweep round the
farthest circuit that you can bring yourselt
to command. Read history and biography.
Do not suffer yourself 10 be dazzled by near
ness in the object you contemplate. Ex
plore other times, other countries, than
your own. Say TO yourself, 1 will prefer
those statesmen as candidates for enthrone-
ment in the kingdom of my imagination
who have finished their career and whose
character and achievements have under
gone the test of time.
II will give breadth and scope to your
view, it will give tone and life to your
faculty, if you will read Plutarch's Lives"
That book is a great nurture for generous
ideals in the soul. Antique, old-fashioned,
obsolete, do you say? Antique yes; obso-
lete, never. The form and the conditions of
life have changed since those lives were
lived, since those lives were written. But
the essence of things does not change so
easily. Human nature abides the same
And the spirit, the power of that ancient
book of Plutarch's will never be ont of date
He had generous admiration of the gener-
Gus, sympathetic appreciation of that
which maunaninous
will communicate itself BY contagion to you.
The Necessity of Stand.
But you will not 60 amiss to read any
celebrated statesman's life. To do this, and
to do it in great many instances, is one of
the best ways you can take of reading his
tory. Be careful all the time to give your
admiration only to what is truly admirable
Success will often tend to dazzle and be-
wilder you-to bribe your judgment, to con-
fuse your conscience. You need a standard |
by which to form your estimates of men.
This standard you must create Tor yourself |
1t will at length become your ideal. You |
will form it by combination and compost |
tion from many models. 1t will be better, |
at least, 1 think, fairer, purer, higher, more |
nearly perfect, than an individual model
that you find existing in the actual world of
meN living or dead.
You live in a century, now drawing to its |
close, which has been rich in remarkable |
statesmen. There are the Italian (Sardin-'
ian) Cavour, whose achievement was the |
unihcation and naturalization of Italy, |
His is career worth your studying. There |
is Bismarck, whose work it was, more than
any other one man's-though several re-
markable men co-operated with him to the |
one great end-to produce out OF the polit-
ical disintegration that was Germany, the
present colossal, overlapping German EN-
pire. A mighty practical Casarist, Bis
marck, in striking contrast to the statesmen
of England and America.
The Career of Gladstone.
By the way, it is of the happiest omen for
young America and young England that
such career unparalleled for length and
hardly paralleled for pure and benefcent
reuown, as that of Gladstone, is even vet
running, though necessarily now near to
the finish, before their eyes. The brilliant |
contrast to hlm-for many years subsisting |
side by side-in Disraeli, affords the finest |
opportunity of studying Gladstone, with |
the advantage of ioil to set him off in his |
own peculiar character. The moral catas- |
tropho that has apparently ended the great |
career In craftsmanship that only a few |
months ago it looked as if Mr. Parnell was |
destined to achieve, teaches pregnant les |
son in the value of personal as affecting |
public character His example signally |
shows how unsafe it is to take for your ideal |
statesman a man whose career is still un- |
finished. Count no man happy till he |
dies" was the wisdom of the ancient proyerb. |
Judge no man fit to stand for your ideal |
until death has put it bevond his power to |
prove himself unworthy:
Most happily for the young American |
citizen, he may ask, after wanderings MANY |
and vide in other centuries and other |
countries than his own, in quest Of high ex-
ample In patriotic cstatesmanship-the young
American citizen may well, 1 say, return |
hom: TO ind models from which to make up |
his ideal, as noble as any to be met with |
elsewhere in all the world. 1t is a great, an |
incidentally great and precious heritage of |
pure and inspiring fame, to which, as an
American, he was born. To name only two.
where in the history of mankind are there |
to be found better names of patriot and |
statesman than are our own American |
Washington and Webster
Ayoice We Cannot Disregard.
But Abraham Lincoln, too, is a name
that cries out IN our ears with a voice which |
we cannot disregard. Read the life of |
Washington, read the many eulogies in
which his transcendent virtues have been
set forth and idolized, read his Farewell |
Address" to his fellow-countrymen. and be
proud, and glad, and thankful that you,
too, are an American. OF the eulogies too |
many to be named, 1 may mention the cele-
brated one of Edward Everett's, which that |
accomplished orator delivered in numerous
places all over the Union, devoting the
proceeds OF his disinterested toll to the re-
demptlon OF Mount Vernon from threatened