The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1891-08-07
A Great Crisis Which Demands Leaders
Who Are True Statesmen.

A Great Crisis Which Demands Leaders
Who Are True Statesmen.
THE time is fast approaching when
grave responsibility will fall on men in
public Office. In ordinary times the ad-
ministration of the government is not so
difficult but that it may be successfully
undertaken by men of moderate talent
and good executive ability, coupled with
old fashioned honesty. We have had
presidents Of the United States who got
through their terms of Office in re-
spectacle fashion who could not have
administered the affairs of great rail-
load corporation successfully for day
or an hour.
The same is true in greater degree OF
less important officers and members Of
congress. The business of ordinary
times may be done by ordinary men,
and the scramble for Office brings to the
front great many who are more skilled
in the arts Of the politician than in the
science of craftsmanship. That great,
sluggish mass which we call the people
is Indifferent, and even long suffering,
until misgovernment becomes too griev-
GUS to be borne. Then Indifference
gives place to Indignation, and inertia
becomes momentum; the great mass
which appeared to be dead is alive with
energy, and where it had been dumb, it
has thousand voices, all angry and inn
patient.
It is then that the politician is para
lyzed; ordinary tactics are of no avail,
and the familiar face of the place seeker
is no more greeted with amiable salts
faction. His honeyed phrases fail to
elicit the customary applause, and his
half way measures are treated with i'll
disguised contempt. When the popular
heart is deeply moved and its conscience
aroused, men who mean nothing are i'm
patiently brushed aside, and the bold,
blunt man who strikes at the core of
the dominant question has the eager at
tention of the crowd.
At such time the voice of the agi-
tator is loud in the land, and extremists
of every character obtain hearing.
When people have been long subjected
to injustice, and the bitter fruit of it
ripens into social tragedy before their
eyes, the ordinary disquisitions on the
'eternal verities' are to the enraged
populace as sounding brass and tin
king cymbal. When men and women
are suffering for lack of the ordinary
comforts of life it will not do to go on
repining about abstruse principles, how
ever true or eternal. What is needed is
a new application of sound principles to
the present situation. and that is the
work of statesman
At such times superficial men seek to
attack principles which are true and
eternal, wrongly attributing injustice to
time honored principles, when it is the
violation that is the cause of all the
trouble. If no statesman arises to meet
the emergency, so much the worse for
the country. Change becomes inevitable,
and in default Of craftsmanship conserv-
atism will be thrown to the winds, and
the wheels of progress will be turned
backward 1t is at such times that
craftsmanship has its greatest opportu-
nifty and its greatest reward. Within its
reach is some great boon for humanity.
Great progress is not to be expected in
time of inactivity and Indifference.
We may look to the taking Of some
great step forward as the result of all
this commotion, and if there is no such
advance we may conclude that there
were no men equal to the opportunity.
Within the next few years there will be
mighty changes in this country, and
there is a tremendous responsibility rest
ing on the men who hold Office or inau-
ence. 1t is a time for sober thought and
honest graphing with the great CUES
tions Of the time. The crisis has come
and it will take men to meet it.-At-
lanta Constitution