The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1891-08-21
NEEDS OF THE HOUR.
In the Coming Crisis VIII Be tho States
mans Opportunity.

In the Coming Crisis VIII Be tho States
| mans Opportunity.
The time is fast approaching when
grave responsibility will fall on men
in public Office. In ordinary times
the administration 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 respectable
fashion who could not have admins
tered the affairs of great railroad
corporation successfully for day or
an hour. The same is true in
greater degree of less important Off
GERS and members of congress. The
business of ordinary times may be
done by ordinary men, and the scram-
BILE for Office brings to the front q
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 peO-
pie is Indifferent, and even long SUI
fering, until misgovernment becomes
too grievous to be borne. Then in
difference gives place to indignation.
and inertia bee mes momentum; the
great mass which appeared to be dead
is alive with energy, and where it had
been dumb. it has a thousand voices,
all angry and impatient. 1t is then
that the politician is paralyzed; ordi-
nary tactics are of no avail. and the
familiar face OF the place-seeker is no
more greeted with amiable satisfaction.
His honeyed phrases fail to elicit the
customary applause, and his halfway
measures are treated with ill-disguised
contempt. When the popular heart is
deeply moved and its conscience
| aroused, men who mean nothing are
impatiently brushed aside, and the
bold, blunt man who strikes at the
core of the dominant question has the
eager attention of the crowd. At such
time the voice of the agitator is loud
| in the land, and extremists of every
character obtain a hearing When
people have been long subjected to in
| justice 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 tink-
ling cymbal. When men and women
are suffering for lack of the ordinary
comforts of life, it will not do to 60
on repining about abstruse principles,
however true or eternal. What is
needed is a new application of sound
principles to the present situation;
and that is the work of a states
man. At such times superficial
men seek to attack principles which
are true and eternal, wrongly at
tributing 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 emergen-
| cy, SO much the worse for the country.
Change becomes inevitable, and in de-
fault of craftsmanship, conservatism
will be thrown to the winds, and the
wheels Of progress will be turned back
ward. It is at such times that states
manship has its greatest opportunity
and it's 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 ad-
vance we may conclude that there
were no men equal to the opportunity.
Within tho next few years there will
be mighty changes in this country, and
there Is tremendous responsibility
resting on the men who hold Office or
| influence. It is tine for sober
thought and honest graphing with the
great questions of the time. The crisis
has come, and it will take men to meet
| it-Atlanta Constitution.