Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-04-14
The Most Learned Men Should Be
the Best Politicians.
DUTY TO ONES COUNTRY
The Nation Needs Men of Brains
and Learning.
A VITAL TOPIC DISCUSSED
Written for The Evening Star.


least all merit away from the king is in
effectual. When William, the Conquerer,
lay dead there no visible reason why
the learned men of the land should read
principles and teach them. They ran and
barred their homes against thieves; and
the attendants of the monarch ran away
from the palace carrying in all directions
Clothes, bedding, furniture and plate, for at
the death of each absolute monarch came
chaos. Only a few nabobs were interested
in the successor. In republic the palace,
the plate, the furniture, the national wealth
and the succession in office are the property
Of the majority. In order to bring chaos it
would be necessary, not for President to
die, but for the people to go crazy or perish.
To steal from the nation would be to break
into ones own residence and run off with
the contents.
In addition to the duties of his trade pur-
suit or profession, each American must
make his nation an aim and task, for he
Is piece of its king. A republic is joint
STOCK company In whose profits each citi-
zen has the same interest. Each voter holds
bond and must see to 1t that it is always
as good as gold.
The Work of Scholars.
The scholar is assumed to be a person of
learning, mental sensbility and of high
morals. He may be most polished crimi-
nal, but the laws of the human intellect
compel the best morality to attach itself t.
an education that knows good paths to good
ends and that creates a sensibility in favor
or the best path While many a good
scholar has been hung and many others
should be at ropes end behind bars,
yet 1t remains a most grand and evident
truth that the whole globe has been created
ana made beautiful by its scholars. History
is very incomplete and does not lead us
very far back, but 1t always finds great
epochS to start in some group of minds emil
nent for local Intellectual greatness.
From Moses to Pericles and from Pericles
TO Augustus the flag of the state was a.
ways related to the education of the times
IL is absurd to suppose that the old consti-
tutional monarchies or republics like those
OF the hebrews, Greeks and Romans could
nave emerged from the most ignorant
classes. They came from the most advanc-
ed thought of each place and time Out of
dense ignorance despotsms are born.
Eacn creek scholar was enamored Of
his state. His poetry, his prose, his elo-
quence his physical powe. pointed to the
beloved alton. Alcaeus said that walls,
theaters. porches and equipage will not
create such a result" To this definition
Aristides and others added this thought:
Where great men are who know how to
take care of themselves. there is the state"
Jones rendered into the English poem.
what Constitutes a State?'
The Work of Scholars
1t should impress the modern mind deep
ly tnat those two nations whose names are
worn out by everlasting allusion never
became so degraded as to elect a blockhead
for a national leader Scholars ruled for
thousand years. Vice conquered at last,
but the scholars compelled the evil day to
ue1er IT'S coming; When Caesar fell he was
the leading student, writer and, orator of
his age. The writings of Homer demon
strate that the Greek state began in a
superior scholarship, those poems being
ABUNDANT evidence that Homer came up
out or an Aryan civilization as great as his
songs. The law that something comes
from something applies to Homer So
great those poems came from something
great. we are bound, therefore to think
or all the space between Homer and Caesar
as being dominated by the highest educa-
ton or the entire ten centuries
The Roman civilization died in tho 5aa+b
OF the literary spirit, and when, in the
fourteenth century, national life and beauty
reappeared, Ii first presented itself at the
doors o. the universities. 1t came restudy-
Ing the wide learning by neglect OF Witch a.
died. Before Professionalism had heira
scholarship had reappeared in the Roman
church and had reated men like Dante ard
all that new thought that was destined to
run on to Bacon and Shakespeare Luther
was himself created by the new mental
beauty Romanism had assumed The church
mad grown weary of the senseless literature
VI tHc ididtlCS anu ndu compelled the old
classic masters to return to the desk OF the
schoolmaster and the studio of the thinker
rms great return created the Luthers ard
Melancthons and made the fifteenth and six
teenth centuries. The classical awakenino
| that created a group of Luthers m,da ajSo
group of Bossueto and Fenelons inside Of
| the old sanctuary. Whoever shall read The
uelemaehus OF Fenelon will perceive that
the Catholic church had gone back toward
| the scholarly power of old Athens.
The Pot-HOuse Politician.
The pot-house politician is named after the
| alehouse in which he passed his waking
| hours. In our land the word saloon, dis
places the term 'pothouse," but leaves IN
| changed the kind of statesman that is Gre
| ated and sustained by the friends of the ing
| and the sawdust. The pot-house states-
| man can often read and write: and he has
| at his tongues end some words of more or
| less import. He relies more upon profa nitv
| than upon argument, because to affirm
| something by the devil or the Almighty is
| shorter cut to conclusion than the path
| followed by a logician. What a scholarly
statesman would study over for years. a
| pot-house politician can determine in a few
SECONDS, when he and his audience are as
| full of ale as they are empty of intelligenoe
To the intellect of this form of mental
ruin city or nation is as inconceiva HE
as eternity r. the peginning of time. The
word city" or nation" implies only a
mass of money to be gotten This nile of
money is not in a mire, to be dug out with
a pick; nor in the field. to be coaxed out
with a pillow. 1t is heaped upon a table
covered with green b3ze, and is to be Sc
cured by means of marked cards or loaded
dice. The saloon politician has the INTEL
lect that can see the pile of money and can
load dice or mark cards. Humble as the
pot-house politician may be, he is a great
favorlte in large cities, and being an en-
larged thief, he is clothed at the ballot box
with opportunity as large as his desire
Old-Time Scholars and Politicians.
Cicero, perhaps the broadcast scholar of
the pagan age, says in his essay on the re-
public that at no point of thought and
feeling does mans nature resemble more
the divine nature than when the statesman
is founding and caring for the common
wealth."-De Rep, chap. /, Z.
This luminous sentence is verified when
the modern student reads the history of the
modern great nations. and finds them made
and guided by the most profound men of the
whole world. Hamilton, Burke, Pitt, Jeffer-
Gladstone are only specimens of the names
that underlie the modern state
In common speech a scholar Is not a
person who is an expert among languages
and among the forms Of grammar and
rhetoric. The term is equivalent to the
word philosopher or wise man" The
history Of his race lies outspread before
him. He knows, at least in great outline
the careers pursued by the great races of
our planet and by what paths they came TO
their ruin or success He iS fapoil;ar x,,.L