St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-01-07
MEMBERS of the Board of Aldermen
SAa.ODNkEEPER BRADY.
DIV EA EEPER WOLF and sA-
LOON BUM KA RTAK.
CRANKs, PIONEERS, HEROES.


New England orators and New Eng
land papers vie with each other in doing
honor to the early Abolitionists. On an
niyersary and other occasions their
memories are reyered and the advance
guard in that other struggle for an in
creased measure of freedom for man
are apotheosized. The memory of Will
lam Lloyd Garrison is held precious IN
the city in whose streets he was mobbed,
and Wendell Phillips Is held up to pub
lie gaze as one of the great products Of
New England civilization before audi
enceS whose members can remember
the day when he was saluted with stale
eggs. No honors are too high to be
heaped upon Charles Sumner, whom
Boston society ostracized forty years
ago because he insisted that one man
had no right to the uncempensated labor
of another.
Republicans who, forty years ago,
Joined with the Democrats IN their de-
nunclation of the Abolitionists. and re-
pudiated with horror the application Of
that cognomen to themselves, JOIN now
in these lagdations of those early pio-
neers of liberty and try to convince
themselves that they then were in the
ranks with them. This is the common
fate Of men who prefer to be on the
skirmish line of advancing civliza ton
and bear hand In clearing the way
for an advance of humanity, the same
now that it was 1000 years ago, and
ever will be. Truth forever on the
sea fold, wrong forever on the throne"
The pioneers of thought, as we'll as the
pioneers who made their way into the
wilderness for settlement, find their
paths hard and rugged, and beset with
difficulties and dangers.
And still it is to these men, the sturdy
men Of thought and action, the sturdy
men of Drawn and muscle, to whom the
world owes all that it is today. 1t is
they that have opened the way and
made smooth the path, that the great
mass of humanity might move forward
on its march. Fortunate it is, indeed,
tor mankind that every generation
brings forward its quota Of these pio-
neers, who are indifferent to calumuy,
and on whom the sneers of those who
like to think themselves conservative
make no impression. They are willing
to be called the eranks, the vlSionarieS,
the impractica bles, to bear the gibes
and obloquy Of those who lie in their
contentment like pigs in the wallow. re-
senting the idea that conditions may be
made better for men. They are the
men who take up arms against oppres-
sion, and by resisting end it. They
are the cear-eyed men who see the
wrong and evil of conditions, and force
the adoption OF remedies. They are the
neil who scorn the proposition that
customs must be continued because
they are venerable. They believe that
the race has not yet achieved its ulti-
matum Of progress, and keep their eyes
open ever to the uture, looking for
! new avenues of progress.
TO such men there is no hesitation
when there comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for
the good or evil side
for they know that
'Then to side with Truth is noble when We
share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause brings fame and profit, and
it's prosperous TO be just.
'Then it is the brave man chooses while the
coward stands aside,
| Doubling in his abject spirit till his Lord is
crucifed."
The cranks, the disturbers. the agi-
tators of a generation ago are the heroes
of today; and as, out of the fire Of crit
icism and opposition, those advanced
ideas held by the cranks of today stand
the fire and come out purified, will they
be the accepted doctrines of the ne xt
| generation, and their condemned advo-
Gates will be men whom that genera
ton Will delight to honor.