The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1896-06-18
A WORD ABOUT "caANks.o

A WORD ABOUT "CRANkS."
Nobody enjoys being advertised as
crank. Josh Billings showed his deep
knowledge of human nature when he
said: IF man comes TO me for advice,
first find out what kind of advice he
wants, and then give him that; and he
goes away thinking that we are two Of
the smartest men in the world. =" It is
natural to select the line Of least resist
ance-to follow the path of peace and
good feeling with ones neighbors even
at the cost of principle or the silencing
Of conscience.
The words Of the humorist sage apply
In peculiar way to those who have
dealings with the public. Demos is
sort of musical instrument that is capa-
BILE of giving forth certain tunes. Who
ever has learned the lingering of these
tunes and can touch the instrument skill
fully is your popular man. He is not
crank, but leader of the people. There
are other men whose training has gone
beyond the melodies that touch the vul-
gar ear who have chords of their own to
strike. Keener sensibilities, a larger soul,
a wider outlook enable them to see and
feel things hidden from the multitude.
When such men sit at the keyboard and
insist on striking chords that are true
to the music that is ringing in their own
souls, it sometimes happens that the
other instrument, the popular will, re-
spends only with furious discords. 1t is
then that interviewers abound and the
aid is full OF epithets, of which ''crank"
is the least Objectionable.
Shall such men speak, or for sweet
harmony's sake, for peace, shall they
keep silence! Shall the man who knows
better see his fellow citizens all bent
upon going wrong and not raise his
voice to point out their errorP
Theoretically there is but one answer:
thousand times yes, let him speak,
though the heavens fall. Theoretically
we have accepted the right of free speech
as political axiom. 1t lies at the
very foundation of our free government.
1t is the corner stone of our institutions,
and yet there have been grave symptoms
of late which indicate that this princi-
pie has been accepted in some such way
as our forefathers adopted that noble
maxim of equality and freedom 20
which they gave expression i'll the Decla-
ration of independence. Not many
weeks ago the whole nation apparently
was bent upon rushing to war with
people who are bound to Us by the closest
ties of common civilization. A pro-
fessor in the University of Chicago dared
to raise his voice and question, not the
policy of such war, but the justice Of
the so called American position. At
once the press of the country burst forth
in blast of denunciation. Singing
epithets worthy Of the days Of proslaYery
| agitation We're freely used. A leading
| Chicago journal demanded that the Of
fender be excluded from the faculty and
that his views be repudiated by the uni
versity.
Have we come ali these weary years
to find that after all our people, IN
| whose intelligence and good sense. we
are only too apt to boast, are just like
any ether people, as Macaulay long ago
put it, More easily interested for the
most unmeaning badge, or the most
| insignificant name, than for the most
LII IL it'I l4S-
vile right when he put his fnG@- upon
| this weak spot in our system and said
that no man dared to be ruled by the
mobile elements, and that in any great
| crisis public opinion would be nodded,
not by the wisdom of few qualified to
Judge, but by the blind instinct of the
masses? Surely we have not left the last
| mile stone of our national history very
| far behind us if we can thus again be-
ieve all the accepted causes Of free
| speech and free thought.
Demos is surely terrible fellow when
| awakened. He is more terrible when,
bent upon going wrong, he is half way
| suspicious that the minority after all
has the right side of the argument
| Then he is always unreasoning, intract-
able and furious, and yet Demos is a
most inconsistent fellow He never
thinks alike on two successive days; but
with all his heart is right, if his head
does often go wrong. Phocion under
stood this in his famous reply to Demos
themes when the great orator had said
| to him, 'Phocion, the Athenians will
kill you some day, when once they are
| in a rage" And you. replied Pho
cion, when once they are in their
senses" 1t is this confidence in the ulti-
mate rectitude of public opinion that
has nerved every fuller soul, elected in
some great crisis in history, to lead the
forlorn hope for humanity.
The minority is always made up Of
"cranks, and it isherethat the crank"
has his duty to perform Civilized ma
tions today tend toward government
by discussion. The only safeguard of a
free people against that worst of all
| tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority,
is the persistence ON the part Of the
minority in its right to speak. The more
critical the issue and the smaller the
| minority, the more necessity is there
for speech. The greatest religious and
social revolution that history has re-
corded was led by minority of one
Our danger is not in the blind rule
of the masses, but in the increase of ma
terial prosperity; our culture shall be-
come selfish, and then men who can speak
and ought to speak will lose the nerve
| of the prophets of old and prefer silence