The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-04-11
HEROES ALL IN BRONZE.
Greatness Recognized Only Aft
er Death.
NO AGE THINKS ITSELF GREAT.
Every Epoch Has Denied the Existence of
Its Own Genius-But If Great Men Have
Existed They Still Exist-America's Liv-
Ing Treasures.


VI.
On certain occasion French orator
III the national assembly became apos-
trophic and cried out "Where are the
great men of France?" No one seemed
able to tell him, and taking silence for
applause he again cried out, II repeat
the question, M. le President, Where
are the great men of France" Here
upon some one soiemnly said, "In
bronze u The response seemed to satisfy
all the requirements of wit and truth.
Was there not much philosophy in the
sardonic answer that the great men are
in bronze! What does such question.
SO answered. signify? Are the great
men always in bronze? 1t would seem
so.
The problem of the great men and of
the place which they hold i'll human
affairs-the question of their coming
and their going-is exceedingly diff
cult to solve. Thus much we may say
with tolerable certainty-that the great
men belong to the agitated epochs of
history. There goes an aphorism that
peace hath her victories no less renown-
ed than war. This would imply that
peace hath her heroes as we'll as war
has his. But the facts do not seem to
answer to the aspiration. Philanthro-
plsts have always sought to make the
world think that the calm of human so.
ciety is better than the storm, the stiffness
of peace more sublime than the thunder
of violence, but mankind does not ac-
cept the dictum as true History goes
with the common voice and is constrain.
ed, somewhat against her leaning and
conscience, to admit that the great men
arise only in those times when the toe
sin Of battle
Starts the frenzy Of a cyclone through the
highlands of the heart.
The reason of this break in human
Judgment is no doubt to be found in the
innate admiration of men for power in
visible exertion. There is strange in
difference to thought and the work of
thought, however bold and high. In the
present stage of our mortal evolution
the mind flies from the subimest page,
pictured with the loftiest ideality, to the
roughest forms Of dramatic action. Vio-
lence of every kind is followed with
shout around the world. 1t is action,
action, that draws the race as the mag
net draws the bar. Ideality, however
pure and immortal is not loadstone tc
the heart of man. 1t is for this reason
perhaps that Lewis Fl. Morgan, one of
the greatest American historians is un-
known; that Andrew Carnegie has
wider fame than Alexander Winchell,
and that Bndd Doble, with his catarrh-
al name" has greater renown than
Emerson.
OF a certainty the people of 1864 did
not think that their leaders We're great
men. AT least they did not agree that
any one was great. There was only
dim apprehension that Lincoln was
great 1t seems amazing that nearly
half of the people We're willing, and
large minority Of them eager, to vote
against him for reelection to the presi-
dency. Grant had then reached Peters
burg and Sherman was somewhere in
Georgia. The whole horizon of the south
and west smoked with war A million
OF men We're under arms and great
armies were i'll the almost daily grapple
OF death. And yet it was questioned and
questionable il the majority would not
put Mcclellan in Lincoln's place. Few
people reckoned that greatness was on
trial Or that there was anything more
than the usual politics at stake Lincoln
was able to command the voice of the
majority, but even the majority looked
to him as a sort of necessary first man
in the drama without much considering
the question of his historical stature.
The very same opinion was held of
Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and
Hancock and all the leaders in the field.
The same was held of Seward and Stan
ton, OF Sumner and Andrew and Morton
and all the men of the cabinet and
council. The great men did not exist in
the consciousness Of the age. Some
thought that they We're beginning to ex-
ist There was, we think, sort of dim
opinion that the great man was yet to
appear-some tall figure that would rise
above the turmoil and dwarf not only
the common leaders Of the army and
the senate, but Lincoln himself and
every man on whose herculean shoulders
the burdens of that stormy and tre-
mendous period We're laid
According to the common voice, there
is not at the present time one great man
in the United States. If so, who is hes
OF the 70, 900, 900 of people in our coun-
try there ought to be at least one great,
but If we accept the opinion of the age
there is not one. Why not? If our An
glo-American race is equal to the other
races, then it ought to bring forth as
we'll as they. There were great Greeks
and great Romans. There have been
great Englishmen and great Frenchmen,
and especially great Germans. History
comedies that there have been great
Slavs, great Swedes and great Italians.
There may have been a great Spaniard.
If SO, he was Cervantes. We are dispos-
ed to think that there have been great
negroes and great Indians. There is
consensus that great Americans have
lived. Are they all dead? That is the
question. Has it come to this-that par
ty and plutocracy, creed and greed, de-
mocracy and decadence, have blotted
out the heroic part Of American life and
left us only littleness and imitation and
pretense in the bottom of the crucible?
Certainly the opinion practically pre-