San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-03-08

OF pOiltICs, Ou ouo ioib uduu Va
comfort and pleasure and popu-
larity, on the left hand of all that
is good and desirable and clean
and sweet, women and girl babies
included. He is the misfit Of
civilization.
The man who does not look be-
fore he leaps is the man who
always puts the wrong foot fore
most and stumbles over the
threshold Of opportunity. He
never opens his mouth that he
does not put his foot in it. He
never comes near your corns that
he does not step on them. He it
is who always steps on the trails
Of the ladies' gowns at receptions,
tramps on their toes in the crush,
offers them refreshments on the
wrong side, and gets in the left
handed positions everywhere.
The preachers in the denomina-
tional pulpits will tell you that
Peter will open the left hand gate
for these fellows and assign them
a place on the left, and that they
will Jump into perdition because
they did not learn to look whether
their faces were turned towards
heaven or hades when they leaped.
OF this the LIGHT preacher knows
nothing, but Of all men in this
world most miserable are those
who do not look before they leap.
The world is full of cripples,
because the look was not taken
before the leap. The business
world. Old merchants as we'll as
younger ones are guilty Of the
same folly. They venture out in
to the unknown regions OF invest
ment and trade, not looking care
fully before they leap, and land
on some unforeseen rock or stump
or other inequality, their ankles
bend under them, the ligaments
are strained and away goes an
other poor fellow on crutches.
There are laws governing trade,
laws Of supply and demand, laws
OF selection and advertising, laws
that II properly observed and
studied would prevent these dis
asters in commercial life, but
they are not 80 studied and the
fatal leap is taken into the I'M
known, with loss and discredi
and bankruptcy as the result.
The political world is full of
failures, also. Men with the bee
of political ambition buzzing in
their heads, who do not stop
rightly to consider the landing
place upon which their leap is
going to plant them. They do not
make proper allowance between
the facts as presented by friends
and as seen by enemies. They
look only at their feet and not at
their landing place and always
fall short of their calculations.
The state and the nation are alike
full Of these abortions. These
men are the bsne of all wise
political movements, for they are
the despair of all calculation.
Their friends never know that
they will do the right thing; their
enemies more safely calculate that
they will do the wrong one. These
men are only more dangerous
when by accident they land on
their feet.
Had Weyler only looked before
he leaped he would not have pro.
claimed himself the foe OF all
civilized methods of warfare and
brought down on his head the
execration Of this country and the
recent recognition Of congress.
Had Salisbury looked before he
leaped he would not have made
that break in Armenian affairs
and made England the laughing
stock of Europe; neither would
he have in his blindness jumped
upon the United States for declar-
ing that arbitration must rule in
Venezuela, and then tumbled
head over heels in landing. Dun
raven would not have been ex-
PEELED from the New York Yacht
club, had he looked before he
leaped into that rotten statement