The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1897-05-20
WHO ARE TRAITORS2
GAYN A BENEDICT ARNOLD
NOW.
PLAIN TALK TO AMERICANS,
Some Rambling Thoughts.
BY "NEMo." "
(Copyrighted.)

/
| TO VOTERS AND THOSE WHO LOVE
THEM LUST when there is compara-
tive political quiet, let US have little
talk together about traitors. That sad
failure, Major General Benedict Arnold,
with his passionate temperament, his
extravagant habits, his fashionable
wife, his delayed rank, and finally his
foolish attempt to humiliate his hated
compeers, is known to every child as
the traitor. Unhappy man, his name
| is buried beneath mountains OF the
most awful obloquy, and his career is
made to give point to many a speech J;
as it man were able to prove his own
patriotism by pointing out some one
else's lack OF it. Now, patriotism is not
a negative thing like that; it is
Pharlsaism which prompts a man to
cry out to witnessing world and a
recording heaven, II thank God that I
am not as this poor traitor. Before
high heaven I swear that I would nev-
er betray my country" There is the
everlasting rebuke to meet, that the
first to cast a stone should be sinless
one.
Bear in mind that in Arnold's time
the principles of democracy were being
tested, but also bear in mind that they
have also been tested in no less degree
at any moment since. Great dangers
are not always noisy and battle-like
they may be silent as the work OF king
fishers, craw-fish and musk-rats along
the levees of the Mississippi, and the
more dangerous because of their silence.
It seems clear to me that nation that
lives and grows is never out of the ex-
perimental stage; it never can, until
it dies, take definite, unchanging
place in history, and be spoken of as
having a sure and certain glory or
shame A nation sunk deep down in
unprogressive ways, like Denmark
quarter of century ago, may pick up
and show enterprise, and nation like
France lifted to the very heavens by its
privileges, may be SO untrue, in its in
div1dual life, to the things that are
good and pure and loyal to nature, that
its future becomes a dubious one.
Thus we Americans must never lose
sight of the fact that our vast area Is
merely great stage, on which an ex-
pertinent In government by the people
Is being tried On the grandest scale in
the history of the world. So because
the outcome has just the element OF
uncertainty about it that all other ex-
periments have, it is ours to work and
watch and wait to remove every posi-
BILE hindrance to progressive proof
that government of the people by the
people and for the people," is such a
success that it need never "perish off
the earth" as thing that has been
tested and thrown aside.
But as In a field the contest Is with
weeds, SO in our government the battle
is with traitors, and they exist, not
merely in the pages of school history
to be held up and execrated as things
that have been-I say they exist, not
there and then only, but here and now,
as perennial as weeds, as stubborn as
disease, as dangerous as powder. They
do not prowl around with guns and
cannon, they sign and seal no unholy
agreements, they cannot be found lurk-
ing near explosives with torches
"Where are they then? Let us away
with them!" you say. But go gently
lest perhaps your mothers son be found
among them.
Traitors are those who occupy posi-
tions of trust and forget that they are
public servants traitors are the voters
who condemn house servants for In
efficiency and discharge them, yet
cringe and crawl before public officials
as though they we're Of superior flesh,
forgetting the while that every such
official would be as naught save for the
people who placed him there; traitors
are legislators who promise to obey the
will of the people, and straightway do
the opposite, bringing shame and public
doubt upon the very home OF good
laws. without which no nation can live
traitors are the selfish men who buy
the bodies and souls of lawmakers and
have their will with them for price
traitors are they who, forgetting the
One of the best evidences that Ayers
Hair Vigor is an article OF exceptional
.o-;t n the fact that the demand for