The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1897-06-11

Of a measure in moments when human
nature has been tensed to its utmost, in
moments when advocates would APP
prove as heartily as opponents would
condemn. To fix the vision there and
say "behold the man" is not to mis-
represent him as it is to reveal the little.
ness, the narrowness of ourselves. IL is
to confuse an expression of o. life with O
life. 1t is to mistake the ray of light
for the star from whence it came. Let
us not do that may not see the man,
but he cannot who thus looks.
| see young man. tall, muscular, full
of physical energy and endowed with a
mind of far more than ordinary
strength. Not yet has the culture OF
schools smoothed that rugged energy;
not yet has the experience of life given
the sagacity which comes to natures
that feel they must regard their own
weakness in the conflicts of life.
The consciousness of strength gives a
tremendous force to self-reiance. To
such man the world of thought is bat
tlefield. Man is the commander OF his
ideas; he will gather facts as recruits; he
will train them as soldiers; he will mar
shall them as battalions; he will hurl
them on foes as an armed force, conf
likes to waste time, energy on skirm-
ishes, he wants battles. He is war.
rior. He will train his guns rapidly, he
will fire them with haste, he will shot
them to the muzzle. He does not speak
to please; he does not tarry to adorn
with rhetoric; he does not look for
stories to enliven, far less to amuse; he
does not seek to provoke laughter, but
slaughter. Life is too serious in its
great efforts to stop and laugh To
such man public speech is never ora
tory or address, it is always debate. ALI
emotion is moral emotion and every
effort is fraught with eternal serious
ness
Such man, so far, was the young
Geo. nj. Dewey rs he went out from his
child home in New Hampshire to front
world and with the spirit of old en-
blazoned on the crest of the Morse pick,
said Il will find a way or make it.
Sucha man in many regards Mr.. Dew
ey continued to be | never recall
speech he made an editorial written, a
defense of position in any utterance,
that did not partake of those elements.
1t was that which gave an earnestness
to what he said on any theme that to
another type of mind at times seemed
more serious than was warranted. 1t
was that which led him to conduct the
paper he edited in his later life, The
Odd Fellow, III such manner that
every issue but one was his very own.
1t was that which gave such an air of
conviction TO all he said and wrote,
which controlled his very diction, charg-
ing and surcharging it with terms of
certainty, with terms of intensest posi-.
tiveness that would lead many to say
show great the conceit.'
Unless we can see clearly this element
of mental and physical strength we
shall not understand this man. His
mentality proved the stronger It's in
tensity rushed him along till it wore out
q massive and magnificent physique,
without the aid of any of the vices of an
Incorporate life, before he was three
score and three years old.
/ am not at all concerned now with
the causes which operated through a
long New England ancestry, or came
in the inspiration of the hills, now clad
in garments of green, now aflame with
the glory of New Hampshire autumns,
nor the aids of the simpler life of his
boyhood home these all helped in pro-
ducing the result, but the result at that
time was a mind and body alive and
conscious with strength and the domi-
nant force in the early character is
strength. In teaching, in journalism,
IN politics, every expression will reveal
this consciousness of strength. The
very voice of the man will gather to it.
self quality which | can best describe
to myself as voice alive with the agony
of intensity.
Now this man starts in life q teacher
Or coarse he will succeed to a large de-
gree yet his success will come more
through his ambition as young man
to excel in what he undertakes, than be-
cause the aggregate of qualities as they
are dominated by strength show him
best fitted for school life. He will han
die his schools well, because the ele- |
ment that usually disturbs its order is |
an element that respects strength and |
he will master all he is set to teach, and |
add the sacred impressiveness of his in |
tensty of conviction to all he touches |
in the school-room.
But in the long run he had better be |
elsewhere to find field fitted for his |
mind. That field comes to his vision in
journalism and politics.
But Mr.. Dewey enters journalism and
politics with political ideas and convic-
lions when clouds gather over increas-
ing areas and of more dense darkness.
To enter these fields then was to enter
an arena, it was to enter the very dust
of battle that demanded an energy. a
positiveness of the most commanding
kind.
From 1854 down to 1865 we see this
man, young man from % to 80 years
of age, using all his energies accumu-
lating knowledge relative to our ma
tons political history, and using it by
words written and spoken, when ma
tons anger was at white heat.
A cause throbs in his brain, burns in
his heart, speaks from his lips, as sacred
as ever engaged mans time or thought,
the union of the nation and the freedom
of the slave For his interest in these
he would offer no apology, Tor the sue
cess of these he would $, ike no easy
blow. Now you see, / think that the
very elements dominant in his nature
became intensified when in the ardor of
his early public life he is making per
manent his character.
But that We have so far seen leads to