New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1897-01-27
WATTERSON'S WARNING.
BE Says We Must Have New Birth Of
Morals.

At a banquet in New York on We'd
nesduy, Henry Watterson, the great
Kentucky editor, said: We were a nation
of Individuals We are nation of in
stitutions. The lion across our path
| was the institution of African slavery.
| We survived it. The wolf 1T our door
is the institution of professional anarchy.
We shall survive that, TOO. We have
had our new birth of freedom, hut before
we can come out of the fiery ordeal a
perfect nation, we must have new birth
of morals.
! If the wealth of the country contents
itself with bnying immunity from its
share of responsibility in public affairs
relegatlng its political interests to mere
attorneys in and out of congress, where
shall 1t look for security, when-having
destroyed the popular conscience and
broken down in the popular mind the par
tItion separating right from wrong
agral ianism rises in its might, and in turn
tempting your attorneys with still greater
hribes demands its share of the plllage!
Already the prevailing hue and cry are
:.ga,nst an entity, a word which ignor.
ance ,artfully stimulated by demag'gisln,
has converted into monster OF heart
!essncss and oppression; and yet what is
a corporation but an ASSOCIATION of indi-
viduals seeking by united efforts TO do
what is beyond the reach of its several
members? Why should mans money
he less safe in a bank than in his own
pocket? II citizen, rich or poor, has
some surplus cash, much or little, and
puts it IN railway shares, does he at once
become public cnemy, losing his right
loit!
| The ustcntatlous display Of wealth,
which no law can reach, tends greatly to
augment both the discomfort and the
commumistic theories in which it is laid.
1t requires no seer to predict that if
you do not set and keep your house in
order If the custodlans of the nations
accretions, not only Of wealth,but cul
.urc, and the moulders OF public opin
ion, whose position gives them so great
an authority, do not take from the long
haired dc,nagogue every illustration of
not stop making money long enough to
consider as wise economists just systems
of taxation-lf they go on hugging,
along with their riches, the delusions
that, when the danger line is reached,
they can buy ,ne election = it is only a
question of time when the hortles of dis
order, taking advantage of some one Of
the years of famine which periodically
visit US, and sufficiently organized and
capably led, will sweep over the con-
servative barriers that now restrain
them. Then we shall see done luthless-
| ly by the hands of tile mob perhaps at
! the ultimate cost of free institutions
what had been better done, if committed
in time, to the hands Of statesmen.
Civilization is not dominion, wealth,
material luxury; nay, not even great
| Literature and education, widespread
gsod though these things be. Its true
signs are thought for the poor and suf-
fering, chivalrous regard and respect for
women, the frank recognition of human
brotherhood, irrespective Of race or col
or or nation or religion; the narrowing
of the domain of mere force as a gov
erning factor in the world; the love Of
ordered freedom, adherence of what IS
mean and cruel and vile, ceaseless devo-
ton to the claims of justice. Civiliza-
ton in that, its true, its highest sense,
must make for peace. Lord Chief Jus
tice Russell.