The Irish standard., 1897-06-12

including the president of the United
States-nor would the absolute control
OF the judiciary-national and state--be
much longer delayed How we are to
be governed, what sort of laws we are
to have, how these laws are to be in
terpreted and executed, all depends ul-
timately on the wishes of the people,
the toiling, restless masses, if
you please, for these by their
numbers are the people, and
nothing can prevent their gaining
complete control of every department OF
government, state and national alike,
except divisions among themselves.
These divisions exist today, and will
continue to exist so long as the meas
ures proposed to be carried by combina-
tion are not wise enough to commend
themselves to all. A perfect combina-
tion will never be possible unless it is
made necessary by the failure of justice.
The moment it becomes necessary, it
will become possible. Such contin-
gency is not to be greatly dreaded, pro-
vided the people who thus come into
power have been educated to such an
extent as we may reasonably expect un-
der our system of public education. To
be governed by ignorance, passion and
prejudice would be an unspeakable ca
lamity; but to be governed by industry,
Intelligence and patriotism is no calam-
ity at all. The great problem, then, that
demands our constant attention is the
wise education of the people. The older
states have always attended to this
with more or less liberality; and the
new states, most all of them, have mag
nificent school funds. No other agency
does so much to assimilate and unity
the different races that are fast filling
up our country, as the public schools.
No other agency does so much to bring
together and make acquainted with one
another the children of different races,
parties, creeds, and to Americanize them
from the first. No other agency does
so much to awaken common spirit of
enthusiasm for our free institutions and
for our country. But education does
not make men content to be treated un-
Justly, or to be trampled on, or to be
doomed to eternal inferiority, when
something better is possible. These cdu-
Gated masses know very we'll that for
their redemption from political wrongs
they have no need to resort to the bullet,
because the ballot can gain for them
everything which was ever gained by
the bloodiest of revolutions. An intelli-
gent people, no matter of what class, or
of what occupation, will desire such po-
aitical action as will be best for them
selves, and in the end it will be found
that what is best for the majority is best
for all. The men who are intelligent
and the men who own property, or hope
to own property, are, and are likely to
continue to be for long time to come,
much more numerous than the illiterate
and the men who neither own nor hope
to own property. They are not likely
by which the right of private property
shall be destroyed. either by direct
assumption of all property by the state
or by more insidious process of con-
1iscation of the fruits of mans in
dustry and self-denial. Of course, there
are elements in some of our large cities
not destitute Of education, but so utterly
bad that they are ready for any change,
however bloody and destructive. But as
yet these anarchists constitute a very
anconsiderable part of our population,
and are little to be feared, except as the
Insane crank is to be feared, who, care
less of his own life, may succeed in TAX
dng most valuable lives of others. So
long as our country is not over-popu-
lated, so long as new land may be OBJ
tained almost for the asking, so long as
permanent home and supporting in
come can be insured by honest industry,
the great majority of our people will re-
main as they are, law-abiding and law
respecting. But if the time should ever
come, as I pray God it may not come,
when the same conditions which malzs
poverty in London so common and so
pftfable, such conditions as have existed
largely in Europe and have made the
common people spend lives of little COM
fort and have caused multitudes of them
to seek for something better in our own
land-if such conditions should ever
come to exist here, our people, accus-
toned for generations to comfort and
plenty, would never endure these new
conditions which the poor of Europe
nave endured for ages with only an oc-
casional outbreak of frenzied despair.
and which the poor of Asia endure at
the present time with the same sense
less patience as that with which their
ancestors have endured it for untold
years in the past.
s'Allow not nature more than nature
needs,
Mans life is cheap as beast's.'
& a people who, like the toilers Of our