Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1899-11-11
ALTGELD'S TALK.
Lectures Before the Students and
People of Grinnell at Rand Gym
nasium.


nasiuln.
Special to Times Republican.
Grinnell, Nov. 11.-Gov. Altgeld lee
tured last night in Rand gymnasium,
but not on the subject announced,
which was THE Philosophy of the
Democracy of Thomas Jefferson" The
speaker was introduced by Prof. Her
ron who said that Gov. Altgeld was a
man who sees as no other man in
American politics does the dangers that
menace the American public. That
plutocracy and militarism had need of
i each other and that the two acts of Mr..
Altgeld, for which he had been abused
as no other man in politics had, We're
those for which he would be most
praised In the future. He meant the
pardon of the men convicted as acces-
sorry before the fact at the Haymarket
land the resistance of federal troops
when not called for. Governor Altgeld
Il said his subject would be Moral Law
| in Politics. Moral philosophy was
something that would never cross the
orbit of many practical politicians. A
young man once asked Boss Tweed
what he should take up in order to
make an honest living and earn an hon
orable career, and the great exemplar
of practical politics told him to go into
ilanything he chose that was certain to
have no competition. The violation OF
physical law brought punishment, swift
4 and inexorable; the moral system is
governed by law as the physical system
was and it's violators are equally GER
ltain of punishment. Not sometime ir
1.-THE dim future. Neither can the viola
Ition be condoned or forgiven. Success
lobtained by violation of moral law is
8 failure, is atrophy, death. We are be-
lginning to understand the moral law
AS men descend the scale they fail t.
note the consequences, but they are
4 sure. The theory that violations of the
moral law can be wiped out, cleared
Iup, forgiven. is strewing the earth witt
misery. Dollars obtained by fraud arr
tainted with blood and not only no
down the houses of their possessor, bu
THE men who have them. The individ
ual not only suffers for his own acts
but also the system by which he mad'
them This is true of both the sneal
thief and the great railroad man. Tn
Icities, especially the state capitals, ar
strewn with wrecks of young men
ruined by their environment-the wisl
to be good fellow destroys many. Tn
lpast thirty years of politics have beel
oolorless politics in both great parties
that is to say, neither party has pro
duced great man, for in order to sue
, coed a politician must be a smooth
straddling fellow to suit everybod
, and able to write platform tina
!, means nothing and to fool as many PEG
!, ple as possible. There is now an aston
ishing derth of great men in public life
while in every other activity of lif
great men are coming to the front con
tinually. He believed we are on the ev
i of great developments in political an
social life, when only positive men ar
required. The trimmer, the waverel
v will not be wanted, nor the all aroun
y good fellow, but the men will appea
e All great crises develop great mel
!. The governor assured the young men {
$ Iowa Collese that no great man G
n great nation ever became SO except b
: being of lofty ideals.
s Professor Heron, in his introductio
t of Governor Altgeld, said that he ha
e sacrificed a political career to his idea
d of right as opposed to expediency.