Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1902-11-21

dividual Initiative Are the Sources,
He Says, of National strength-some
Inconvenience In Our Form of
Government Pointed Out.
The Founders day celebration in
Carnegie's hall at Pittsburg attracted
an immense throng the other after
noon. The address was made by White
law Reid, editor of the New York
Tribune. Mr.. Reid spoke on the sub
ject, The overnment-Wherein Lies
Its Great StrengthT' and said in part
as follows:
I'VE all believe in our form of gov
ernment. In fact, we are intolerant be-
levers in ii. Every child learns TO
think that it is the best in the world,
not only for us, but for all men. Ev-
cry demagogue learns to below first
from the cart tail his unlimited, un-
questioning certainty of that superior
ity and universal applicability.
Il am not here to dispute the belief
only to define the facts about it. If our
not be so because 1t is the cheapest.
On the contrary, Ii is one of the most
expensive in the world, with more paid
lawmakers than any other. higher sal
aries generally for subordinates, though
with very unworthy scrimping in some
Of the most important places like the
judiciary. higher pay on government
contracts, more lavish appropriations
for internal improvements and the
costliest army in proportion to number
and work.
"Our form of government cannot be
the best because it is the most efficient.
On the contrary, it is one of the slow
est in the world, the most complicated,
cumbrous and limited Our foreign rep
resentatives have been again and again
humiliated by appeals from citizens
abroad whom we could not or did not
protect against impressment, with our
passports in their hands, into the mill
tary service of other countries. Every
few years we are all humiliated before
the world because of riotous outrages
on Italians or on Chinese or on other
foreigners. which some state has not
suppressed or atoned for and the ma
ton has no adequate control of. This
very year there could be found for five
months no power in the state of Penn
sylvania or in the United States to stop
disorder and riot in the coal mines, and
finally that imperative work had TO
be done by voluntary effort outside the
constitutional processes or authority
Of the high Office that successfully in
tervened.
"Even within the spheres in which it
will work our form of government Is
not the easiest to work. On the con-
trary, it requires, to keep it running
successfully. more public spirit, more
study about candidates, more time for
multitudinous elections, local, state and
national; more watchfulness Of public
officials, and higher average of intel
ligence than any other In the world
| and no one has ever shown that with
out this alert and devoted public spirit,
this unremitting attention and this
high average of intelligence 1t could
have achieved its best successes OF
could now maintain them. Some Of our
states repudiated their public obliga
tions, and it took vehement and long
continued efforts to get the disgracefu
action reversed"
Mr.. Reid said the men who formed
the government had no notion Of its
universal applicability and in this con
nection remarked:
mot until 1865 was it even established
throughout the United States that ev
cry man has the right to sell his owr
labor, and in 1902 in your state and II
mine there were still found a great
many men, including pitiful number
Of exceptionally ignorant or emotiona
clergymen and some people callet
statesmen, who considered such righ
so doubtful that they were not ashamed
to urge, for the sake of peace and coal
that it should be submitted to arbitra
ton"
Proceeding to answer his own ques
ton, "Wherein lies its great strength? 2
Mr.. Reid said:
'"The answer has become truism
Its strength lies in the quality of mai
it develops. The real merit is not ii
the machinery, but in the skilled intel
ligence absolutely required to franz
and to work it; in the combination o
respect for authority on the one han'
with training In individual initiative
| hrip py
out and which the government ha
thus far scrupulously and religiousl.
guarded.
1--WE brought the respect for author
ity from the birthplace Of the commo
law, and in proportion as injustic
from its officers was resented In tn
old home, in like proportion the la,
itself was instinctively elevated into
veritable pillar of cloud by day an
of fire by night in the wilderness
the new world. We found the ind
vidual initiative in the necessities Q
an untamed continent; were driven
{ it, shut up to it at every turn-in tn
imperative beginning Of orderly sci
government at a thousand isolate
spots, in the long protracted struggl
, with wild lands, wild beasts and viii
men-till it became the inheritance
the race. To such continental col
Z quest of nature and of men have thos
two traits Of the fathers brought us
their respect for authority and the
widest freedom of individual initiative