Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-06-26

| the knave lose their identity and merge
| themselves into new being. In every
day life we know our limited power and
| do not attempt what we cannot do. AS
part of mob, we feel that we have the
power of all, let ourselves loose and
override our acquired limitations. A
mob does not always do wrong. 1t
sometimes rises to loftier heights Of
self sacrifice than any individual In 1t
would be capable of. The mob need
not be large, nor need it be even a mob.
Many a jury has rendered verdict
which not one man of the panel has
fully approved of.
This singular effect of men upon
men-this fusing of many natures into
one. with all its terrible consequences,
is the basis of the life of our race In
great parliamentary assembly-none
greater in the world have more than
once seen 300 men on the verge of per-
sonal conflict, each selected out of thou
sands, a man of mark in his commu-
nifty, and neither ignorant nor brutal.
What they might have done without
the eye Of the world upon them has al
WAYS been the subject of speculation
and wonder. The same story can be
told of every like assembly in the
world The disorder was not Ameri-
can. 1t was human.
IF all the wicked things were done
with the wicked intent and by single
individuals, we should know how to
purify this world; but it is never so.
AS we look back upon all the great and
far reaching crimes that have been
committed against the human race, we
are sure to find that good men were
conseting like Saul to the death of
Stephen. Wise and noble themselves,
they were overborne unconsclouSly by
the vast mass of their interiors. so
evident TO the candid mind is the COM
parative responsibility of individual
man that the defense afforded by call
ing attention to the age in which he
lived mas given the favorable judgment
of historians to men whose acts, if
they We're judged by our standards,
must nave been handed over to tn exc
crations of mankind.
Men act in crowds, and even if they
are separated physically, act and react
as if they were assembled and visible
to each other. Perhaps what L refer to
can be better understood if 1 remind
you Vi our seventy 1--WE IllllliOllo vi pCo-
pie all governed by parties, bodies of
men who act together and have for the
moment full control. But party plat
forms cannot strike the high level Of
the most sensible men, but must reach
down to the lowest level of the neces
sary voter-hence if you wish to raise
platforms you must raise the lower
strata of the parties.
my purpose is not to complain of
this. 1t is only to state it. This is u
practical world. What we long for sell
dom comes to us in full measure, and
it is wiser to do what we can If we can
not do what we would. Nevertheless
there are cases where an honest man
will have full measure or dash the cup
to the ground. When the Burney men
defeated Henry Clay, they defeated the
man who was nearest to their own
thought, but they were determined on
the whole OF freedom and nothing less.
kAnd they bad it, after due years of
waiting.
But it is not in politics only that our
race is ruled by the multitude. They
nave their say In much else, not always
controlling but always effective. They
are tolerant of new things. They hold
back scientific discoveries because they
conflict with the prejudice of supersti-
tion-the learned as well as the igno-
rant. Too many of the intelligent con-
ceal their wisdom and refuse to make
opposition so ignorance because they
prefer the popularity which comes
| from men to the righteousness which
| comes from Cod
when you look over the history Of
human advances YOU will wonder at two
| things at least, the lateness of the ar
rival and the fierce opposition of those
who were to be benefited. Vaccination
| is still fought over and all labor saving
inventions have had their days of trav-
all. Torture was inflicted in Germany
| within five generations, perhaps within
hundred years. Nobody fought it because
| it was cruel, but because ii did not surely
elicit truth. and the first thought about
| it today-the thought of suffering and
anGuish-was the last thought of a hun
drcd years ago. When we dcca i'm thai
the eternal years of God belong e truth.
and see in Ccstatic vision the triumph Of
the future, we seldom have it in our
thoughts that the reason why truth IS
given the eternal years of Cos is beca Use
she needs them every one We have no
test of truth but eternity. Truth does not
prevail by being known to the wise. It
must penetrate to thc depths of the hui
man race to be prevalent The great i'll
tellects, even, and the great SagcS can
not enjoy truth until we all have it and
until it has been reduced to habit VI
life.
''You need not go far to find proof In
the Augustan age, distinguished even i'll
our day as one of the great eraS of hui
man culture, philosophers and historians,
poets, painters and orators flourishcd
who are today standards of perfection
with which we make admiring COMPARE
SON. Cicero, Demosthenes. Virgil, Hor-
ace, Ovid; these men and all like thein
who lived in that era were not able to
save the age from that most astonishing
of all worships the cult of Romulus and
the Caesars-the worship of mortal men.
The poets at least, were themselves devo-
tees of the cult They believed the Gaze
sars to be divine This, l repeat. was
the Augustan age, when the best citizens
of Rome studied all philosophy and
sounded the depths of human thought:
yet this glittering galaxy of mind AMI
heart could not save Rome from the de-
grading and sycophantic worship of deal
men who were 50 bad while they lived
that their names and deeds are the by
words of history.
But we need not confine ourselves to
things which show the readiness of the
average man to refuse for long periods
the very truth which he afterward
adopts. When the Roman empire dis
solved. the language of Cicero sank for
the unlearned into barbarian patois but
under the wonderful and incomprehensi-
bic power of aggerated man, surged up
again in France in the literature of Mo-