BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-04-29
SAN JUAN, APRIL 29
GREATNESS.

Mr.. Felix Adler has recently in a
lecture compared the late Cecil Rhodes
and Brooker T. Washington and has
decided that the South African states
man lacked the essential qualities OF
or ,atness One might logically add
that from Mr.. Adler's point of view
nobody has been Or will be great. There
is tendency among certain retormers
at the present time to exclude from the
calendar of heroes all names except
those conforming to their own rigorous
and moral ideal Such a tendency IS
not peculiar to the present except
that the ideal is morally SO high
as certainly to rule out everybody.
Only by yelling the imperfections and
apotheosizing the excellencies of heroes
can they command any worship, and
only by insisting arbitrarily upon GER
tain qualities as great in Booker
Washington and by asserting that
the absence of such qualities deprived
Cecil Rhodes of the elements of great
ness could any standard of greatness
be conceived at all. It is this arbitrarl-
ness of selection Of certain virtues as
those which men should worship, and
this tyranny of exclusion of other vlr-
tues as not worth while, that gives the
reforfner of the present day his peculiar
ly exasperating tone.
The purist in politics as well as in
everything else finds himself 1mmed1-
ately hoisted by his own petard. His
trouble is that he can never find con-
crete example of his own ideal of great
ness. Put the searchlight, for instance,
on Booker Washington, with whose
endeavors we have the heartiest SYM
pathy, and we have no doubt that his
nature has certain elements which
would not bear public scrutiny. His
tory is constantly telling the present
generation matters that it wolild prefer
not to known about its heroes of the
past. Out of the kindness Of human
nature dead political and social leaders
spring to greatness. Any exactlng
purist standard only amounts to the
destruction of all standards of life
except those that are so ideal as to be
impossible of ft1lflment The result is
very like the groupings of those purists
in literary style: there is the painful
hesitation of speech lest the eXactest
aud properest word be not used Who
would ever speak would Walter Pater?
If one never spoke unless he obeyed
ex olicitly Walter Paters rule for correct
style: "The one word for the one thing,
the one thought amid a multitud3 of
words, terms that might just do-the
problem Of style is there. So is the
problem of politics and life. And Jet
the rule has never been completely
obeyed.
Moreover, who is to decide between
the different standards Of greatness
Who has the credentials for presuning
to act as ldge in the selection of GER
tain human qua tiles as great and
others as mean? To rale out Napoleon
the Earl of Beaconsfeld Cecil Rhodes,
and other personifcations Of power, is
simply to say that power is not great
Yet that depends on ones poi of
view v, and who is to decide as to points
of view? As a matter of fact, in nature
the sweeping exhibitions of power i'm
press the human mind Just as much as
any other phenomenon. Undoubtedly
the present tendency dogmatically to
select the human virtues would rule
out any romantic or esthetic ideal.
Schiller, for example, said in his "Au-
thentic Essays" that only as man plays
is he truly man.; and such maxim
was the expression of the most remark
able period in German history. For a
truth, the great men have created their
own standards of grea mess, and this
never appeared more clearly than in
Beethoven's recreation of musical
standard. 1t is said that when Beetho-
ven had completed the composition of
the immortal third symphony, the
sEroicas, he summoned few friends to
listen 70 It's first performance AS the
musicians played that famous passage
consis ing Of a combination Of notes
which TO the previous musical world
we dlScordant. prominent pn Ill of
his remarked Those fellows had
better mind their keys" Beethoven
was exasperated. and it is a sufficient
comment on his pupils judgment
(which was merely a traditional judg-
ment) to remark that this combination
of NOES harmony IN the ear of the
snasical gorId today. There is nothing
more stubborn than traditional stan
daris. They all go to ths forming Of
his ~. / 5 Jog gnatizs about them is
% up r mpose 5ne's own opinion upon
the 9plas1 s11s .ot oIners.
Iii Dry las lever been pu is IN
at il has Jud sed re. t. It has
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