Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-09-07

No. 15,767.
they be due to our own fault or to our mis-
fortune, whether they be due to some burst
of speculative frenzy that has caused a por-
ton Of the business world to lose Its head
loss which no legislation can possibly
supply-or whether they be due to any lack
of wisdom in portion of the world Of labor
in each case the trouble once started is
felt more or less in every walk of life.
Community of Interest.
1t is all essential to the continuance Of
our healthy national life that we should
recognize this community of interest among
our people. The welfare of each of US is
dependent fundamentally upon the welfare
of all of US, and therefore in public life that
man is the best representative of each of us
who seeks to do good to each by doing good
to all; in other words, whose endeavor 1t
is not to represent any special class and
promote merely that class's selfish inter-
ests, but to represent all true and honest
men of all sections and all classes and to
work for their interests by working for our
common country.
We can keep our government on a sane
and healthy basis, We can make and keep
our social system what it should be, only
on condition of judging each man, not as a
member of a class but on his worth as a
man: 1t is an Infamous thing in our Amer
lean life. and funda mentally treacherous to
our institutions, to apply to any man any
test save that of his personal worth. or to
draw between two sets of men any distinc-
ton, the distinction of conduct,
the distinction that marks off those
who do well and wisely from those
who do i'll and foolishly There are
good citizens and bad citizens in every
class as in every locality, and the at
ifr1In nf tny1r arrc n
and social questions should be determined,
not by the accidental questions of employ
ment or locality, but by those deep-set
principles which represent the innermoSt
souls of men.
The failure in public and in private life
thus to treat each man on his own merits,
the recognition of this government as being
either for the poor as such or for the rich
such, would prove fatal to our republic
as such failure and such recognition have
always proved fatal in the past to other re-
publics A healthy republican government
must rest upon individuals, not upon classes
or sections. AS soon as it becomes govern
ment by a class or by a section it departs
from the old American ideal.
Lamentable Instances in Last Century.
1t is, of course. the merest truism to say
that free institutions are of avail only to
people who possess the high and peculiar
characteristics needed to take advantage of
such institutions. The century that has
just closed has witnessed many and la
mentable instances in which people have
seized government free in form, have
had it bestowed upon them and yet have
permitted 1t under the forms of liberty to
become some species of despotism or an
archy, because they did not have in them
the power to make this seeming liberty
one of deed instead of one merely of word.
Under such circumstances the seeming lib
erty may be supplanted by tyranny or
despOtism in the first place, or it may reach
the road of despotism by the path of il
cense and anarchy. 1t matters but little
which road is taken. In either case the
same goal is reached. People show them
selves just unfit for liberty whether they
submit to anarchy or tyranny; and class
government whether 1t be the government
of a plutocracy or the government of
mob is equally incompatible with the prin-
ciples established in the days of Washing
ton and perpetuated In the days of Lincoln.
Many qualities are needed by people
which would preserve the power Of self gov
ernment in fact we'll as in name. Among
these qualities are forethought. shrewdness
self-restraint, the courage which refuses TO
abandon ones own rights and the dfsinter-
ested and kindly good sense which enables
one to do justice to the rights of others.
Lack of strength and lack of courage unfit
men for self government on the one hand;
and on the other brutal arrogance, envy,
In short. any manifestation of the spirit of
selfish disregard. whether of ones own du-
ties or Of the rights of others, are equally
fatal.
Why Republics Have Fallen.
In the history of mankind many republics
have risen, have fourished for less or
greater time, and then have fallen because
their citizens lost the power of governing
themselves and thereby of governing their
state; and in no way has this loss of power
been so often and clearly shown as In
fha 70 fIrrr ha in
a government primarily for the benefit OF
one class instead of a government for the
benefit of the people as a whole.
Again and again in the republics of an
cient Greece in those of medieval Italy
and medieval Flanders, this tendency was
shown and wherever the tendency be-
came a habit it invariably and inevitably
proved fatal to the state In the final re-
suit 1t mattered not one whit whether the
movement was in favor of one class or of
another The outcome was equally fatal,
whether the country fell into the hands of
a wealthy oligarchy which exploited the
ton of a turbulent mob which plundered
the rich. In both cases there resulted
violent alterations between tyranny and
disorder, and a final complete loss of liberty
to all citizens-destruction in the end over
taking the class which had for the moment
been victorious as well as that which had
momentarily been defeated. The death
knell of the republic had rung as soon as
hands of those who sought, not to do JUS
tice to all citizens rich and poor alike but
to stand for one special class and for its
interests as opposed to the interests of
others.
Why Our Future is Assured.
The reason why our future is assured lies
in the fact that our people are genuinely
skilled in and fitted for self-government and
therefore will spurn the leadership of those
who seek to excite this ferocious and fool
ish class antagonism. The average Amer
lean knows not only that he himself intends
to do about what is right, but that his aver
age fellow countryman has the same inten-
ton and the same power to make his inten-
ton effective. He knows, whether he be
business man, professional man, farmer,
mechanic, employer or wage-worker, that
the welfare of each of these men is bound
up with the welfare of all the others; that
each Is neighbor to the other, is actuated
by the same hopes and fears, has funda-
mentally the same ideals. and that all alike
have much the same virtues and the Sama