Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1903-10-23
BRArTLEBoRo, FRIDAY, OCT. %, 1908
Good Citizenship.

We are hearing a great deal about
good citizenship now a-days. 1t has
been the keynote of many of the
speeches of President Roosevelt in his
recent travels about the country. He
has emphasized, again and again, the
honesty, industry and true patriotism
the patriotism that cares for the
welfare and honor of it's country in
peace as well as in war.
And now ex-President Cleveland is
sounding the same strain. In speech
before the Commercial club at Chicago
last week, he showed the national peril
that exists in class hatred and political
corruption and urged its determination
in the awakening of good citizenship
to take it's part in political action. Self
satisfaction, cupidity and civic listless-
ness he declares, have brought about
conditions in which the public life Is
saturated with the indecent demands
of selishness; "the corruption of our
suffrage, open and notorious, the buy
ing and selling of political places for
money, the purchase of political favors
and privileges, and the traffic in offic-
ial duty for personal gain. These things
are confessedly common"
He continued:
'If our nation was built too much
upon sentiment, and if the rules of
patriotism and benignity that were fol-
lowed in it's construction have proved
too impractical, let US frankly admit it.
But if love of country, equal oppor-
tunity and genuine brotherhood in cit
izenship We're worth the pains and
trials that gave them birth, and If we
still believe them to be worth preser-
walton and that they have the inherent
vigor and beneficence to make our re-
public lasting and our people happy,
let us strongly hold them in love and
devotion.
Then it shall be given us to plainly
see that nothing is more unfriendly to
the motives that underlie our national
edifice than the selfishness and cupid
ity that look upon freedom and law
and order only as SO many agencies in
aid of their design. Our government |
was made by patriotic, unselfish and |
sober minded men for the control and |
protection of a patriotic, unselfish and
sober minded people. 1t is suited to
such a people, but for those who are
selfish, corrupt and unpatriotic it is the
worst government on earth. 1t
is time that there should be an end of
dissatisfied qualification or pretence
of virtue, in the phrase, i am not a
politician and it is time to forbid the
prostitution of the word to a sinister
USE Every citizen should be politician
enough to bring himself within the
true meaning Of the term. as one who
concerns himself with the regulation
or government of a nation or state for
the preservation Of it's safety, peace
and prosperity This is politics in its
best sense and this is good citizenship"
Here is food for serious individual
thought. President Roosevelt and ex-
President Cleveland are among the
most practical and sensible thinkers of
the day. and the fact that they lay I
great stress on the need of individual
honesty in this country makes it worth {
our consideration. Are we attending I
faithfully and unselfishly to the duties,
small or great, that may come our way {
in the administration of government?
Do we do all we can to have the public
matters of our village, town or state
attended to in such a way as to pro-
mote the good of the community, or
are we thinking of personal gain, or
indifferently, altogether out
Of it?
If we are really good citizens and, as d
we undoubtedly believe, patriots, we
shall think of these things, and keep I
ourselves on the straight line of active
1uty National honesty and endurance
begins in the individual.