The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-09-07


which no legation can possibly supply
or whether they be due to any lack of
wisdom in a portion of the world of la
BORN each case the trouble once start
ed is felt more or less IN. every walk OF
life. 49,
1t is alI-essential to the continuance
of our healthy national life that we
should recognize this community of in
terest among our people. The welfare
of each of us is de.endent fundamen-
tally 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
it is. not to represent any special class
and promote merely that classs selfish
interests. 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
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 member of class,
but on his worth as a man. It is an
infamous thing in our American life,
and fundamentally 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
distinction save the distinction of con-
duct, the distinction that marks off
those who do well and wisely from
those who do ill and foolishly. There
are good citizens and bad citizens in
every class as in every locality, and the
attitude of decent people toward great
public and social questions should be
determined, not by the accidental QueS-
lions of employment or locality but by
those deep-set principles which repre-
sent 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 govern
&c c
such or for the rich such. would
prove fatal to our republic. as such
failure and such recognition have al
ways proved fatal in the past to other
republics. A healthy republican govern
ment must rest upon individuals, not
upon classes or sections. AS soon as it
becomes government by class or by
section it departs from the old Amer
lean ideal
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 wit
messed many and lamentabIe instances
in which people have seized a govern
ment free N form. or have had it be-
| slowed upon them, and yet have per-
mitted it under the forms of liberty to
become some species of desDotism or
anarchy, because they did not have in
them the power to make this seeming
liberty one OF deed instead of one mere
ly of word. Under such circumstances
the seeming liberty may be supplanted
by a tyranny or despotism in the first
place, or it may reach the road of des-
potism by the path of license and an
archy. 1t matters but little which road
is taken. IN either case the same goal
is reached People show themselves
\ just as unfit for liberty whether they
submit to anarchy or to tyranny: and
class government, whether it be the
/ government of a Dlutocracy or the gov
crnment of a mob is equally incompat-
/ ible with the principles esta blished in
the days of Washington and perpetu-
ated in the days of Lincoln.
Many qualities are needed by a peo-
1 PIE which would preserve the power of
self-gcvernment in fact as well as in
name. Among these qualities are fore
| thought shrewdness, self-res traint, the
4 courage which refuses TO abandon ones
own rights, and the disinterested and
( kindly. good sense which ena bles one tC
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 AFRO
gance. envy. in short. any manifesto
/ ton Of the spirit of selfish disregard
whether of ones own duties or of the
rights of others. are equally fatal.
In the history of mankind many re-
publics have risen, have f1ourished fol
/ a less or greater time, and then have
| fallen because their citizens lost the