The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-06-28
oping a world wide class feeling. It
likewise has learned the power Of CO

likewise has learned the power Of co
operation.
What will be the state Of society and
Of politics in this republic seventy years
hence, when some Of the children now
in school will be still living? Shall
we preserve the government of the
constitution, the equality of all citizens
before the law and the purity of JUS
tice, or shall we have the government
| Of either money or the mob?
The answers to these questions Will
depend largely upon the kind Of in
struction the people Of that day draw
from their newspapers, the text books,
the orators, the preachers Of the
masses. 5.
It is not too much to say that the
press is the only great organized force
which Is actively and as a body uphold
ing the standard Of civic Righteousness.
There are many political reformcrs
among the clergy, but the pulpit as an
institution is concerned with the king
dom of heaven, not with the republic
Of America. There are many public
spirited lawyers, but the bar as a pro-
fession works for it's retainers, and no
law defying trust ever came to grief
from a dearth Of legal talent to serve
1t. Physicians work for their patients
and architects for their patrons. The
press alone makes the public interests
its own. "What is everybody's bust
ness is nobody's business" except the
journalists. 1t is his by adoption. But
for his care almost every reform would
fall stillborn. He holds officials to
their duty. He exposes secret schemes
of plumber. He promotes every hope
full plan of progress. Without Linn
public opinion would be shapeless and
dumb. He brings all classes, all pro-
LESSONS together and teaches them to
act in concert on the basis Of their
common citizenship.
The Greeks thought that no republic
could be successfully governed if it
were too large for all the citizens to
come together in one place. The
Athenian democracy could all meet in
the popular assembly. There public
opinion was made, and according as
the people listened to a Pericles or to
a Cleon the state flourished or declined.
The orator that reaches the American
democracy is the newspaper. 1t alone
makes it possible to keep the political
blood in healthful circulation in the
veins Of a continental republic.
Virtue, said Montesquieu, is the prin-
ciple of a republic, and therefore a re-
public, which in it's purity is the most
desirable Of all forms of government, is
the hardest of all to preserve, for there
is nothing more subject to decay than
virtue.
Our republic and it's press will, rise or
fall together. An able, disinterested,
public spirited press, with trained intel
ligence to know the right and courage
to do it, can preserve that public vir-
tue without which popular government
is a sham and a mockery. A cynical,
m%ercenary, demagogic press will pro-
duce in time a people as base as itself.
The power to mold the future of the
republic will be in the hands of the
journalists of future generations. This
is why | urge my colleagues to aid the
important experiment which l have
ventured to endow. Upon their gen.
erous aid and cooperation the ultimate
success of the project must depend.