The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-05-22
WHAT MUST BE DONE NOW
In the Face of the Dangers Threaten
ing The Republic.
(From The Congregationalist.)


Now we are not so unjust, we hope,
as to accept as true a wholesale in
dictment of business men as such,
| especially individuals who manage
their own business. have high ideals
and are satisfied with q reasonable re-
| turn on their Investments. The bust
ness men who have turned business
! into treason are relatively few but
| especially conspicuous, and they work
| under the form OF the corporation or
monopoly. They tolerate methods as
directors of corporations which, had
they remained individual employers
| they would have scorned to employ.
They water stocks and capitalize air,
| and expect the public to pay diVi-
dends on the same. They bride mem
| bers of boards of education. munich
pal legislators and national parties
They steal with one hand and donate
to churches, colleges, hospitals and
to social betterment with the other.
They denounce anarchy imported from
Europe, and manufacture it them
selves at home. They would be in
suited were their loyalty to democracy
challenged, when in sooth they are
both spokesman for plutocracy and it's
eXemplars.
Obviously, if these things be true,
those who believe in honesty in bust
1,
ties to perform.
Public officials who stand for truth
and rectitude must be retained in Of
flee, and be honored while they live
not after they are dead.
Journals and journalists which eX-
pose corruption must be read and not
left to suffer for their candor.
ClerSymen must denounce corrupt
practices, though to do so under pres
an To- ls4s
far more professional and personal
risk than it did to denounce the slav-
cry of the negro race.
Leaders of society who decide social
status must, as President Hadley, of
Yale, argues boycott and exclude
proved thieves and traitors to the re-
public, however generous their prof
fers to education and religion.
Poets must arise with prophetic
messages like Whittier's Ichabod and
Lowel's Bigelow papers.
Universities and colleges must
choose honorable competency or pow
erty with freedom of speech and 10y
atty to ideals, TO overlooking treasures
and co-partnership with wrong-doers.
Courts must punish those who steal
millions as well as those who steal
hundreds, and if they lack power to
grapple with predatory wealth and
Venal commerce, they must be given it
by lawmakers.
Unless the call now made upon pa.
triots meets with response from the
educated Christian men and women of
the groups we have named above. de-
mocracy cannot last here; and dying
here, how great the shudder of sad
ness throughout the world "How
long do you think the American Re-
public will endure?" asked Guizot, the
french publicist and historian, of
Lowell the American patriot and
critic. $50 long as the ideals of its
founders continue to be dominant"
replied Lowell, who said that
he meant by ideas-the racial
and moral ideals of the
founders of the Republic. "Be
faithful to your national ideals" were
the last words Of James Bryce to Alice
Freeman Palmer, as she parted from
him in England just before her death
If we sell our souls for a mess of
pottage, who Will become the idealists
of the world? The Slavs, whom we
now affect to despise