The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-14
THURSDAY, JULY IA, 1904.
A GOOD MAN GONE

Nothing could better sum up the life
Tuesday evening, than this sentence
from the news dispatches announcing
his end: Although many did not be-
heve in his ideas on sociological prob
lens, everybody loved and respected
him."
1t is beautiful tribute to any man
when we can say that, having lived his
life largely in the public eye and held
offices of responsibility and trust, he
died respected and loved by the people.
After all, we place these excellencies Of
disposition, this overlooking generosity
and this broad charity, this altruistic
energy and hope above the highest
achievements Of the intellect, because
this presence in such marked degree is
SO infinitely rarer. 1t would be a poor
world to live in, and one hopeless of
progress, if sentiment and emotion
were to usurp the place of cold, hard
headed fact; but it would be a world
bereft Of beauty and of hope if those
great qualities did not live and flourish
here.
Mayor Jones was a man of great
heart, of instructive benevolence and
of real desire to serve his fellowmen.
The sobriquet of Golden Rule Jones,
that he carried to his death, was an
honest one. He sought and found a
great truth, one that the world has not
yet accepted, in declaring that all that
is needed to clarity both politics and
business is general acceptance of
the simple formula of the Golden Rule.
The highest philosophy could go no
further. This is the essence of the
divinest creed; and the refusal of So
called Christian world to act upon it
constitutes the daily rejection by that
world of its daily crucified Christ. In
his great fundamental proposition
Mayor Jones was absolutely and indis-
putably right That is why the people
instinctively respected, loved and fol-
lowed him.
1t was in his practical application of
the great precept that he, like so many
others, fell into snares. He forgot what
the Master always remembered. that
the realization of the Golden Rule
comes not by statutes or ordinances
5 not out of the mouths of high priests
or lawgivers or centurions, or by Gaze
sar himself, but by Towering into full
beauty in each individual human heart
We shall have the Golden Rule in pub
lie life when it prevails in private life;
when all want it because they love II
and could not respect themselves il
they denied it, and not because it is
forced upon them from without.
The aims of a great. but impulsive
and shortsighted nature, drove Mayor
Jones in the other direction. He
thought that city, county and state
legislatures could accomplish by some
sudden miracle the work to advance
which Christ was crucifed 1000 years
ago. This was the source and center OF
his error. Hence he leaned toward all
sorts OF ridiculous sociological schemes
knowing that the fundamental instincts
OF the people are pure, but forgetting
that these are SO overlaid with the daily
crust of selfishness that we must ap-
peal to the spontaneous and divine, and
not to the human artificiality In them.
This is the common failure of mer
like him. They are in too great haste
= They forget that humanity has beer
untold thousands Of years in the max
$ aag. They forget that the process has