The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-02-24
THE TRUE MARK HANNA.

The greatest editor New England has
produced was Samuel Bowles, editor of
the Springfield Republican. When the
foremost lawyer in Boston died, a man
OF learning and of acknowledged leader
| ship at the bar, Mr.. Bowles made it the
occasion for candid and truthful re-
view OF his life and analysis of his char
acter. 1t was a scathing criticism of
what Mr.. Bowles thought was life that
abe success its God, and had not hest
tated to employ unworthy ends to
achieve success. He gave specifications
of his professional lapses, his advocacy
OF the wrong because it paid, his failure
to use his ability and influence to lift
UP the ethics of his profession and lend
himself to politics and government. 1t
was so severe and so true a delinination
of the dead man as to call forth maledic-
lions upon the head of the candid edi-
tor. Mr.. Bowles replied to the criticism.
justifying his plain and honest obituary,
and declaring that the old maxim SAY
father of lying, of perversion, and of
false biography and untrue history.
He argued that the best time of any
for the proper review of the life of
man is when he is dead-that it cannot
be complete until then. and that love of
truth and historical accuracy ought to
outweigh the fear of wounding the feel
ings of his relatives.
The spirit of this day does not war;
rant such candid treatment of the char
acter of a man lying dead in his home
Jas Mr.. Bowles advocated and practsed,
but there is growing feeling against the
slipping over that breaches the worst
of men into heaven. Sensible men who
feel outraged at an unjustifable attack
upon a dead man, are nauseated at the
fulsome and untruthful eulogy of man
just because he is dead. The old Latin
maxim never justified false praise. Say
nothing except good of the dead" is no
license to say false things and convey
wlong idea. The mantle Of silence may
be thrown over faults. and no vindic-
tiveness should characterize any state
ment about the dead. but it is grave
wrong to seek to convert vice into vir-
tue. ignorance into wisdom, injustice into
justice just because one feels sorry for
the dead mans family.
Mr.. Henry Loomis, formerly editor of
Harper's Weekly, and now the special
Washington correspondent of the Bos-
ton Herald, protests against the fulsome
and indiscriminate eulogy of the late
Senator Hanna in a wise and sensible ar
ticle While admitting that the late
Senator Hanna was "amiable, charitable,
kindly Mr.. Loomis says, that he was
so ito his friends alone,'' and adds that
he was bold. adventurous. a far-seeing
trader. an almost irresistible force in
honorable dealing in business, also an
almost irresistible force with no con-
Germ as to the moral character of his
dealing in politics. He has been called
an example of the highest type of Ameri
can citizenship, then is American citi-
zenship shamed. He was successful. In
that word is summed up the cause of the
homage paid to his memory, and there,
| too, are pointed out the shamefulness,
the sordiness. the utter uEworthiness of
that homage"
The truth is that Mr.. Hanna did more
to introduce wholesale corruption by the
use of money in elections than any man
the country has known. Compared to
Quay and Dudley, his light was like that
OF the Standard Oil trust shining by the
side of tallow candle He was the most.
conspicuous type of the man in politics,
who thinks anything is fair to win. He
knew the power of money and he sought
the support of powerful interests by
transferring to them the power to tax
all the people in return for campaign
contributions to his party. Politics is
business was one of his notices, by
which statement he meant that it was
trading and trafficking. That is not the
ideal held by men of the first order OF
ability and yet some papers and speakers
are holding him up as "a typical Ameri-
can and unless a discrimnative biogra
ply on the line of MI Loomis is written,
many will seek to make young men emu
la,a Mr.. Hanna's political example-an
ideal that would be subsersve of the
sort of politics that makes for civic right
eousneSS.