The Washington times., 1905-10-29

III order not to go backward, is to
develop an aristocracy of public
service; an aristocracy that will
recognize the benefits it has received
and pay them back honestly in serv-
ices for the public veal That is
Theodore Roosevelt's best message to
the youth of America, his greatest
service to humanity. Is the strong
meat of that doctrine too rich for our
enfeebled digestions; are we too
much enervated by money to get
sustenance and strength from that
concentrated wisdom?
Man must eat. he must be clothed,
he must be housed against the seq
sons difference. he must beget his
kind. Having provision for all these,
what shall he do with the surplus of
his energies, the overplus of his
wealth, the remainder of his time?
Shall he engage in the ignoble effort
to heap money on money? Shall he
dissipate his energies and waste his
time in the meaningless pleasures of
ostentation and ridiculous display
Shall he dawdle and fritter away his
life like an overgrown baby? Or
shall he develop his faculties and
make manly return to the public by
intelligent service and high-bred con-
sideration?
The life of the individual is a con-
tinual strife with the tendencies that
IL yielded to weaken and degrade; !;
the life of the nation is a constant
warfare between the forces that make
for Righteousness and the brutal DOW
ers of ignorance, bigotry, prejudice.
and corruption. Practical politics,
which should mean reasonable poll
cies and the wisdom of compromise.
mas come TO be term of reproach
and stigma of corruption. The
machinery Of our governmental, as
well as our financial, institutions has
been seized by as powerful and merci-
less band OF robbers as ever took
toll from the commerce of the Rhine;
and their henchmen are the con-
scienceless slaves who feed of the
crumbs dropped from their groaning
tables. There Is also a vast, a moral.
but a weak and idiotic rabble, that
believe as they think their fathers
believed; who vote as they fancy
their fathers would have voted; and
who are regular" always in their
confirmed imbecility 1t used to be
considered respectable TO abstain
from politics on the theory that nc
man could reform that sink of in
iquity, bat that all who attempted it
must surely become soiled. That day
has passed; the man who is too ele-
CANT to take a hand in the fight is
now looked upon as a shirker and a
coward; the morality that cannot
come off clean from an encounter
with the politics of the day is looked
at askance; and a new spirit has
been breathed into the dry bones of
our decayed parties. 1t is for that.
1t is because he represents a prtn-
ciple, the coming spirit of America,
that We love and respect Theodore
Roosevelt.
There is a duty, an opportunity, for
our young men Of means; there Is an
obligation to service that rests upon
them; they must labor and wait, as
to each it may be given, not for their
own honor. not for their own glory
or advancement; for the honor, for
the advancement, for the cleansing
and the healing of the nation. They
are on trial, they are being weighed !:
Ii is with them TO decide whether
they shall be found wanting or not
We have sinned, we have gone
wrong for the lack of an aristocracy
with an established code of ethics.
We have erred in our calculations
because our only yardstick has been
the micrometer of money. Concern
ing the outlook, we wish TO be hone
ful; but we know that no complaisant
Providence will set back the clock of
time or reverse the immutable laws
or development for our benefit. We
must work out our own salvation.
trusting in the spirit of righteousness
both for the will and the power to
do. The obligation is in our way:
ne who stumbles over It may be
broken, but he upon whom 1t falls
VIII be ground to powder.
There are now two heroes of New
Orleans.