The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-04-17

sc the accusation as of the onense; Il
becomes welI-nigh hopeless to ,Vir them
| ether TO wrath against wrongd, Ing ol
to enthusiasm for what Is right: and
such mental attitude in the uuclic
| gives hope 10 every knave, and IL th.a
| despair of honest men.
| To aSsail the great and admFted
evils Of our political and industrial
| life with such crude and sweeping gsa-
| eraliZations as TO include decent men
| in the general condemnation means the
| soaring OF the public conscience. Theirs
results a general attitude either of
cynical belief in ard Indifference TO
public corruption or else of a distrust-
full inability TO discriminate between
the good and the bad Either attitude is
fraught with untold damage to the
country as a whole. The fool who
has not sense 10 discriminate between
what is good and what is bad is WELL
nigh as dangerous as the man who
does discriminate and yet chooses the
bad there is nothing more distress
ing to every goo patriot, to every
good American, than the hard. scoff-
| ing spirit which treats tie allegation
a
cause for laughter Such laughter is
worse than the cracking Of thorns
under pot for it denotes not merely
the vacant mind but the heart in which
right emotions have been choked before
they could grow TO fruition:
There is any amount of good in the
world, and there never was Il time
when doftier and more disinrerested
work for the betterment of mankind
was being done than now. The forces
! that tend for evil are great and terri
Bile, but the forces of truth and love
an dcourage and honesty and generos-
| ity and sympathy are also stronger
than ever before. 1t is a foolish
and timid. no less than a wicked thing,
to blink the fact that the forces Of
evil are strong, but it is even worse
to fail to take into account the
strength of the forces that tell for
good. Hysterical senSatiOnaliSm is the
very poorest weapon wherewith to fight
for lasting Righteousness. The men
who with stern sobriety and truth as
sail the many evils Of our time,
| whether in the public press, or i'll
| magazines, or in books. are the lead
ers and allies of all engaged in the
work for social and political better
ment But if they give good reason
for disuust of what they say, il they
chill the ardor of those who demand
truth as a primary virtue, they there
| by betray the good cause, and play
into the hands of the very men
against whom they are nominaily at
war.
In his Ecclesiastical Polity that fine
old Elizabethan divine, Bishop Hook
| er wrote:
This truth should be kept constant
| 1y in mind by every free people de-
string to preserve the sanity and
poise indispensable to the permanent
| success of self-government. Yet. on
| the other hand, it is vital not to per-
| nit this spirit of sanity and self
command to degenerate into mere
| mental stagnation. Bad though
state of hysterical excitement is, and
evil though the results are wh.cn
come from the violent oscillations
such excitement invariably produces,
yet a sodden acquiescence in evil is
even worse At this moment we are
passing through a period Of great I'M
| rest-social, political, and industrial
unrest It is of the utmost Importance
for our future that this should prove
to be not the unrest of mere rebel
| liousness against life, of mere dis
satisfaction with the inevitable ine-
quality of conditions, but the unrest
of a rssolute and eager ambition to
secure the betterment of the individ-
ual and the nation. So far as this
movement of agitation throughout
the country takes the form Of fierce
| discomfort with evil. Of determine
ton to punish the authors Of evil,
whether in industry or politics, The
feeling is to be heartily welcomed as
a sign of healthy life.
| If. on the other hand, it turns into
a mere crusade of appetite against
appetite. of a contest between .he
brutal greed of the "have-nots" and
the brutal greed of the "haves". thea
| it has no significance for good, put
only for evil If it seeks to establish
a line of cleavage, not along the line
which divides good men from bad,
but along that other line, running at
right angles thereto. which divides
those who are well off from those who
are less we'll off, then it will be
fraught with immeasurable harm TO
the body polite.
We can no more afford to condone
evil in the man of capital than evil
in the man of no capital. The wealthy
man who exults because there Is
failure of justice in the effort to bring
some trust magnate TO an account for
his misdeeds is as bad as. and no
worse than, the so-called labor lead
er who clamorously strives TO excite
a foul class feeling on behalf Of some
other leader who is implicated In
murder. One attitude Is as bad as
the other, and no worse; in eacr
case the accused is entitled TO exact
Justice; and in neither case is there
need of action by others which car
be construed into an expression oi
sympathy for crime.
1t is a prime necessity that II 'he
present unrest is TO result in perma-
nent good the emotion shall be trans