The San Francisco call., 1906-04-15

who in this life consistently refuses to
see aught that is lofty and fixes his
eyes with solemn intentness only on
that which is vile and debasing. Now
1t is very necessary that We should not
finch from seeing what is vile and de-
basing. There is filth on the floor and
it must be scraped UP with the muck
rake. and there are times and places
where this service is the most needed
of all the services that can be per-
formed. But the man who never does
anything else, who never thinks or
speaks or writes. save of his feats
with the muck rake. speedily becomes
not help to society, not an Indictment
to good, but one of the most potent
forces for evil.
There are in the body polite, eco
nonic and social, many and grave evils.
and there Is urgent necessity for the
sternest war upon them. There should
be relentless exposure of and attack
upon every evil man, whether politi-
clan or business man. every evil prac-
tice, whether in politics. in business or
in social life. 1 hail as a benefactor
every writer or speaker. every man who
on the platform, or in book. magazine
or newspaper, with mercileSS severity,
makes such attack, provided. always,
that he in his turn remembers that
the attack is of use only If 1t is abso-
lutely truthful. The liar is no whit
better than the thief, and If his men
dacity takes the form of slander he
may be worse than most thieves. 1t
puts premium upon knavery untruth-
fully to attack an honest man. or even
with hysterical exaggeration to assail
a bad man with untruth. An epidemic
of indiscriminate assault upon charac-
ter does no good, but very great harm.
The soul of every scoundrel is glad
rio far.6 =,
sailed, or even when a scoundrel is un-
truthfully assailed.
CRITIC MUST DISCRIMINATE.
TO assail great and admitted evils
of our political and Industrial life with
such crude and sweeping generaliza-
tions as tor include decent men in the
general condemnation means the scar
ing of the public conscience. There re-
suits general attitude either of cynical
belief in and indifference to public cor
ruption, or else of distrustful inabil-
fty 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 to dis
criminate between what is good ano
what is bad is well nigh as dangerous
as the man who does discriminate and
yet chooses the bad There is nothing
more distressing to every good patriot,
to every good American, than the hard,
scoffing spirit which treats the allega-
tion of dishonesty in a public man as a
cause for laughter. Such laughter is
worse than the cracking of thorns un-
der pot, for it denotes not merely the
vacant mind, but the heart in which
high emotions have been choked before
they could grow to fruition.
PERIOD OF UNREST.
AT this moment we are passing
through period of great unrost-so-
cial political and industrial unrest 1t
is of the utmost Importance for our fu-
ture that this should prove to be not
the unrest of mere RIGHTEOUSNESS
against life, of mere dissatisfaction
with the inevitable inequality of condi-
tions, but the unrest of resolute and
eager ambition to secure the better
ment of the individual and the nation
So far as this movement of agitation
throughout the country takes the form
of a fierce discomfort with evils, of
determination to punish the authors of
evil. whether in industry or in politics