Daily Kennebec journal., 1906-04-16
President Roosevelt and Other High
Government Officials Take Part.
His Criticism Of Certain Glass Of Men Is
Long and Heartily App|auded.

, of Il nation in which the extraordinary
growth Of population has been out
stripped by the growth Of wealth and
the growth in complex interests. The
material problems that face us. today
are not such as they were in Washing
tons time, but the underlying facts Of
human nature are the same now as
they We're then. Under altered exter-
nal form we war with the same ten
denotes toward evil that were evident
in Washington's time, and are helped
by the same tendencies for good 1t is
about some Of these that | wish to say
word today.
In Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress you
may recall the description Of the Man
with the Muck-rake, the man who
could look no way but downward.
with the muck-rake in his hand: who
was offered a celestial crown for his
muck-rakc hut who would neither look
up nor regard the crown he was offered
but continued to rake 10 himself the
filth of the fIoor
In Pilgrims Progress the Man with
the Muck-rake is set forth as the cx-
ample of him whose vision is fixed On
Carnal instead of on spiritual things
Yet he also typfies the man who i'm
this life consistently refuses to see
auGht that is lofty and fixes his eyes
with solemn intentness only on that
which is vile and dcbasing Now. Il is
very necessary that we should not
1inch from seeing W hat is vile and
debasnc. There is filth on the floor.
ana il must be scrapcd up with the
muck-rakc: and there are times and
places where this service is the most
needed Of all the services that can be
performed. But the man who never does
anything else. who never thinks or
Speaks or writes. save of his feats with
the muck-rakc. speedily becomes. not
help to society, not an Indictment to
good, but one of the most potent forces
70" evil
There arc. in the body polite. eco
nonic and social. many and grave
evils. and there is urgent necessity for
The storncst war upon them. There
should ~ relentless exposure Of and
attack upon every evil man. whether
politician or business man, every OWL
practice. whether in politics. in busi-
ness. nr in social life hail as n
hCrcfHCtor every writer or speaker.
every man who. on the platform. or I'm
book. magazine. or newspaper, with
TI"rcil'ss severity makes such attack.
provided always that he i'm his turn
remembers that the attack Is Of Use
only II II iS absolutely truthful. The
liar i M whit better than the thief.
and II his mrndacity takes the form of
ISLANDER. he may be worse than most
thieves. 1t puts premium upon
knavcry untruthfully to attack an hon
st man. or even with hysterical ex-
aEEera tion 10 asSail a bad man with
untruth. An epidemic OF indiscrimi-
nate assault upon character does not
good, but very great harm. The soul
of every sc0undrel is gladdened when-
ever m honest man is assailcd, or even
when scoundrel is untruthfuly as
sailed.
Nov. ii Is easy to twist out Of shane
what ] have just said, easy to affect to
misunderstood it, and. If 1t is slurred
over in repetition, not difficult really to
nlisunderstand it. Some persons are
sincerely incapable of understanding
that to denounce mud singing does not
mean the Endorsement of whitewash-
ing; and both the interested in
dividuals who need whitewashing, and
those others who practice mud sling
ing. like to encourage such confusion
of IDEAS One of the chief counts
against those who make indiscriminate
Continued on Page Five.)