The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-04-14

utterly reckless assaults on their
/ character and capacity.
Not for Immunity.
At the risk of repetition let me say
| again that my plea is, not for inn
I munity to but for the most unsparing
/ exposure of the politician who betrays
4 his trust of the big business men who
ma kes or spends his fortune in ilfe-7
climate or corrupt ways There.
should be a resolute effort to hunt
I every such man out of the position e
1 has disgraced- Expose the crime and
! hunt down the criminal. but remem-
Der that even in the case of crime. if
/ it is attacked in sensa tional. Iurid, and
untruthful fashion, the attack may do
more damage to the public mind than
the crime itself It is because I feel
that there should be no rest in the
endless war against the forces of evil
that I ask that the war be conducted
with sanity as we'll as with resolution.
The men with the muck-rakes are
often indispensable to the well-being
OF society: but only if they know
when to stop raking the muck, and to
look upward to the celestial crown
above them. TO the crown of worthy
endeavor. There are beautiful things
ABOVE and round about Them and IL
I they gradually grow to feel that the q.
whole world is nothing but muck,
their power of usefulness is gone. If
the whole picture is painted black
there remains no hue whereby to
single out the raseals for distinction
from their fellows. Such painting
finally induces a kind of moral color
blindness, and people affected by it
come to the conclusion that no man
Is really black. and no man really
white, but they are all gray. In other
words, they neither believe in the
truth of the attack. nor in the honesty
of the man who is attacked: they
groW as suspicious of the accusation
as of the offense; it becomes we'll
night hopeless to stir them either to
wrath against Wrongdoing or to en-
thusiasm for what is right; and such
mental attitude in the public gives
I hope to every knave, and is the de-
spain of honest men.
To assail the great and admitted
evils of our political and Industrial life
/ with such crude and sweeping gen
! eralizations as to include decent men
j in the general condemnation means
I the soaring of the public conscience
! There results a general attitude either
/ of cynical belief in and Indifference
/ to public corruption or else of dis
I trustful inability to discriminate be-
/ tween the good and the bad. Either
| attitude is fraught with untold damage
1 to the country as a Whole The fool
VINO has not sense to discriminate be-
( tween what is good and what is bad is
! Wen nigh as dangerous as the man
/ who does discriminate and yet chooses
/ the bad. There is nothing more dis
/ tressing to every good patriot. to every
/ good American. than the hard. scoff7ng
spirit which treats the allegation of
| dishonesty in public man as a cause
/ Tor laughter Such laughter is worse
/ than the cracking of thorns under a
pot, for it denotes not merely the va
cant mind. but the heart in which
high emotions have been choked be-
fore they could grow to fruition.
Much Good In the World
There is any amount of good in the
rrlH
when loftier and more disinterested
work for the betterment Of mankind
was being done than now. The forces
that tend for evil are great and ter
rible. but the forces of truth and love
and courage and honesty and gen
crosby and sympathy are also stronger
than ever before. It 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. HystericaI
sensationalism is the vefy poorest
weapon wherewith to fight for lasting
righteousness The men who with
stern sobriety and truth assail the
many evils of our time, whether in the
books are the leaders and allies of all
engaged in the work for social and
political betterment4 But if they give
good reason for distrust of what they
say, II lQey emil the dfdOF OF AInOSe
who demand truth as a primary virtue,
they thereby betray the good cause,
and play into the hands of the very
men against whom they are nom
inally at war.
In his Ecclesiastical PoIity that fine
old Eliztoethan divine. Bishop Hooker,
wrote;
HE that goeth about to persuade a
multitude that they are not so well gov
erned as they ought to be. shall never
because they know the manifold de-
fects whereunto every kind of regimen
is subject. but the secret lets and diff
culties, which in. public proceedings
are innumerable and inevitable, they
have not ordinarily the judgment to
consider"
This truth should be kept constantly
in mind by every free people desiring to
preserve the sanity and poise indispen-
sable to the permanent success of self
government. Yet, on the other hand, it
is vital not to permit this spirit of san
rty- and self-command to degenerate
into mere mental stagnation Bad
though a state of hysteFical excitement
is and evil though the results are
which come from the violent oscillations
such excitement invariably produces,
yet a sodden acquiescence in evil is
1 even worse. At this moment we are
passing through a period of great I'M
rest-social, political and industrial un-
rest. It is of the utmost importance for
our future that this should prove to be
not the unrest of mere Righteousness
against life. or mere dissatisfaction
with the inevitable inequality of condi-
| tons but the unrest Of a resOlute and
eager ambition to secure the betterment
of the individual and the nation. So
far as this movement of agitation
throughout the country takes the form
of a fierce discomfort with evil, of a de-
termina 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 appe-
tite. of a contest between the brutal
greed of the ..have-nots' and the bru-
tai greed of the HAYES" then it has no