Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-14

mind than the crime ITSELF 1t Is because
toel that there should be no rest in the
endless war against the forces of evil that
ask that the war be conducted with san
ity as well as with resolution. The men
with the muck rakes are often fndispensa-
Bile to the well-beinE Of society. but only
IL they know when to stop raking the
muck, and ito 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 they grad
ually grow to feel that the whole world is
nothing but muck, their power OF useful
ness Is gone
No Room for Distinction.
IF the whole picture is painted black
there remains no hue whereby to single out
the rascals for distinction from their fell
lows. Such painting finally induces kind
OF moral color blindness, and people af-
fected 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 or
the attack, nor In the honesty OF the man
who Is attacked; they grow as suspicious
of the accusation as of the offeDse; II be-
comes well-nigh hopeless TO stir them eth
err to wrath against wrongdoing or TO en-
thusiasm for what Is right; and such
mental attitude in the public gives hope to
every knave and is the despair OF honest
men.
ITO assail the great and admitted evils
of our political and industrial life with
such crude and sweeping CONGRATULATIONS rs
to include decent men IN the general COZ
demnation means the soaring OF the pubic
conscience There results general atti-
tude either of cynical belief in ana ind1-
ference to public corruption or else of
distrustful inability to discriminate between
the good and the bad. Either attitude IS
fraught with untold damage to the eoun-
try as whole. The fool who has nor
sense to 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
distressing to every good patriot, to every
good American, than the hard. soothing
spirtt which treats the allegation or DIS
honesty in public man as cause lof
laughter Such laughter is worse than the
cracking of thorns under a pot, for 1t de-
notes not merely the vacant mind, but the
heart In which high emotions have been
chokedr before they could grow to fruition.
Much Good in the World.
ssThere is any amount of good in the
world, and there never was time 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 terrible, but the forces of truth
and love and courage and honesty ana
generosity and sympathy are also stronger
than ever before. 1t is foolish and timid.
no less than wicked thing, to piihk the
fact that the forces of evil are strong, Dut
IT is even worse to fail to take into account
the strength of the forces that tell for good.
Hysterical sensationaIisin Is the very poor
est weapon wherewith to fght 1or lasting
righteousness The men who with stern
sobriety and truth assail the many evils
of our time, whether in the pubic press
or in magazines, or in books. are the lead
ers and allies of all engaged in the work
for social and political betterment but IL
they give good reason for distrust or what
they say if they chill the ardor of those
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 nomina1ly at war
"In his Ecclesiastical Polity that fine old
Elizabethan divine, Bishop Hooker, wrote:
He that goeth about to persuade null
titude that they are not so well governed
as they ought to be shall never want at
tentive and favorable hearers; because they
know the manifold defects whereunto every
kind of regimen is subject but the secret
let's and difficulties, which In public pro-
ceedings are innumerabIe and inevitable.
they have not ordinarily the judgment to
consider
Truth Should Be Kept in Mind.
s'This truth should be kept constantly in
mind by every free people desiring to pre-
serve the sanity and poise indispensable
to the permanent success of self-govern-
ment Yet, on the other hand, 1t Is vital
not to permit this spirit of sanity and self
command to degenerate into mere mental
stagnation.
Bad though state of hysterical excite
ment is and evil though the results are
which came from the violent oscillations
such excitement invariably produces, yet
sodden acqufescence in evil is even worse.
At this moment we are passing through
a period of great unrest-social, political
and industrial unrest. 1t is Of the ut
most Importance for our future that this
should prove to be not the unrest of mere
Righteousness against life of mere dissat-
isfaction with the inevitable inequality or
conditions. 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 dis
content with evil, of determination to
punish the authors of evil, whether in in
dustry or politics, the feeling is to be heart
fly welcomed as a sign of healthy life.
IF, on the other hand, it turns into
mere crusade of appetite against appetite,
of contest between the brutal greed of
the 'have-nots and the brutal greed of the
HAYES then it has no significance Tor
good, but only for evil. If 1t seeks to es-
tablish a line of cleavage, not along the line
which divides good from bad, but
along that other line, running at right an
giles thereto, which divides those who are
well off from those who are less well of.
then 1t win be fraught with Unreasonable
harm to the body polite.
Condone Evil in Neither Glass.
I'VE can no more ana no less afrord to
condone evil in the man of capital than evil
in the man of no capital. The wealthy man
who exults because there is a failure of jus
tice in the effort to bring some trust mag
nate to an account for his misdeeds is as
bad as and no worse than, the so-called
labor leader who DANGEROUSLY strives to
excite a foul class feeling on behalf of some
other labor leader who is implicated in muir
der One attitude Is as bad the other,
and no worse; in each case the accused is
entitled to exact Justice; andsin neither case
is there need of action by others which can
be construed into an expression of sympa-
thy for crime.
1T is a prime necessity that il the pres
ent unrest Is to result in permanent good
the emotion shall be translated into action.
and that the action shall be marked by hon.
esty sanity and self-restraint There is
mighty little good in a mere spasm of re-
form. The reform that counts is that which
comes through steady, continuous growth;
violent emotionalism leads to exhaustion.
1T is important to this people to grapple
with the problems connected with the
amassing of enormous fortunes, and the use
of those fortunes, both corporate and indi-
vidual in business. We should discrirn-
mate in the sharpest way between fortunes
well won and fortunes i'll won; between
those gained as an incident TO performing
great services to the community as whole
and those gained in evil fashion by keeping
inst within the limits of mere law honesty.