Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-04-17
MAN WITH The MUCK RAKE
SCORED BY Roosevelt
really to misunderstood 1t. Some per.
sons are aincerelx Inca hlo Of ,1ndar

standing that to denOunce mud sling
ing does not mean the Endorsement of
whitewashing; and both the interest
ed individuals who need whitewashing
and those others who practice mud
Singing like to encourage such con-
fusion of ideas. One Of the chief
counts against those who make indis-
criminate assault upon men In bust
ness or men in public life, is that they
invite a reaction which is sure to tell
powerfully in favor of the unscrupu-
lous scoundrel who really ought to be
attacked. who ought to be exposed,
who ought, if possible, to be put in the
penitentiary. If Aristides is praised
overmuch as just, people get tired Of
hearing it; and overcensure of the un-
just finally and from similar reasons
results in their favor.
offense and Punishment
ANY excess is almost sure to invite
reaction; and, unfortunately, the re-
action, instead of taking the form of
punishment Of those guilty of the ex-
cess, is very apt to take the form eth
er Of punishment of the unoffending
or of giving Immunity, and even
strength, to offenders. The effort to
make financial or political profit out Of
the destruction of character can only
result In public calamity. Gross and
reckless assaults on character, wheth-
er on the stump or in newspaper, mag
azine, or book, create morbid and vi
cious public sentiment, and at the
sametime act as a profound deterrent
to able men OF normal sensitiveness
and tend to prevent them from enter
Ing the public service at any price.
AS an instance in point, may mention
that one serious difficulty encountered
in getting the right type Of men to dig
the Panama canal is the certainty that
they will be exposed, both without,
and, I am sorry to say, sometimes
within, congress, to utterly reckless
assaults on their character and capac-
ity.
Right Kind Of Exposure.
"At the risk of repetition let me say
again that my plea is. not for immu-
nifty to but for the most unsparing ex-
posture Of the politician who betrays
his trust, of the big business men who
makes or spends his fortune in illegiti-
mate or corrupt ways. There should
be a resolute effort to hunt every such
man out Of the position he has dis
graced. Expose the crime, and hunt
down the criminal; but remember that
even in the case of crime, If it is at
tackled in sensational, .lurid, and I'M
truthful fashion, the ATTACK may do
more damage to the public mind than
the crime ITSELF 1t is because 1 feel
that there should be no rest in the end
less war against the forces of evil that
l ask that the war be conducted with
sanity as well as with resolution. The
men with the undertakes are often In
dispensable to the well-being of So
-ciety; but only If they know when to
stop raking the muck, and to look up
ward to the celestial crown above
them, to the crown of worthy endeay-
or. There are beautiful things above
and round about them; and If they
gradually grow to feel that the whole
world is nothing but muck, their pow
er Of usefulness is gone If the whole
picture is painted black there remains
no hue whereby to single out the ras-
Gals 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 be-
lieve in the truth Of the attack, nor in
the honesty Of the man who Is at
tackled; they grow as suspicious Of the
accusation as of the offense; it be-
comes well nigh hopeless to stir them
either to wrath against wrong-doing or
to enthusiasm for what is right; and
such a mental attitude in the public
gives hope to every knave, and is the
despair of honest men.
TO assail the great and admitted
evils of our political and Industrial life
with such crude and sweeping general
izations as to include decent men in
the general condemnation means the
soaring Of tho public conscience. There
results general attitude either Of Gym
ical belief in and indifference to public
corruption or else of distrustful in
ability 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 discriminate between
what is good and what is bad is we'll
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, scoffing
spirit which treats the allegation of
dishonesty in public man as cause
for 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 before
they could grow to fruition.
The Good in the World.
There 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 terri
BILE, but the forces of truth and love
and courage and honesty and generos-
ity and sympathy are also stronger
than ever before. 1t is 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