The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-04-15

l assault upon men In business or men Tn 1 public life. is that they invite a reaction i which Is sure to tell powerfully in favor l of the interruptions scoundrel who really ought to be attacked. who ought to be ex- posed, who ought if possible. to be put in the penitentiary.-lf Aristides Is praised | overmuch as just, people get tired of i hearing it; and overcensure of the unjust finally and from similar reasons results in 1 their favor.
 l Any excess Is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, unfortunately, the. reac- i tioh. instead of taking the form of pun | ishment of those guilty of the excess, 1 is very apt 10 take the form eltner of punishment of the unoffendng or of giv- l ing immunity. and even strength to of 1 lenders. The effort to make financial l or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result n public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or 1 in newspaper. magazine. or book create i morbid and vicious public sentiment and at the same time act as a profound ] deterrent to able men of normal sen sltveness and tend to prevent them from l entering the public service nt any price. i Az an instance in point 1 may mention that one serious difficulty encountered in getting the right type of men lo dig the Panama Canal is. the certainty that they will be exposed, both without, and l l am sorry to say, sometimes within, Congress, to utterly reckless assaults on their character and capacity.
 At the risk of repetition let me say again that my plea is. not for immunity to but for the most unsparing exposure of 1 the politician who betrays his trust of l the big business man who makes or spends his fortune in illegitimate cor 1 rupt ways There should be a resolutc i effort to hunt every such man put of the position he has disgraced Expose 1 the crime and hunt down taa criminal; l but remember that even in the case of i crime, if it is attacked in sensational, lurd, and untruthful fashion, the attack may do more damage to the public mind i than the crime itself. IL js because l I feel that there should be no rest in the endless war against the forces of evi l that l ask that the war he conducted with sanity as well as with resolution i The men with the undertakes are often | indispensable to the well-being of society; l but only if they know when to stop rals- ing the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. to tho crown of worthy endeavor. These are beautiful things above and round about 1 them, and if they gradually grow to feel that the whole world Is nothing but mock, their power of usefulness is gone. If the whole picture is painted black there re-
 
 rascals for distinction from their fellows Such painting finally induces a kind G moral color blindness; and people affected 1 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 i attack nor in the honesty of the man who is attacked; they grow as suspicious l of the accusation as of the offense it 1 ,icyh to elf either to wrath against wrongdoing 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 hon i est men,
 Sears Public Conscience.
 "ro assail the great and admitted evils l of our political and industrial lie with such crude and sweeping generalizatlors as to include decent men in the general condemnation means the soaring of the public conscience. There results gen eral attitude either of cynical belief in and indifference to public corruption or else of a distrustful inability to discrim- mate between the good and the bad. I Either attitude is fraught with untold damage to the country as a whole The fool who has not sense to discriminate i 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 distress ing to every good patriot, to every good American, than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dshon- esty in a public man as a cause for | laughter. Such laughter Is worse than the cracking of thorns under a pot for Fit denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked before they could grow to fruition.
 There is any amount of good in tho 1 world. and there never was 4 time when loftier sAld more dislnterested work for I the betterment of mankind was being dcne than now. The forces that tend for evil are great and terrible but the forces of truth and love and courage and hon l esty and generosity and sympathy are also stronger than ever before, It is q foolish and timid. no less than a wicked thing, to blink at the fact that the forces of evil are strong, but it is even l worse to fail to take into account the strength of the forces that tell for good. Hysterical sensationalism is the very poorest weapon wherewith to fight for l lasting righteousness. The men who with stern sobrety and truth assai the many evils of our time. whether in the public press, or in magazines or in books, are the leaders and allies of all engaged in the work for social and political better ment. But if they give good reason for dstrust of 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 nomlnally at war.
 Quotes Bishop Hooker.
 In his Ecclesiastical Polity that fine old Elzabethan divine, Bishop Hooker wrote
 He that goeth about to persuade multitude that they are not so well gov erned as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favorable hearers because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regimen is sub ject but the secret lets and difficulties, winch in public proceedings are innu- merable and inevitable, they have not or drarily 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 sanity and self-command to degenerate into mere mental stagnation. Bad though state of hysterical excitement sand evil through the results are which come from the lwiolent oscillations such excitement invari- 1 ably produces, yet a sodden acquiescence | in evil is even worse. At this moment we are passing through a period of great unrest--social. political, and industrial un- rest. 1t is of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove to be not the unrest of mere rebellious- ness against life, of mere dissatisfaction