Daily Kennebec journal., 1906-04-16
IMPOSING RITES
CONTINUED from Page One.)

in public life, is that they invite a re-
| action which is sure to tell powerfully
| in favor of the INSCRIPTIONS 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
| OvcrcC insure Of the unjust finally and
| from similar reasons results in their
| favor.
Any excess is almost sure to invite
| a 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
cr of punishment Of the unoffending or
of giving immunity, and even strength,
to offenders. The effort 10 make
| financial or political profit out Of the
destruction of character can only result
| in public calamity. Gross and reckless
assaults on character, whether on the
| stump or in newspaper, magazine or
| book, create a morbid and vicious pub
| lie sentiment. and at the same time act
| as profound deterrent to able men of
normal sensitiveness and tend to pre-
| vent them from entering the public
| service at any price. AS an instance
| in point, I may mention that one seri-
Gus 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, l am sorry to say, sometimes
within. Congress. to utterly reckless
| assaults on their character and capac-
ity.
At the risk of repetition let me say
again that my plea is, nor for immunity
to but for the most unsparing exposure
of the politician who betrays his trust
| Of the big business man who makes or
spends his fortune in illegitimate or
corrupt ways. There should be a resO-
lutte effort 10 hunt every such man out
Of the position he has disgraced. ,Ex-
| pose the crime, and hunt down the
| criminal; but remember that even in
the case of crime, if it is attacked in
sensational. lurid, and untruthful fash
| ion. the attack may do more damage
| to the public mind than the crime itself
1t Is because | feel that there should be
| no rest in the endless war against the
| forces Of evil that | ask that the war
| be conducted with sanity as well 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 celes-
! tial crown above them to the crown
of worthy endeavor. There are beauti-
full things above and round about
| them; and if they gradually grow to
| feel that the 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 rascalS for distinction
from their fellows. Such painting
| finally induces Il kind of moral color
| blindness: and people affected by il
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 i'm the truth Of the
attack, nor in the honesty of the man
who is attacked; they grow as sus-
picious of the accusation as of the
offense; il becomes well-nigh hopeless
| to stir them 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 honest men.
To assail the great and admitted evils
of our political and Industrial life with
such crude and sweeping generaiZ-
ations as to include decent men in the
general condemnation means the scar
ing of the public conscience. There re-
suits general attitude either of cyni-
cal belief in and Indifference to public
corruption or else of a distrustful in
ability to discriminate between the
,,l M, Il
fraught with untold damage to the
country as whole. The fool who has
not sense to discriminate between what
| is good and what is bad is well-nigh as
dangerous as the man who does dis
| Criminate and yet chooses the bad
Il There is nothing more distressing
to every good patriot, TO every good
American. than the hard. scoffng
| spirit which treats the allegation
of dishonesty in a public man as
cause for laughter. Such laughter is
worse than the cracking of thorns un-
der pot, for it 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 the
world. and there never was a 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
ble. but the forces of truth and love
and courage and honesty and generos-
ity and sympathy are also stronger
than ever before. 1t 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
4 to take into account the strength Of
the forces that tell for good. Hyster-
cal sensationalism is the very 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
| publi. press. or in magazines. or in
books, are the leaders and allies Of all
engaged in the work for social and
political betterment. But if they give
good reason for distrust of what they
| say. il they chill the ardor of those
who demand truth as primary virtue