Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-04-17

say, if they chill the ardor of those
who demand truth as primary virtue
they thereby betray the good cause
and play into the hands of the very
men against whom they are nominally
at war.
I'm his Ecclesiastical Polity that fine
old Elizabethian divine, Bishop Hook.
er, wrote:
che that goeth about to persuade a
multitude that they are not so well
governed as they ought to be, shall
never want attentive and favorable
hearers; because they know the mani.
| fold defects whereunto every kind of
regimen is subject, but the secret lets
and difficulties, which in. public pro-
ceedings are innumerable and inevita-
Bile, they have not ordinarily the judg-
ment to consider
"This truth should he kept constant
ly in mind by every free people desir-
ing to preserve the sanity and poise in
dispensable to the permanent success
of self government Yet, on the other
hand, it is vital not to permit this spir-
| it of sanity and self.command to de.
generate into mere mental stagnation
] Bad though state Of bysterical excite.
ment is, and evil though the results
are which come from the violent oscil.
lations such excitement invaribly pro
| duces, yet sodden acquiescence 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 utmost. Importance
for our future that this should prove
to be not the unrest of mere rebellious-
ness against life, Of mere dissatisfac-
ton with the inevitable inequality of
conditions, but the unrest of resolute
and eager ambition to secure the bet
terment Of the individual and the ma
ton. So far as this movement of agi-
tation throughout the country takes
the form of fierce discomfort with evil,
of determination to punish the au-
thors of evil, whether in industry or
politics, the feeling is to be heartily
| welcomed as sign of healthy life
eff, on the other hand, it turns into
mere crusade of appetite against appe-
tite, of a contest between the brutal
greed of the 'have-nots' and the brutal
greed of the 'haves,' then it has no sig.
nificance for good, but only for evil.
If it seeks to establish line of cleay.
age, not along the line which divides
good men from bad. but along that 9th.
er line. running at right angles there.
to, which divides those who are well
off from those who are less well off
then it will be fraught with immeasur.
able harm, to the body polite.
1--WE can no more and no less afford
| 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 justice in the
effort to bring some trust magnate to
an account for his misdeeds is as bad
as, and no worse than, the so-called
| labor leader who DANGEROUSLY strives
| to excite foul class feeling on be
half of some other labor leader who is
Implicated in murder. One attitude is
as bad as the other, and no worse; in
each case the accused is entitled tc
exact Justice; and in neither case is
there need of action by others which
can be construed into an expression
of sympathy for crime.
st is a prime necessity that If the
present unrest is to result in perma
nent good the emotion shall be trans
lated into action, and that the action
shall be marked by honesty, sanity
and self-restraint There is mighty
| little good in mere spasm of reform
The reform that counts is that which
comes through steady. continuous
growth; violent emotionalism leads tt
exhaustion
at is important to this people Il
grapple with the problems connected
with the amassing Of enormous for
tunes, and the use of those fortunes
both corporate and individual, in bust
ness. We should discriminate in tht
sharpest way between fortunes we'll
won and fortunes ill-won; between
those gained as an incident to per
forming great services to- the com
munity as whole. and those gained
in evil fashion by keeping just within
the limits of mere law-honesty o
course no amount of charity in spend
ing such fortunes in any way compen
safes for misconduct in making them
AS a matter Of personal conviction
and without pretending to discuss thu
| details ar formulate the system l. fee