The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1907-06-20

their former good reputation, they car
work infinitely greater harm than the
men who make no pretense of being
honest or sincere in public affairs. II
is among the great numbers of we'll
intentioned but wavering individuals
who have a desire to do right that the
college man can be effective. Unless
such people are organized under men
who lead them in the right direction
many, of them will be led in the wrong
direction of the ~unprincipled polite,
ians who are always organized. It is
not only in high official positions that
men of good judgment, integrity and
Gus, at the primary at the polls and in
convention. 1t seems to me it is
just as much the duty of an American
citizen to do his share in protecting
the nation or the community against
the invasion OF political free-booters
when the danger of such invasion
arises, as it is for him to fight on the
battlefield against the invasion OF a
foreign enemy. 1t doesn't matter
much in what rank he does the work,
personal duty connected with the duty
of citizenship which none of US should
try to escape.
Looking at the matter from one
point of view, it is a great deal easier
not to dip into politics at all, but to
calmly submit to what often seems in
evitable and pay the price of such sub
mission. Nor does an intimate exam
ination into the motives AND real char
acter of many of the men who control
our affairs Lead us to any desire to
emulate them. A very cynical as well
as o~bservant modern writer sums up
the matter in the following words:
"Then you will take to politics,
wnere you become the catspaw of cor
rupt f~unctionaries and the henchmen
of ambitious humbugs; III the end
will be despair and decrepitude, brok
en- nerve and shattered hopes, vain
regrets for that worst and siliest of
wastes and sacrifice-the waste and
sacrifice Of the power of enjoyment;
in a word, the punishment of the fool
Who pursues the better before he mas
secured the good"
Of the people who have made what
some call a success" in political life
he caustically says. "They are no
moral; they are only conventional.
They are not religious, they are only
~pew-renters; they are not loyal, they
are only servile; not dutiful, only
sheepisn; not public spirited, only pa
triotic; not courageous, only quarrel
some; not determined, only obstinate;
not masterful, only domineering; not
self-controlled, only obtuse; not self
respecting, only vain; not Intelligent,
only opinionated; not just only vim
d~ictfve; not generous, only propitia-
tory, and not truthful at all :
Such expressions as these by intel
and experienced men consti-
in themselves a very sad com
mentary on the way in which, politics
and politicians are regarded by the
very people who ought to be promi-
nent in our public affairs. quote
them to ou, not for the PURPOSE of
warming you against taking part il pol
but of impressing upon You the
great necessity of doing your part to
bring about conditions which will
make sucn comment impossible.
There is a far higher and ,nobler
way in which educated and sincere
men and women should look uppn the
problems of our political and econo-
life. 1t is only through edueation
careful study such as that you
have received in this institution, that
men can be trained to seek and deter
mine the underlying truth in present
as you and others for o
ave been able to determine what is
rue in science, literature and history.
Mankind in all ages has loved the
and the great body of men, at the
time love the truth. The main
purpose, indeed, il training our intel
.ects is to enable US to determine for
ourselves what is the truth in any par
line of investigation which we
nay be called upon to make. 1t has
well said that we estimate the
of a nation by the truths it
brings to light, and hat those al
cient nations which have risen to
great power and prestige and then
persisted hold their place in ~posterity,
according to the great truths they
nave left behind them, which cannot
lie. The men who a worked ont
e~nunciated these truths are the
men who are immortal and who live
IN in lives made better by their pre-
While it is a fact hat many
If the great truths of political science
to have been brought to M
consciousness of men stimulated by
ear, or by the owe of the results of
he truth rather than the love of the
itself, such has not by any
means been the case. Men inspired
~ a great idea. the truth of which has
70 impressed Itself on them that they
we're willing to sacrifice everything