The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1907-08-02

By the death of Senator Pettus a
few days ago and that of his col
league, Senator Morgan a few
months ago, the State of Alabama
has lost her two venerated sons and
the Senate of the United States two
of her most useful and most honored
members. Neither the eighty-hve
years of the one nor the eighty-three
years of the other had chilled their
love of country nor dampened their
ardor in serving her.
No man ever questioned the zeal
and sincerity of heart which animal
ed the fiery ardor with which Sena-
tor Morgan fought the construction
of the Panama canal, however much
he might have failed to accept the
Senator's logic; and the whole coun-
try united in its approval OF the
patient industry and temperate de-
auctions of Senator Pettus as a men,
Der of the recent Brownsvilleinquiry.
There are those who seek the toga
before they have fairly taken up the
pruning hook; who don the wig be-
fore they havefairly felt the down on
their cheek; who drop into the scar
and yellow leaf before they have
found out for what they were born.
The public man who is thus con-
structed cannot be relegated to the
rear too soon, and in fact it frequent
ly happens that it would have been
better for the world had he never
been born. But there are men who
instead of thus whitening away and
becoming mere cumberers of the soil
are possessed by nature which is
perennial in its freshness; who in
stead of being seventy years old are,
like mark Twain, seventy years
young; whose hearts are as buoyant
and natures as cheering as a college
boys, and whose increasing age
merely means increasing knowledge
and poise of mind. Who, for instance,
can point to young man in this State
whose vigor of mind and body ex-
ceeds that of him whom we are wont
to call the Grand Old Man? And we
have many more built on the same
pattern.
If then our premisis be correct, the
inevitable conclusion is that it would
be an untold calamity to relegate a
public man to the rear as has been
lately suggested, merely because he
has reached a time in life when his
knowledge is full, his judgment ripe
and his passions tempered by rich
experience in public life.
The younger man, hungry for OPP
portunity and honors, may reason
with himself that in the course of
nature his turn will come and that
when it does the doctrine of forbear-
ance will sound doubly sweet.
Life is a stream in which there is
room for the oldest as we'll as the
youngest, and a distinct loss will
follow for both the party and the
State if one is tossed stranded on the
shore in the high noon of life. Far
be it from us to discount the ardor
and dash of youth; we believe that
no party is too full of men to find a
place of usefulness for every youth,
no man too great to recognize merit
whenever it exists; no Office too lofty
to be beyond the possible grasp of
every citizen; no public officer so
fixed in his tenure as to be beyond
the searching reach of his people as
to it's conduct.
With a hearty cooperation be-
tween youth and age, a battering
down of all walls between the classes
and the masses and harmonious
effort on the part of all to give the
State an unimpeachable administra-
ton from the top to the bottom, no
enc need fear that the people of
Maryland will hesitate to show at
the polls in November their unques-
tionable preference for Democratic
rule.
JUDGE LYNCH'S COURT.
At a late hour on SATURDAY. night