The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-04-29

with Maria Wilmerding'S husband,
when she had only went over to Rab-
bit Ford folks to visit her married
daughter No, they can't fool me
them papers"
That's one way of looking at it,"
said l.
ITS horse sense" says he.
And I've no doubt that to the aver
age citizen, leading a small, quiet life
and dealing with affairs in corner
grocery retail, the stupendous facts
of accumulations of wealth and whole
sale, far-and-wide purchases of the
politicians, the vast system of
bribery, with brides adapted to every
taste and conscience, seem impossi-
bilities, romancings of partizanship
and envy and sensationahsm. Nor
can he understand the way superior
men play the great games, the heart
lessness OF ambition, the cynicism of
political and commercial prostitution,
and the sense of superiority to the
/ legal and moral codes which comes to
men with success.
Your average citizen is a hero-wor-
shipper, too. He knows his own and his
neighbours weaknesses, but he gapes
up at the great with glamoured eyes,
and listens to their smooth PLAUSIBLE
| tiles as to the reading of the Gospel
from the pulpit. He belongs to the
large mass Of those who believe, not
to the small class Of those who ques-
ton. But for the rivalries and
| jealousies of superior men which have
kept them always divided into two
parties, the ms and the outs, I mag
inc the masses would have remained
/ forever sunk in the most helpless, if
the most delightful, slavery-that in
which the slave accepts his lowlinesS
as a divine ordinance and looks up to
his oppressors and plunderers as hero
/ leaders. And no doubt, so long as
/ the exuberant riches of our country
enable the triumphant class to take
care of" all the hungry who have in
/ telligence enough to make themselves
/ dangerous, we shall have no change
except occasional spasms whenever a
! large number of unplaced intelligent
hungry are forcing the full and fat to
make room for them. How long will
this be?
If our education did not merely
/ feed prejudices instead Of removing
them, should say not long. AS it is,
l expect to leave the world as wick
ed and as foolish as l found it," At
any rate, until the millennium, shall
4
rules of human nature-instead of I'M
der the rules of human ideals, as does
my esteemed friend Scarborough.
And l claim that we practical men
are as true and useful servants of our
country and of our fellow men as he.
If men like him are the light, men
like US are the lantern that shields
1t from the alternating winds Of ra-
pacity and resentment.
But, in running on about myself, I
have got away from my point, which
was how slight and even flimsy a
pretense of fairness will shelter a
man in high place-and therefore a
Burbank. "He will fool the people as
easily as he fools himself" said l.
And more than ever it seemed to me
that must keep out of the game
of his administration. My necessity
of party regularity made it impos-
sible for me to oppose him; my
equal necessity of not outraging my
sense of the wise, not to speak OF
the decent, made it impossible for
ME to abet him.
At last Woodruff came in person
When his name was brought to me
l regretted that could not follow my
strong impulse to refuse to see him
But at sight of his big strong body
and big strong face, with its typi
cally American careless good humor
the cool head. the warm heart, the
amused eyes and lips that could alst
harden into sternness of resolution
at sight of this old friend and com
panion-in-arms, my mind began Il
lift and l felt him stirring in it Hk'
sunshine attacking a fog. Il know
what you've come to say" 1 began
but DON'T say it. shall keep tt
my tent for the present"
: Then you won't have a tent t
keep to-" retorted he.
Very well" said I. MY private
affairs will give me all the occupa
ton I need .
: He laughed. 'The general resign!
from the command of the army tt
play with a box of lead soldiers"
THAT sounds WELL" said / But tn,
better the analogy, the worse tn,
logic. I am going out Of the business
of making and working OFF golC
bricks and green goods-and that's n,
analogy"