Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1908-01-17
Good Talk.

cit would not be possible to tell
the evil influenza of the youth OF TO-
day IL they believed that the qualities
of integrity aud industry were out
grown and out of date, and that per
manent success could be achieved by
sleight of hand. The American
people must never forget that the
explanation of failure is not the
equivalent of success. There has
been within few years past a dis
position to reverse the order of inliu-
enoe aud authority among the people
of this country Communities were
formerly guided, and In large meas
ure governed, though unoliicially,
by the intelligent and thrifty among
their number. Success honestly &C
CURED was an example for emulation.
Competition was regarded as higher
than envy. influence depended upon
ability to elevate and advance, and
not upon the power to destroy The
opinions of one who had accumulated
fortune and INDUCED in no self
praise we're held higher than those of
one who had never accumulated any
thing and exalted his failure into
virtue. This order, if it has not been
reversed, is in danger of reversal.
Ambition is giving way to discomfort.
The energy necessary to success is
often expended in criticism of those
who have already succeeded. The
policy now seems to be not tn acquire
for oneself but to denounce the man
who has. The degree of success
measures the flow of denunciation.
A mans influence depends too much
upon the harm he can do. No one
expects the citizen, daily engrossed
in building, charging, accommodating,
has either the time or inclination to
destroy. He seems, therefore, to re-
ceive little consideration except as a
text, while the discontinued and un
ruly, who sees more for himself in a
distribution of the earnings of others
than in the slow process of earning
for himself, is the active and burn
ing figure of today. Where is the
end, and what will it beY In time
of such success and plenty as the
world has never seen it's example in
all the ages of the world the spirit of
unrest now stalks abroad, and is any
man so dense he does not know un-
rest to be the seed of revolution 1t
no longer haunts the alleys or speaks
in whispers, but it holds the centers
of the crowded thoroughfares. 1t
fiaunts itself in public ways and
places, and checks, intlmidates and
threatens. 1t controls as seldom be-
fore except through revolution. 1t
has not hunger to invite nor wrong
to infiame it. 1t revels in comforts
which are hardly less than luxurious.
The advantages of this inventive and
powerful age are within its grasp.
All those blessings which are thought
to bring peace, and contentment are
at hand. Yet never before, 10 our
country at least, was there palmer
drift to make idIeness a profitable
employment, discomfort badge of
distinction and demagogy sign of
light. The public is headed down
the road and the new type of public
official strives only to place himself
at the head of the crowd. His cry
is not justice but popularity, not
tair play but power. He acts not to
command respect but to draw the
crowd. There is only one test of
right and wrong for him, viz: What
does the majority want? No matter
what may come tomorrow If he can
be cheered to-day The ideas now
most popular are also most danger
Gus. The clamor is for sthe limita-
ton of fortunes, forgetting that that
also means the limitation of.industry;
for the curtailment of the power of
the courts, forgetting that that means
dividual; for the equality of men by
arbitrary rule, forgetting that this
means to clog the industries and help
the lazy. The spirit now abroad if
given rein would make the incompe-
tent equal by law to the skilled, the
dissolute equal to the sober, the
cheat and the shirk equal to the
honest man. The people when they
try can raze every thing to the ground.
They may unmake or remake their
constitution. They may,if they like,
abolish their courts and legislatures