Bisbee daily review., 1908-07-07
THE HON. MARK SMITHS GRAFTON
At DOUGLAS ON THE 4TH OF JULY

that education be disseminated among
the masses so that the ballot box shall
record the viii of a people who know
what they are doing. No republic ever
has and no republic ever will succeed
for long if education of its people be
neglected Vice follows in the foot
path OF ignorance and when those
vices abound which undeniably tend
TO debasement sleeping the poor and
ignorant still deeper in poverty and
ignorance and thereby destroying that
wholesome mental equality which can
alone sustain a self-ruled people, 1t
will be found by woeful experience
that our happy system Of government,
the best ever desired for the intelli-
gent and good, is the very worst 10 be
intrusted to the degraded and vicious
and as ignorance prevails caballears
and demagogues will find it an easy
task to delude those who have delud-
ed themselves and the liberties of the
people will finally be entombed in the
grave of their virtues.
The elder Adams at the cradle of
the republic proclaimed the fact that
we must educate or We must perish.
He did not mean that each should
have a diploma from a university, but
he meant that all should have some
education, that all should read and
write, so that ear. might exercise
with intelligence the great duties and
powers incident to American citizen
ship. The education of which l SPEAK
must be moral as well a smental. for
education without virtue is of no avail
And without such moral. as wen as
Intellectual equipment general among
the masses we have no guarantee of
permanency for our Institutions The
great nations of antiquity passed 10
silent, pathetic dust by reasons aris-
ing within the state, and not from
dangers besetting them from otner
nations. Their downfall resulted from
the disintegration of the moral and in
tellectual forces that had made them
great and if we neglect this most i'm
portant of all our duties to our coGn-
try, ourselves and our God we may ex-
pect the fate of nations to overtake
and overwhelm us. No nation can last
when civic pride and public virtue are
gone. For the truth of this, / appeal
TO history. Tel me, thou chTonicler
of the grave, can all the illusions of
ambition realized, can all the wealth
of universal commerce or all the
achievements of successful heroism
alone secure to any empire or nation
permanency of its possessions? The
historian tells US that Troy thought
so once, but the land of Priam lives
only in song. So thought the Palmyra
of the ancient world; where is she?
So thought the land of Demosthenes
and the Spartan, yet. Leonidas IS
trampled by the tinid slave and Ath-
ems insulted by the servile. mindless
and inervate Ottoman. In his hurried
march time has but looked at their
imagined Immortality and all their
vanities from the palace to the tomb
have gone, leaving no impression of
his footsteps.
Problems of government will re-
main to our children as hard to solve
as any that We or our father have
met 1t may be that they cannot solve
them as happily. We know they can
not do it if they disregard the educa-
tion of the masses, morally as well as
intellectually. The man who would
amend our constitution by his ballot
should be able to read both the ballot
and the constitution.
There are problems ahead OF us
demanding wise solution. Let not ig-
nOrance, envy, malice or personal sell
fishness enter into its solution To
| the observant there are visible signs
of an approaching titanic struggle. On
the one hand are the forces OF greed
and avarice blown with pride and in
solent with power: on the other the
spirit Of a vague but rast unrest-a
spirit of revolution striking with blind
| fury at existing conditions, a spirit
which would substitute anarchy roI
misrule and chaos for corruption. Woe
! to him who can see no peril in the on
nious activity of the spirit of unrest
Woe to him who mock5 at the blind
Z Sampson as he strains at the pillars
/ of the temple. To ally these cOndi
| tiOns patriotism makes a trumpet cal
to the yeomanTy of our country 10 se
Yigilant IN maintaining the integrity
] of law and order, in the enforcement
/ OF justice and equality under the law
| There is another danger to be
! watched. 1t is the spirit of a false
1 commeHialism now abroad in the
1 land which holds all men in derisior
| who would not sacrifice the deares
| principles of government for present
| personal gafn-the spirit OF govern
| mental patrunase-the craze to holC
office at any price and perform an!