The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1908-12-17
POLITICS AND MORALS.


with enthusiasm for books and reading:
Chow little do politics affect the life, the
moral life, of nation. One single good
book influences the people vast deal
more
This appraisement of the influence OF
politics is one of the most obviously faulty,
in SO far at least as it relates to republics
or democracies, that the mind of an intelli-
gent man could conceive. Every citizen
of the country comes into contact with his
government sensibly or insensibly, and is
Influenced for better or for worse by the
lessons which he learns Frequent elec-
tons are held for the purpose OF instruct
inc the principles and practices OF gov
eminent and of melting them to take
constant and living interestin public affairs.
What is the lesson which the young learn
when evil gain high place and noisome
corruption is paraded before their eyes?
They are provided with a demonstration in
corruption which is thousandfold more
powerful than the most eloquent preaching
and the most constant exhortation to virtue
and patriotism.
The young man in high school, for
instance, is taught in his class in civics
that the Republic is founded on the virtue
and intelligence of the great mass of the
people, on the willingness of the citizens to
stand up for principle, to make sacrifices
for the common good, to obey the law and
maintain the institutions of the land in all
their vigor and purity. He is informed
that Gin proportion as the government is
less able to command, the people should be
more willing to obey. and that, therefore,
a republic is better suited to moral than
an immoral people," During the whole
process of the education the average youth
is taught that corruption in free country
is a sin and crime against civilization;
that it is the duty of the State to exalt good
and disinterested men and to put an iron
heel upon baseness, crime and jobbery.
He is taught to believe that those who
practice fraud and obliqity are traitors to
the nation and to humility, and that by the
universal judgment of the world they
should be cast into outer darkness and
have no place in the councils of the State
or city. He is influenced to believe that
.corruption wins not more than honesty"
in life. and that the great and good heart
of the people will punish the wicked and
the base and reward the honorable and the
patriotic, and that every citizen should take
as his rule of action that splendid counsel
of Burke's:
''All persons possessing any portion of
power ought TIC be strongly and awfully
impressed with an idea that they act in
trust, and that they are to account for their
conduct in that trust, to the one great
Master, Author and Founder of Society"
Such is the tenor Of the teaching by pre-
cept; but of what possible value is it to a
boy of ordinary intelligence if the horrible
examples in the reality nullify all the
teaching and demonstrate it to be in fact a
fraud and falsehood? There can be no
escape from the effects of the most en-
ightened thorough instruction by word of
mouth, if the young men of to-day are
confronted with the terrible fact that fraud
and rapacity rule the city or the State !;
that the most abandoned and profligate,
the most vulgar and corrupt, the most
shameless and dishonorable elements in
the community, who commit every possible
act that is subversive of morals, decency
and patriotism, are given position and
power; that honesty is condemned, that
good citizenship is at low ebb and the
unworthy and the corrupt are exalted,
made powerful and rewarded in the fullest
measure.
That is an exhibit which will corrupt the
whole people in time; it will destroy morals,
Danish decency and impair popular conf
dence in free government. This is world
of rewards and punishments in the greater
number of minds, and if the people once
become convinced that honesty does not
pay, that only fraud and rascality can
flourish, that good men are at disadvan-
tage, that knaves only can win fame and
fortune and power, who can doubt what
course in the end the greater number will
adopt? "What is liberty asks Burke,
without wisdom and without virtue. 1t
is the greatest of all possible evils, for it is
folly, vice and madness without tuition or
restraint
Let any moderate and careful man con-