The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1910-04-29

| speak in great university which
represents the flower of the highest
intellectual development: | pay all
homage to intellect, and to elaborate
and specialized training Of the intel
iect; and yet know | shall have the
assent Of all you present when | add
that more important still are the com.
monplace, everyday qualities and yir-
tues.
The Evils of Steriity.
IN the next place the good man
should be both a strong and a brave
man; that is, he should be able to
fight, he should be able to serve
MS country as soldier If the need
arises. There are Well-meaning phil
osophers who declaim against the nm
righteousness of war. They are right
only they lay all their emphasis upon
the unrlghteOusness. War is a dread
full things, and unjust; war is a crime
against humanity. But it IS such a
crime because it is unjust, not because
1t is war. The choice must ever be in
favor OF righteousness, and this
whether the alternative be peace or
whether the alternative be war. The
question must not be merely, is there
10 De peace or war? The question
must be, is the right to prevail? Are
the great laws of righteousness once
more to be fulfilled? And the answer
from a strong and virile people must
be, YES whatever the cost. Every
honorable effort should always be
made by the individual in private life
to keep out Of a brawl, to keen ont
OF trouble; but no self-respecting indi.
Vldual, no self-respecting nation, can
or ought to submit to wrong.
Finally, even more important than
ability to work, even more important
than ability to fight at need, is il to
remember that the chief of blessings
for any nation is that it shall leave its
seed to inherit the land. 1t was the
crown OF blessings in Biblical times
and 1t is the crown of blessings now.
The greatest of all curses is the curse
OF sterility, and the severest of all
condemnatiOns should be that visited
upon Willful sterility. The first es-
sential in any civilization is that the
man and the woman shall be father
and mother Of healthy children, so
tnat the race shall increase and not
decrease. If this is not so, if through
no fault Of society there is failure to
increase, it is a great misfortune. If
the failure is due to deliberate and
Wlllful fault, then it is not merely
misfortune, it is one of those crimes
of ease and self-indulgence, of shrink
ing from pain and effort and risk
which in the long run nature Furnishes
more heavily than any other.
idle Achievements.
If we of the great republics. if we,
the free people who claim to have
emancipated ourselves from the thral.
dom of wrong and error, bring down
on our heads the curse that comes
upon the willfully barren, then it will
be an idle waste of breath to prattle
Of our achievements, to boast of all
that We have done. No refinement of
life, no delicacy of taste, no material
progress, no sordid heaping up of
riches, no sensuous development of art
and literature, can in any way com.
pensate for the loss of the great
fundamental virtues; and of the great
fundamental virtues, the greatest is
the races power to perpetuate the
race.
But If mans efficiency is not guild.
ed and regulated by moral sense,
then the more efficient he is the worse
he Is, the more dangerous to the body
polite. Courage. intellect, all the mas
terful qualities, serve but to make a
man more evil if they are used merely
for that mans own advancement,
with brutal Indifference to the rights
of others. 1t speaks i'll for the COM
munity If the community worships
these qualities and treats their pos
SCISSORS as heroes regardless of wheth.
er the qualities are used rightly or
wrongly. 1t makes no difference as to
the precise way in which this SIMS
ter efficiency is shown. It makes no
difference whether such mans force
and ability betray themselves in the
career of money maker or politician,
soldier or orator, journalist or popu-
lar leader If the man works for evil
then the more successful he is, the
more he should be despised and con.
demned by all upright and farseeing
men. To Judge man merely by sue
cess Is an abhorrent wrong; and if
the people at large habitually so Judge
men. if they grow to condone wicked
ness because the wicked man tri-