Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1910-09-01

today calls for a greater variety Of good
qualities than were needed on the from
tier. There is need at present to en-
courage the development of new abilities
which can he brought TO high perfection
only by a kind of training useless in pio-
neer times: but these new qualities can
only supplement, and nev er supplant, the
old, hOmeIy virtues; the need for the
special and distinctive pioneer virtues is
as great as ever. In other words, as our
civilization grows older and more COM
pick, while it is true that we need new
forms of trained ability, and need TO de-
velOp men whose lives are devoted wholly
to the pursuit of special objects, it is yet
also true that we need a greater and not
a less development Of the fundamental
frontier virtues. These virtues include
the power of self-help, together with the
power of joining with others for mutual
help, and. what is especially important,
the feeling of comradeship, of social good
fellowship. Any man who had the good
fortune to live among the old frontier
conditions must, in looking back, realize
how vital was this feeling of general
comradeship and social fellowship There
are good men and pad men. in the new
communities just as in the old communi-
ties, and the conditions on the frontier
were such that the qualities of the good
manifested than in older communities,
but among the men who tried to lead
hard-working. decent lives, there was
feeling of genuine democracy, which rep
resented an approach to the American
ideal which we certainly should do ev-
erything in our power to preserve. We
did not try to say that men were equal
when they were not equal. but we did
our best to secure something like an
equality of opportunity and an equality of
reward Tor good service; and moreover,
each man expected 20 be received, and,
on the whole, was received wherever he
went. on the footing that his merits war
ranted.
Now so far as possible these qualities
and conditions that bring about these
qualities should be kept in the great
states which are growing out of the old
frontier communities. We need to strive
for the general social betterment of the
people as ? whole, and yet to encourage
individual liberty and set high reward
on individual initiative up to the point
where they become detrimental to the
general welfare.
Wrong Doors and Wrong Systems.
In continually and earnestly striving for
this betterment of social and economic
conditions in our complex industrial civil
lization, we should work in the old from
tier spirit of brotherly comradeship and
good will. I do not mean that we should
refrain from hating wrong; on the con-
trary. I would preach fifey wrath
against wrong. But l would not preach
such wrath against the wrong doer, save
IN those cases where his wrong-doing
really is due to evil moral attributes on
his part and not to a wrong or false sys-
tenn, of which he is almost as much the
victim as the beneficiary. Sometimes a
wrong represents the deliberate wicked
ness of the wrong-doer in which case
the remedy is to punish him, but some
times it represents the effects of a false
social system, in which case the right
course is to alter what is false in the
system. Bbth principles need to be kept
in view as guides to our conduct, and it
is necessary sometimes to work in ac-
cordance with one and sometimes in ac-
cordance with the other.
Before ending 1 wish to say a word on
something which I believe should espe-
cially interest all men who live in the
open country, and especially all men who
during the past thirty years have lived
and worked on ranches. or have done
their life work in the wilder parts of
land, on the great plains or among the
mountains. The phase of our national
life in which the stoCkman, the mining
prospector, were the chief characters. was
not only a very important but also
very picturesque phase. Often such
phase passes without any great artist
arising to commemorate it.
The old-time backwoodsman. for in
stance. the man of the back country
who lived in the eastern forests through
which the waters ran eastward to the
Atlantic and westward to the Mississippi
passed away without any painter or
sculptor arising who possessed at once
both the keenneSs of vision to see what
a vital and picturesque figure the back
woodsman was, and the genius adequate
ly to present that figure. The artist who
saw that picturesqueness of the back
woodsman lacked the genius adequately
to commemorate it, while the artists of
real ability unfortunately had their eyes
turned towards Europe and lacked the ro-
bust originality which the novelist Coop
er showed-to see where their chances lay
to do a great work But in our genera
ton, for our good fortune a great artist
arose who was capable of seeing and of
recording the infinite picturesuueness of
the life of the plains and the Rockies.
EuIogy of Remington.
OF course 1 speak OF Frederic Reming-
ton. He was one of those Americans who
by his achievements distinctly deserved
we'll of America. He worked with pencil,
with brush, with chisel he was both a
painter and a sculptor. His pictures and
his few bronZes are equally good. When
my own regiment, a typically western
regiment recruited mainly from the men
of the great plains and the mountains,
was disbanded at Montauk Point the Off
GERS and enlisted men Joined in giving
me Remington's Bronze Bronco Buster"
a gift which 1 thought peculiarly appro-
pirate coming from such a body of men
In Remlngton's pictures all the most
vivid and characteristic features of the
western pioneer life which is just closing
We're set forth, and the commemorated
forever the men of the plains and the
mountains as they actually were. The
cowboy is his favorite type, but the min
ing prospector. the frontier farmer. the
man who guides oN-wagon or mule-team
the soldier. the Indiau-al appear. Now
I wish very much that these men them
selves would in their turn provide a mon
ument for the great artist the sum of
whose activities represent such a feature
of American achievements and above
ALL represents commemoration of some
of the most interesting figures that have
ever appeared on the stage of American
life. A statue should be raised to Rem
ington by some really first class artist.
Here at Cheyenne in this gathering
many hundreds of the men have come
together who were themselves typical
leaders in and representatives of the very
life which Remington so portrayed that
it will always live. I hope that these
men will join together, arrange the ap-
pointment of a committee, and start to
"a tse funds for the erection of such g
statue