Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-04-24

Finally, even more important than
ability to work, even more important
than ability to fight at need. is it to
remember that the chief Of blessings
for any nation is that it shall leave its
seed to inherit the land. 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 essential In any civilization
Is that the man and the woman shall
be father and mother of healthy chill
dren, so that the race shall increase
and not decrease. If this is not so, if
through no fault of the society there
Is failure to increase, it is a great mis-
fortune. If the failure is due to de-
iberate and willful fault, then 1t is
not merely misfortune; it is one Of
those crimes Of ease and self indul-
gence, Of shrinking from pain and eff
fort and risk, which in the long run
nature Furnishes more heavily than any
other
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 wilIfuIly 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 de
velopment of art and literature, can in
any way compensate for the loss of
the great fundamental virtues, and of
these great fundamental virtues the
greatest is the races power to per-
petuate the race.
Mans Chief Duty.
Character must show itself In the
mans performance both of the duty
he owes himself and of the duty he
owes the state. The mans foremost
duty is owed to himself and his fam
lily, and he can do this duty only by
earning money, by providing what Is
essential to material well being. 1t
is only after this has been done that
he can hope to build a higher super
structure on the solid material foun-
dation. 1t is only after this has been
hot hn hal
for the general well being.
1t is not good to excite that bitter
laughter which expresses contempt,
and contempt is what we feel for the
being whose enthusiasm to benefit
mankind is suchnlhat he is q burden
to those neara amin, who wishes to
do great things for humanity in the
abstract, but who cannot keep his
wife in comfort or educate his chill
dren.
l decline to recognize the mere mul-
timillionaire, the man Of mere wealth.
as an asset of value to any country.
and especially as not an asset to nv
own country. If he has earned or
uses his wealth In a way that makes
him of real benefit, Of real use-and
such is often the case-why, then he
does become an asset Of worth. But
1t is the way in which it has been
earned or used and not the mere fact
of wealth that entities him to the
credit.
There is need in business, as in most
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great guiding intelligences. Their
places cannot be supplied by any num-
Der of lesser intelligences.
1t is bad thing for a nation to raise
and to admire a false standard of sue
cess, and there can be no falser stand
ard than that set by the dedication of
material we'll being In and for itself.
The power Of the journalist is great,
but he is entitled neither to respect
nor admiration because Of that power
unless it is used Alright He can do,
and he often does, great good. He can
do, and he often does, infinite mis-
chief. All journalists, all writer's, for
the very reason that they appreciate
the vast possibilities of their profes-
sion, should bear testimony against
those who deeply discredit 1t. Of
lenses against taste and morals, which
are bad enough in a private citizen,
are infinitely worse If made into in
struments for debauching the com
munity through newspaper.
Mendacity, SANDER, sensationalism,
inanity. vapid triviality, all are po-
tent factors for the debauchery of the
public mind and conscience The ex-
cuse advanced for vicious writing, that
the public demands it and that the de-
mand must be supplied, can no more
be admitted than If it were advanced
by the purveyors of food who sell poi
sonous adulterations
Virtues of the Household.
The homely virtues of the household,
the ordinary workaday virtues which
make the woman a good housewife
and house mother. which make the
man a hard worker, a good husband
and father, a good soldier at need,
stand at the bottom of character. But
of course many others must be added
thereto if a state is to be not only free.
but great.
Good citizenship is not good citizen
ship If exhibited only in the home.
There remain the duties of the indi-
vidual in relation to the state, and
these duties are none too easy under
the conditions which exist where the
effort is made to carry on free govern
ment in a complex industrial civiliza-
ton.
Perhaps the most important thing
the ordinary citizen, and, above all,
the leader of ordinary citizens, has to
remember in political life Is that he
must not be a sheer doctrinaire.
Woe to the empty phrase maker, to
the empty idealist, who, instead of
making ready the ground for the man
of action turns against him when he