The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1910-07-01
Judge w. L. Comstock Renews Past
Paper Read at. Old Settlers Picnic.

| The property rights of others was in
variably respected, and when stern
necessity compelled invasion of the
rights of others, men took openly and
boldly and made full PREPARATION when
they could.
Then women had no cause to blush
at the vulgar comments of guardians
of their honor. Virtue and modesty
adorned the women of the land, and
clean speech and upright manner and
manly conduct honored the men.
Not in laudation of the past nor in
condemnation of the present do we
hope to profit, but only by contrasts
do we find our course.
AS the mariner sets his compass
against the fixed star of the north to
find his course, so must the people
find the drift of the times by compari-
son with the certainties of the DAYS
that are gone. The survivors of the
old regime are wont to think that the
days of their usefulness to the people
arc Nch hiSh opcIie, oul otdHuiiiS
as they do as a link between the past
and present, with certain knowledge
of what has been, they constitute the
safest counsel of the present.
They owe duty to the present
and the future welfare of the people,
to preserve truthfully and impartially
the record of the past, to proclaim
the principles and practices of the
people of the times when men lived
close to Nature, when the God of Ma
ture and the Ten Commandments and
the Golden Rule were all the laws
the people needed to control their con-
duct among themselves, and to pre-
serve the rights of all regardless of
social station or interest
The safety of our people lies not in
! forward movement so loudly boosted.
but in the hope of getting back to
primal things and a recognition of the
first principles that prompted men in
their conduct to each other and in
their relations toward the social or
ganization and the state. We drift
the whirlpool of social disaster: de-
handing a safety of excitement,
gaiety without real happiness, our peo-
pie are becoming dominated with an
impulse that permits not the time for
sober thought but blindly leads them
| to the pace that kills.
The people whose memories hnger in
the better past may help to save from
these disasters, they have duty to
the present and the coming genera,
tons; to teach and preach the mes
sage from the past.
Not in vain Boosting that shall bring
censure and criticism, but in sober
narrative that shall impress its les
son upon the minds of all who shall
pause to consider, that shall of it's
own simple force compel the lesson of
comparison, that shall reveal the moor
ings of character from which the peo-
Pile are now drifting.
The simple life, the stern necessity
and the obstacles to be overcome, built
for the people OF generation ago
! force and strength of character that
shall be given to the succeeding gen.
erations if the lessons of the past may
only be learned; and if our people may
only learn that character and heart
count for more than the vanities and
frivolities of life.
Therefore to the survivors of the
pioneers and their influence we look,
as to an old guard, to help the cause
of all the people by proclaiming in
dignifed earnestness the record and his
tory of the past, that its object les
sons may be brought to the attention
of all the people to the future bene-
fit of all.