The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1910-10-13
The Mantle Of
Responsibility
An Essay on How it May be OBJ
tained and Maintained in
Any Community.

Paper Read Before the Chautauqua Circle.
| have been asked several times
lately, What do you know about Re- !
spectability?" Well, l could only
say just what an onlooker can know
of any game; perhaps no more than
the players, but at any rate as an
outsider | can offer purely dis
interested and impartial opinion !
and one at which no one of my
hearers who may feel that they are
entitled to the mantle of Respect
ability, will, l trust, take offence.
Responsibility is the mantle with
which some men clothe themselves
in order that they may enjoy, and
incidentally profit by, the esteem
and confidence of their neighbors
and associates. The semblance of
Responsibility may be acquired by
careful and increasing adaptations
of habits and mannerisms to the pre-
vailing tone of the neighborhood in
which one resides, but the mantle
itself is by it's very essence will-o'
-the-wisp, may elude the most pains
taking seeker and yet blindly descend
upon the person of one who could
not be judged by any existing stand
ard of morality or ethics.
Responsibility has nothing what
ever to do with any virtue or the
absence of such. 1t is thing apart
and has no fixed standard by which
it can be gauged, or its component
parts analyzed. 1t has definite
value and in that sense, and that
sense only, is it tangible. No one
knows or can know, why one man
has Responsibility and is respected
while another who lives his life
along precisely similar lines is the
very reverse. A man may plunder
bank with Responsibility but he
must not do it with a jimmy. A
woman may sell herself for title,
or for life's board and lodging
! (the usual price of marriage) but If
she sells herself for ten dollars she
becomes a candidate for the work
house and to touch even the hem OF
: her garment is to be detiled.
To be a three-bottle man was 9
passport of Responsibility not SC
: long ago. While even in my youth
to belong to the Reehabite order
| was to incur the very gravest sus
picion and to seriously imperil ones
8 social standing; today Respectable
ity demands the drug store and the
peppermint lozenge.
s Responsibility then, is mystic
garment of which no one can sa.
e just what are the component mate
l rials- intangible in that no one Cal
s take hold of it and grasp it boldly
t inscrutable also in that it varies il
q it's colors and in it's texture wit
}. every cline and with every passing
IL age. The mantle by some mysti
e marvel is a perfect fit for ever
It wearer. 1t fits equally well th
Q moral and the immoral. The rigi
q Calvinist or the open minded ma
Is who sees God in everything; tn
y eminent fnancier and the most low
ly workman; each and every one {
7, these may wear the garment, but n
le one of them can claim it's possessio
y by right of ownership of any virtu
of or any mental or material quality
IL or otherwise, associations as well 8
e. individuals may have this GARNER
n of Responsibility.
ID That greatest Of all, the Christia
Us church has it in an eminent degre
lie There was time when the chure
ne maintained it's hold on humanity
IN throwing the odor of it's sanctit
ed around those moments when tt
Us human emotions ewere most high
rd exalted. By retaining to itself Il
IN solemnization of the marriage ri
ry and by casting its holy shadoy
er around and over the death bed
ay our loved ones it held men by Il
to very strength of their most sacr'
he emotions: but today the main pill
on of the church is it's Respectable
1e. Withdraw that prop and the chur
falls tomorrow. in nearly eve
IN community on earth today the churc
lgoing habit is apparently one OF t