Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1910-05-13

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until now practically every army II Q
citizen army. and the mercenary has al
most disar AIRED. while the army exists
on a Vaster Sc le than ever before In his
tory. This is SO among the military mon
archies OF Europe.
In our own Civil war of the United
States the same thing occurred, peaceful
people as we are. AT that time more than
two generations had passed since the
War of independence. During the whole
of that period the people had been en-
gagged IN no ~nfe-and-death struggle; and
yet, when the Civil war broke out. and
after some costly and bitter lessons at
the beginning. the fighting spirit Of the
people was shown to better advantage
than ever before. The war was peculiar
lynn war for a principle, q war waged
by~|ach side for an ideal. and while faults
and shortcomings were plentiful among
the combatants, there was comparatively
little sordidness of motive or conduct. In
such a giant struggle. where across the
warp of so many interests is shot the
wool Of so nan purposes, dark strands
and bright, strands somber and brilliant.
are always i~ntertwined: inevitably there
was corruption here and there in the Civil
war; but all the leaders on both sides,
and the great majority Of the enormous
masses of fighting men, wholly disre-
garded. and were wholly unin1uenced by.
pecuniary considerations.
Wealth and Politics.
Another striking contrast in the course
of modern civilization as compared with
the later stages of the G-raeco-Roman or
classic civilization is to be found in the
relations of wealth and politics. In claS-
sic times, as the civilization advanced to-
ward its zenith, politics became a recog-
nized means of accommodating great
wealth. Caesar was again and again on
the verge Of bankruptcy; he spent an
enormous fortune; and he recouped him.
self by the money which he made out Of
his p~olitfcal-military career. Augustus es-
tablished imperial Rome on firm founda-
tons by the use he made of the huge
fortune he had acquired by plumber. What
a contrast is offered by the careers OF
Washington and Lincoln! There were q
few exceptions In ancient lays; but the
immense majority Of the Greeks and the
Romans. as their civilizations eliminated,
accepted money-making on a large scale
as one of the incidents OF a successful
public career. Now all of this Is in sharp
~sarTast to what has happened within
the last two or three centuries. During
this time there has been a steady growth
away from the theory that money-making
is permissible in an honorable public ca
reer.
In this respect the standard has been
constantly elevated, and things which
statesmen had no hesitation in doing
three centuries or two centuries ago, and
which did not seriously hurt a public ca
reer even a century ago, are now utterly
impossible. Wealthy men still exercise q
large, and sometimes an improper, inf1u-
ence in politics, but it is apt to be an in
direct influence; and in the advanced
states the mere suspicion that the wealth
of public men is obtained or added to as
an incident of their public careers will
bar them from public life. Speaking
generally, wealth may very greatly infiu-
ence modern political life. but 1t is not 40
Quired in political life.
Optimistic for the Future.
Mr.. Roosevelt called attention to
the fact that hitherto every civiliza-
ton that has arisen has been able to
develop only a few activities, rs field
of endeavor being limited in kind as
we'll as in locality, and each of these
civilizations has fallen. What is the
lesson to us of today? he asked. VIII
the crash come, and be all the more
terrible because Of the immense in
crease in activities and area? To this
he replied:
Personally, I do not believe that our
civilization will fall. I think that on tho
whole we have grown better and not
worse. I think that on the whole the fu-
ture holds, more for us than even the
great past has held. But, assuredly, the
dreams Of golden glory in the future will
not come true unless, high of heart and
strong of hand, by our own mighty deeds
we make them come true. We cannot af-
ford to develop any one set OF qualities,
any one set of activities, at the cost Of
seeing others. equally necessary. afro
phied. Neither the military efficiency Of
the Mongol, the extraordinary business
ability of the Phoenician, nor the subtle
and polished intellect Of the Greek awaited
to avert destruction.
We, the men OF today and OF the fu-
ture, need many qualities II we are to do
our work we'll. We need. first Of all and
most important Of all, the qualities which
stand at the base Of individual, Of family
life, the fundamental and essential quail
ties-the homely, everyday, all-important
virtues. If the average man will not
work, If he has not in him the will and
the power to be a good husband and ia
Their; If the average woman is not a good
housewife. a good mother OF many
healthy children. then the state will top
pie, will go down, no matter what may
be it's brilliance of artistic development
or material achievement. But these home
ly qualities are not enough. There must,
in addition, be that power of organization,
that power of working in common for q
common end, which the German people
shown in such signal fashion during
the last half-century. Moreover, the
things Of the spirit are even more impor-
tant than the things of the body. We can
we'll do without the hard intolerance and
arid intellectual b~arrenness Of what was
worst in the theological systems Of the
past, but there has never been a greater
need of a high and fine religious spirit
than at the present time. So, while we
can laugh spontaneously at some of
the pretepsiCns of modern philosophy in
its various branches, it would be worse
than folly on our part to ignore our need
of Intellectual leadership. !
Must steer Middle Course.
Never has philanthropy, Humanitarian
ISM seen such development as now; and
though we must all beware Of the folly
and the viciousness no worse than folly,
which marks the believer in the perfec-
tibility of man when his heart runs away
with his head. or when vanity usurps the
place of conscience, yet We must remem-
Der also that it is only by working along
the lines laid down by the p~hilanthropists,
by the lovers of mankind, that we can
b. sure of lifting our civilization to q
higher and more permanent plane of we'll
being than was ever attained by any pre-
eding civilization. Unjust war is to be
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