River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-04-28

any way make up of the lack of great
solid qualities elf-restraint, self-mas-
terry, common sense, the power of ac-
! cepting individual responsibility and
yet, of acting in conjunction with
others. Courage and resolution; these
are the qualities which mark a mas
terful people. Without them no peo-
pie can control itself or save itself
from being controlled from the out
side. speak to brilliant assemblage;
l speak in great university which
represents the flower of the highest
intellectual development; I pay all
homage to intellect, and to elaborate
and specialized training of the intel
lect; and yet I know I shall have the
assent of all you present when l add
that more important still are the COM
monplace, everyday qualities and vir-
tues.
The Evils of SteriIity.
In the next place the good man
should be both strong and a brave
man; that is, he should be able to
light, he should be able to serve
his country as a soldier if the need
! arises. There are well-meaning phil
osophers who declaim against the I'M
righteousness of war. They are right,
only they lay all their emphasis upon
the unrlghteOusneSS. War is a dread
full things, and unjust; war is a crime
against humanity. But it is such
crime because it is unjust, not because
1T is war. The choice must ever be in
favor OF righteousness, and this
whether the alternative be peace or
whether the alternative be war. The
question must not be merely, is there
TO be peace or war? The question
must be, is the right to prevail? Are
the great laws of righteousness once
more to be fulfilled? And the answer
from strong and virile people must
be, Yes" whatever the cost. Every
honorable effort should always be
made by the individual in private life
to keep out Of brawl, to keep out
or trouble; but no self-respecting indi-
vldual, no self-respecting nation, can
or ought to submit to wrong.
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 it's
seed to inherit the land It was the
crown of blessings in Biblical times,
and it is the crown of blessings now.
The greatest of all curses is the curse
OF sterility, and the severest of all
concentrations should be that visited
upon willful sterility. The first es-
sentlal in any civilization is that the
man and the woman shall be father
and mother of healthy children, so
that the race shall increase and not
decrease. If this is not so, if through
no fault of society there is failure to
Increase, it is a great misfortune. If
the failure is due to deliberate and
willful fault, then it is not merely a
misfortune, it is one Of those crimes
of ease and self-indulgence, of shrink
ing from pain and effort and risk,
which in the long run nature Furnishes
more heavily than any other.
Idle Achievements.
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 willfully barren, then 1t 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 development of art
and literature, can in any way COM
pensate for the loss of the great
fundamental virtues; and of the great
fundamental virtues, the greatest is
the races power to perpetuate the
race.
But If mans efficiency is not guild
ed and regulated by moral sense,
then the more efficient he is the worse
he is, the more dangerous to the body
polite. Courage, intellect, all the mas
terful qualities, serve but to make a
man more evil if they are used merely
for that mans own advancement,
with brutal Indifference to the rights
of others. 1t speaks Ill for the COM
these qualities and treats their DOS
SCISSORS as heroes regardless of wheth-
er the qualities are used rightly or
wrongly. 1t makes no difference as to
the precise way in which this SIMS
ter efficiency is shown. 1t makes no
difference whether such a mans force
and ability betray themselves in the
career of money maker or politician,
soldier or orator, journalist or popu-
lar leader. If the man works for evil
then the more successful he is, the
more he should be despised and con-
demned by all upright and farseeing
men. To judge man merely by sue
cess is an abhorrent wrong; and if
the people at large habitually so Judge
men, if they grow to condone wicked
ness because the wicked man tri-
umphs, they show their inability to
understand that in the last analysis
free institutions rest upon the char
acter of citizenship and that by such
admiration of evil they prove them
selves unfit for liberty.
The Idea of True Liberty.
The good citizen will demand lib
erty for himself, and as a matter of
pride he will see to 1t that others re-
ceive the liberty which he thus claims
Schooner Goes Ashore.