The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-01-20

Emmanuel Kant declared that thu
philosophical ideal of universal peace
was impossible of realization until the
world should be politically organized
and that this was impossible unit
the majority of nations should have
a representative form of government
Today, the one overmastering thought
of the people in every civilized coun.
try in the world is to achieve true
representative government. Where
they have never had it, they are
struggling for it as for life; where
the form is representative but the
spirit autOcratic, the people have laid
hold of the new ideal of honest pop
ular administration with a grip that
will never slacken until complete
expression of their will is achieved.
1t is new spirit that is stirring
throughout the nations,-a spirit as
diyinely creative as that which moved
upon the face of the waters at the
beginning of all things. The age of
the rulers is past, for it has done its
work and is weary; this is the age of
the people. Throughout the centur-
les of struggle toward the light it
has been shaping in silence and dark
ness, and now the slow dawn is
breaking into day,-the day that was
prophesied two thousand years ago
and that since has been seen in vi
sions by men who had the power to
think their way into the heart of
things and glimpse the truth that
in the fulness of time would come to
all people. And the new light shines
for all,-for the old lethargic nations
which have lived in the shell of the
old order, as we'll as for the lusty
younger races which have been ham
mering out the new. India is strug-
Cling restlessly under the power of
it,-trying in her old age to become
a nation; Turkey and Persia, having
died down almost to the roots under
the rule of the sultans, are both
springing up anew to demand that
the people be heard at last in parli-
ments which must give them the
laws they want and the freedom of
the Western nations; Egypt, FESTIVE
under the English yoke, is dreaming
OF new nationality that shall be
greater than that of the Pharoahs,
and even conservative old China has
awakened from her slumber of CEN
turtles to achieve constitution.
And the West itself! The history
of the earlier years of the twentieth |
century will make interesting read
ing some day. Everywhere it is the
same tale; the only difference is in
the telling: Russia struggling like
grim death to make her Duma a
real assemblage of the people; Portu-
gal republic almost without blood I
shed; Italy and Spain shaking off the
of the priesthood and stand
Ing a level with their kings; Ger
many putting the fear of God and OF
The people even into the heart of her
autocratic War-lord; France solving
her internal problems by common
sense instead of contest: Great Bri-
ain and the lesser northern king
doms, republics in everything but
name and preserving the tradition
u the monarchy more out of love
or picturesque old customs than any,
hlng else, even as Canada, Australia
md New Zealand cling to the tradi-
ion of the Empire that was their
mother, while enjoying the most com
'lete freedom of popular government. 6
AS to our own country, beginning
Ter history with complete political ,
reedom, she is now graphing with c
he far harder task of using that r
reedom rightly. Our problem is the q
ligher and more complex one of 9
haping and training our own abund- 6
mt strength to the point of complete q
elf-control. The new world-morality U
finding here its most significant +
xpression because our only foes are f.
ur own mistakes,-the faults and VI
'llies of youth and ambition, stimu- +
tied by unlimited opportunity. We II
bake our heads over the foreign :,
ordes that threaten to corrupt and ~
ven to swamp our national life, not W
1t seeing that in our heavy response h
lily toward these new citizens lies H.
If greatest opportunity and that 1t u
SITS solely with the use we make of ..
If own moral and political freedom a,
neither or not they become an added f.
rec for corruption or healthy and h,
instructive element in our wider ma r.
,nal life. They come to us drunk n
tn the new idea of freedom and v,
aulity; as ready to abuse it as to G,
~ for tho r0aI -