Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1911-08-03

mot with the machinery, but with
those who are operating it. The rem
.edy is not for the people en- masse to
attempt to manipulate the complicated
and delicately adjusted mechanism,
winch must inevitably lead to confu-
sion and disaster, but to exercise more
care IN the selection of their specially
chosen operating agents
Everybody will agree that the av-
erage man is not as intelligent, as
able, or as honest as the ablest, or
the most intelligent, or the most hon
est. The individual fallibility of the
average man will at once be con-
coded, but there are some people who
seem to imagine that there is some
mysterious virtue In mere numbers;
that ten men are necessarily more
moral and more honest than one man;
that by adding together a thousand in
dlv1duals, none of whom has ever gone
beyond the multiplication table, some
strange and weird transmutation re-
suits by which the combined mass is
enabled to work out the most difficult
problem in Euclid with the utmost
accuracy. Thus, following out this
highly intelligent theory, whenever
one is anxious to have a message car
ried with the greatest haste from one
part Of the city to another, obviously
the thing to do is to employ not the
fieetest messenger boy in the service,
but arrange with ten or a dozen aver
age boys to unionize the job.
The distinguished senator from Ore
gon (Mr Bourne) Is perhaps the great
est living exponent of this doctrine.
His recipe roughly stated, l under
stand to be this: Take the voices of
10 foolish men, 20 ordinary men, 5
rascals, 16 good citizens, and wise
men (if any such can be induced to
john; mix them all up together, with
the result, vox populi vol Del It
was in some such flash of inspired
wisdom that the learned senator, in
the course of speech delivered in
this chamber a Few weeks ago, pre-
senting to us his now well-known and
justly celebrated composite citizen,
said:
The people can be trusted The com
posite citizen knows more and acts from
higher motives than any single Individual
yeloped: While se1fshness is usually
dominant in the Individual, it is mini
mixed in the composite citizen.
With growing confidence in this
child of his creative genius, he next
declares evidently as the result OF
f, mature reflection, because the .decla
ration constitutes one of the capital
! lied headings with which in his edi
torial capacity he has thoughtfully
) adorned his speech-that the
| COMPOSITE CITIZEN is UNSET
FISH
The senator Immediately proceeds
under this caption to tell us how the
/ gratifying transformation from dis
| tributive selfshness to collective al
| .truism IS brought about by process
| as interesting as it is ingenious.
! quote again:
The composite citizen is made up Of
! millions of individuals, each dominated
(, in most cases by selfish interest Blu
because of the difference in the persona
up the composite citizen there is a cor
i responding difference in the interests
| dominating said units.
| Mr.. President, let me pause long
| enough here to say that this is not {
quotation from Herbert Spencer
though quite as lucid and convincing
as anything that learned philosopher
ever wrote But listen further:
/ And while composite action is talSin,
/ place, friction is developed, attrition re
| suits, selfshness is worn away. and gen
| eral welfare is substituted before action
| is accomplished.
| am unable to accept the frivolous
suggestion advanced by some that thi
! beautiful conception has been evolved
from an overworked and hysterical in
i ner consciousness; that friction ant
i attrition can scarcely be expected t,
exercise an intelligent choice; an,
that what little general welfare tner
is in the combination to begin with j
quite as likely to be worn away a
selfishness Solomon has told us tina
fool may be brayed in mortar witt
a pestle and his foolishness will no
depart from him, but 1t evidentl
never occurred to that wisest of me,
that the result might have been ia
different if he had submitted a larg
number of fools to the process at tina
critical period while composite actio
was taking place.
ALI the operations of government
e lawmaking, law constructing, law ext
cutting be merged in the one S,
preme, all-embracing function of ba
loting. We may confidently look TO
ward to that halcyon era when ther
will be primary elections to nominal
candidates for Office, preprimary ele
lions to designate persons to becom
candidates for nomination, and ant,
prepriamaries to frame an eligib]
list from which to select preprimar
candidates to run the gauntlet of th
primary itself. to the end that on]
the good and virtuous may compel
for the final suffrages Of the peopl
Having selected our candidates b
this sitting and resifting and rer
sitting series of primary elections, "
will have election elections to d
termine who Of these irreproachab
persons shall become our Off cials. ar
then recall elections to get rid Of the
If we think on reflection that some Vi
4 desirable material has slipped throue