The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1913-09-13


the people had taken over control OF
the government, a curious change was
wrought in the souls of a great many
men; a sudden moral awakening took
place, and we simply could not find
culprits against whom to bring indict.
ments; It was like Sunday school
the way they obeyed the laws.
So / say there is nothing very diff
fcult about resuming our own gov.
eminent. There is nothing to appall
us when we make up our minds to
set about the task. 1.-THE way to re-
sumo is to resume" said Horace
Greeley, once, when the country was
frightened at prospect which turned
out to be not in the least frightful;
1t was at the moment of the resump-
ton Of specie payments for Treasury
notes. The treasury simply resumed
there was not ripple of danger or
excitement when the day of resump-
lkCl Cdlllc dlOuHu.
1t will be precisely so when the peo-
pie resume control of their own gov.
eminent. The men who conduct the
political machines are a small fraction
of the party they pretend to represent,
and the men who exercise corrupt in
f1uences upon them are only a small
! fraction of the business men of the
country. What we are banded togeth-
er to fight is not party, is not great
body of citizens; we have to fight only
little coteries, groups of men here and
there, few men who subsist by de-
ceiving us and cannot subsist mo-
ment after they cease to deceive us.
Political Imposters.
l had occasion to test the power Of
such a group in the state of New Jer-
sey, and I had the satisfaction of dis
covering that had been right in cup,
posing that they did. not possess any
| power at all. 1t looked as if they were
entrenched in fortress; it looked as
il the embrasures of the fortress
showed the muzzle of guns, but, as
told my good fellow-citizens, all they
had to do was to press little upon
it and they would find that the fortress
was mere cardboard fabric; that 1t
was piece Of stage property; that
just as soon as the audience got ready
to look behind the scenes they would
learn that the army which had been
marching and counter-marching in
such terrifying array consisted of a
single company that had gone in one
i wing and around and out at the other
wing, and could have thus marched
in procession for twenty-four hours.
You need only about twenty-four men
to do the trick. These men are i'm
posters. They are powerful only in
proportion as we are susceptible to
absurd fear of them. Their capital is
our ignorance and our credulity.
Political independence.
Today we are seeing something that
some of us have waited all our lives to
see. We are witnessing a rising of the
country. We are seeing a whole peo-
pie stand up and decline any longer to
be imposed upon. The day has come
when men are saying to each other:
1T doesn't make a peppercorn's differ.
ence to me what party have voted
with, am going to pick out the men
want and the policies l want, and let
the label take care of itself. do not
find any great difference between my
table of contents and the table of con.
tents of those who have voted with
the other party, and who, like me, are
very much dissatisfied with the way
in which their party has rewarded
their faithfulness. They want the
same things that want, and don't
know of anything under Gods heaven
to prevent our getting together. We
want the same things, we have the
same faith in the old traditions of the
American people, and we have made
up our minds thatwe are going to have
now at last the reality instead of the
shadow"
We Americans have been too long |
satisfied with merely going through |
the motions of government. We have
been having mock game. We have
been going to the polls and saying:
This is the act of sovereign people,
but we won't be the sovereign yet; we
will postpone that; we will wait until
another time. The managers are still
shifting the scenes; we are not ready
or the real thing yet"
My proposal is that we stop going
through the mimic play; that we get
nut and translate the ideals of Ameri-
an politics into action; so that every