Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-06-03
EULOCIzES JOHN SMITH
PLAIN AMERICAN"
CONTINUED from First Page.)


of the law and the desperate. The
problem of concentrated wealth and
the socialist with his red flag of
anarchy call for new John Smiths.
The usurpation of the peoples
government by those who pretend to
be our servants, but are in truth our
masters for their own glory and profit,
is more serious than we are wont to
realize. Then, too, there is our
knowledge that these lands, these
cultivated fields, must serve in future
years generation far more densely
populated than our own. In thirty
years this country will have popula-
ton of one hundred and sixty millions
of people. The farmer will do we'll
to heed the message of China and her
farmers of forty centuries, the mes
sage of returning to the soil that
which is taken from it, that it may
not be left a barren heritage to our
sons and daughters. And closer still
at hand is Mexico, with her internal
conflict; the black collins that have but
lately left Vera Cruz containing the
silent forms of American marines
the tales of fire, plumber, outrage
and murder that sweep from across
the border, and we know that there
are breakers ahead.
These are but few of our prob
lens. They are traceable in the
main to the pitiable fact that some
of our fellow countrymen have for
gotten the ideal of John Smith, Plain
American, in their mad desire to
amass wealth.. They have sacrificed
the life of labor, in their own mis-
taken worship Of the sanctity of
property. They would hav a nation
rush to arms, to barter lives, that
they might save their gold. They
encourage revolutions among our
neighbors for the benefit of their own
pocket. With them the call of coun-
try has been supplanted by the call of
personal pleasure and personal pros
perity.
The truly great man is he who not
only does great things, but does them
unselfshly. When Napoleon sat in
his saddle on the heights of Ros-
somme overlooking the field of Water
loo, and saw the wealth of empire
slipping from his hands amid the roar
of English cannon, how he must have
felt the hopelessness of selfish ambi
ton! And how different from our
Washington and our Lincoln who
worked for others and not for them
selves, and how in each stage of their
career do we find growth of mind
and heart that makes their followers
love them more and more, and
history yields to them a larger need
of admiration. The very successes
of Napoleon left him each year
smaller, while the failures of Wash
ington and Lincoln left them larger.
Really unselfsh action in peace and
war, does something more than make
a man himself great; it helps others
to be like him.
1t is terrible code which teaches
that money making is the chief end of
man, and that the acquisition of
wealth is to be the first attribute of
high public office. 1t is we'll to call
halt, when above the cry of the
platform and the pulpit, lis it
right?" there comes with increasing
frequency the murmur of the ex-
changes, docs it pay?"
One hundred years ago a young
Boston orator, born the same year as
our republic, warned his hearers in
Faneuil Hall against the perils of
commercial SIN. can conceive of no
more hideOus betrayal of the first
principles of American manhood, than
the advice publicly given by the
former president of the gigantic steel
corporation, which under his hand
controlled the industry of the world.
1t is a sad commentary on our civiliza-
ton, that the poor boy who rose from
the ranks to this position of promin-
ence, had in the hour of his greatest
success, no better word for his fellows
than cynical hint to look suspicious
ly upon higher education, and to leave
the school for the work bench, if pos
sible, in childhood. Education is
useless, she cries, unless it can be
coined. - Literature, music, art,
history and philosophy have never
word for him. There is no money in
them.
Twice in history has supreme power
been given to a nation which has
made a god of riches-once to Garth
age, once to Spain. The merchant
princes of Car thage were ready that
Hannibal and his mercenaries should
fight their battles for them. They,
too doi6od Tho education Of +bo