The Adair County news., 1914-04-01

He talked of the separation of the busl-
ness of transportation and production.
He demanded the rigorous and effective
regulation of common carriers; that they
should be impartial in rates to shippers
and just in the payment of taxation to the
state. To his prophetic gaze the para
mount and overweening issue of this hour
was vivid and distinct
With ever increasing emphasis as can
didate for governor and as your nominee
for that high office he declared that the
real ISSUE the bottom question In the
fight, that from which public attention
should never be diverted, was whether the
laws of Kentucky should be enacted. con-
structed and executed by the people OF
Kentucky or by powerful and privileged in
terests. For raising that issue he was de-
nounced as a demaSOgue assailed as an
assassin, pillOried by a corrupt and sub
sidiZed press-eYery detail of his private
and public life perverted and distorted by
the evil ingenuity of envy and hate. His
sacred and sainted dead were dragged
from the tomb and held up to contumely
I and contempt by servile hirelingS and sal
! aried slandereTs. And when his malignant
foes and their accurSed gold had failed 10
debauch the electorate or defeat the fixed
purpose of the people, in utter desperation
they fired the black heart of murder and
armed the assassin for the dastardly deed
! that closed in darkness his great career
and covered the commonwealth with a
pail of horror and Of shame.
What We're the crimes for which Will
! liam GOebel fell?
He protected the railroad commission of
Kentucky from the miners and sappers
who sought to destroy it and with lash
of pitiless scorn drove from the corridors
of the capitol a nest of lobbyists who had
gathered there to dcbauch the legislature
and deSpOil the state. He proposed to linn
! it the hours Of labor for army of men
| engaged in the most perilOus enterprise
! known to peace or war that the toiler
might commune with the family he sus-
tanned and that hundreds of men might
not be dashed TO death because some
weary wretch, driven without rest or re-
pose through the long hours of the day
| and the night. fell asleep at the key or
| the switch.
| He proposed to confer upon the engi-
neer at the throttle the same measure OF
! protection which for years the law had
| secured to the tramp upon the highway.
He proposed to extend and enlarge the
meager and Intellectual powers of the
kentucky railroad commission that it
{ might become an actual shield to the
| shipper from eXtortion and to the state
| from fraud and chicane.
! Let impartial history looking back over
! twenty years of federal legislation, say
whether William GoebeI was an incen-
! diary or a seer. The reforms he proposed
for a state became the goal and the mod
! els for the lawmakers of a nation.
| This immortal pathfinder was more than
| a constructive statesman. He possessed
| the rare and radiant gifts of invention
and of prophecy. He not only construct
! ed; he created He was in his day the
| lonely navigator Of an uncharted and an
| unfathomed sea.
E'Spb nd TTG,K-r,ea,l IIaDh11po ND Dn1Ii-
! yer, Adamson. Clark and Wilson, all at
! last are treadng the way bazed a gen
Grafton ago by the dead William Goebel,
! who found in his own day no fellow in
/ the wilderness
| For years the prOgressives in both par
| ties have pointed 20 the efficient regula-
/ ton and control Of railways as their most
! substantial achievement, and at this hour
! the greatest executive in a century and
! congress in complete accord are attempt
/ ing the liberation of the government and
| the business OF the country from cor
| porate control by charging the powers of
! a commission authorized to regulate the
rates. supervise the capitalization, to de-
! termine the value and direct the opera
! ton of all carriers engaged in interstate
| commerce.
Statesman and political economist may
differ in their estimate of the man and
! his measures but the wise and the just
even among his adversaries must concede
the sincerity Of his purpose and the dis
interestedness of his devotion to the great
cause he espOUsed.
POmp and power, gain and glory-what
baubles, what vanities all are they seen
! through the CLASSY eyes of death! When
all that honor, all that wealth ere gave
| were as ashes in his cold hands, in the
midst of the agonies of eternal dissolu-
ton his great mission is still before HIM,
and, unmindful of blightel hopes and
raclzing pain, of the gathering shadows
and the chilling gloom, his great love con-
quers death and rises like a transfSura-
ton above his tomb. In husky whispers
he commands those who shall succeed
him to be brave and fearless and loyal
TO the great common people," and William
Goebel is no more
Placed by his devoted countrymen at
the helm Of the ship of state mis- was the
pilots conscience and the pilots sense Of
! obligation. Have you ever watched the
pilot at midnight alOft at the wheel di-
recting the course Of a majestic ship
through the cleaning deep? They who
slumber on the peOpled decks below may
he strangers all, speaking an unknown
tongue. neither of his race nor realm, but
let that ship strike the unseen rock, let it
! be buffeted by raging waves and winds
till the masts are down and the decks
awash or licked by hungry flame, the pilot
is not moved by flood or fire. He will be
burned to a char or go down with the
ship into the abysm of the sea before he
will desert his post while one helpless soul
remains upon the slippery decks depend
ent upon his courage and his skill.
William Goebel through all the eventful
years of his public life stood like the pilot
at the wheel. He knew that strength of
his arm and felt the ship respond to his
fine control. He faced dangers more in
sidious than hidden shoals, enemies more
ruthless than the raging storms. With an
untroubled and an unflinching gaze he
looked squarely into the grinning chops
of death and went down like the pilot with
hand on the wheel.
Monuments are erected to the living,
!, not the dead. We need no "storied urn
or animated bust to redeem from oblivion
the fame of William GoebeL His name
is engraved upon the hearts of his coun-
trymen, and his deeds mark the proudest
and most tragic page in the history of his
country. This is not a monument, but a
beacon. 1t is erected here not to mark
the resting place of the dead, but to direct
and inspire the onward march of the liv-
ing. He fell like a sentinel in front of the
: capitol of the commonwealth, defending
the sanctity of its courts and the indie
: pendence of its legislative assemblies, and
in front of the capitol have we stationed