Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-04-23

That Is the distinction OF absolute
self-control and sef-mastery. Whom
do you admire most among your
friends? The irritable man? The man
out Of whom you can get rise with
out trying? The man who will fight
at the drop Of the hat whether he
knows what the hat Is dropped for, or
not?
Don't you admire and don't you
fear il you have to contest with him,
the self-mastered man who watches
you with calm eyes and comes in only
when you have carried the thing so far
that you must be disposed Of? That
is the man you most respect. That Is
the man you know has at the bottom
much more fundamental and terrible
courage than the irritable, fighting
man.
Now, 1 covet for America this
splendid courage Of reserve moral
| force and I wanted to point out to
you gentlemen simply this: There Is
news and news. There Is what Is
called news from Turtle Bay, that
turns out to be falsehood, at any rate
in what 1t Is said to signify, and
which, If you could get the nation
' to believe it true, might disturb our
| equilibrium and our possession.
| We ought not to deal in stuff Of that
kind. We ought not to permit things
of that sort to use up the electrical
energy of the wires, because its
energy is not of the truth, its energy
Is Of mischief. 1t is possible to sift
truth.
II have known some things to go
out on the wires as true when there
was only one man or one group Of
men who could have told the origina-
tors of the report whether 1t was true
or not, and they were not asked
whether it was true or not for fear 1t
might not be true. That sort Of re-
port ought not to go out over the
wires.
There Is generally, II not always,
somebody who knows whether that
thing is so or not, and in these days
above all other days, we ought to
take particular pains to resort to the
one small group Of men or to the one
man, If there be but one, who knows
whether those things are true or not.
The world ought to know the truth,
but the world ought not at this period
Of unstable equilibrium to be disturb
ed by rumor, ought not to be dis
turbed by imaginative combinations
Of circumstances, or rather by cir
cumstances stated in combination
which do not belong in combina-
ton.
For we are holding, not I, but you
and gentlemen engaged like you, the
balances in your hands. This unsta-
BILE equilibrium rests upon scales that
are in your hands. For the food Of
opinion, as I began by saying, is the
news Of the day. I have known many
man go off at tangent on informa-
ton that was not reliable. Indeed,
that describes the majority Of men.
The world is held stable by the man
who waits for the next day to find
out whether the report was true or
not.
1--WE cannot afford, therefore. to
let the rumors of irresponsible per-
sons and origins get into the at
mosphere of the United States. We
are trustees for what I venture to
say is the greatest heritage that any
nation ever had, the love Of justice
and righteousness and human lib
erty For, fundamentally, those are
the things to which America Is ad-
dicted, and to which she is devoted.
There are groups Of selfish men In
the United States, there are coteries
where sinsters things are purposed,
but the great heart Of the American
people is just as sound and true as
it ever was.
| "And it is a single heart; it Is the
heart Of America. 1t is not a heart
made up Of sections selected out Of
other countries.
80 that what I try to remind my
self of every day when I am almost
overcome by perplexities, what l try
to remember, is what the people at
home are thinking about. l try to
put myself in the place Of the one
who does not know all the things
that I know and ask myself what he
would like the policy Of this country
to be. Not the talkative man, not the
partisan, not the man that remem-
bers first that he Is a Republican or
Democrat, or that his parents were
| Germans or English, but who re-
members first that the whole destiny
of modern affairs centers largely up
on his being an American first OF
all.
"If 1 permitted myself to be par
tisan in this present struggle, / would
be unworthy to represent you. If
| permitted myself to f. get ,Ae peo-
pie who are not partisans, l would
be unworthy to represent you. / am
not saying that I am worthy to rep
resent you, but I do claim this de-
gree Of worthiness, that before ev-
| erything else I love America"
| Cowed the Bad Man.
General Franks, leader Of many