Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-07-04
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT.
 The worst citizen of a community in potential evil is not the man who sells beer against the law or fights or gets drunk or kites check. His sphere of activity is small. His per sonal influence is slight.
 The worst man in a community is the man who knows and refuses to act A man who has full knowledge of things as they are and refuses to cooperate in making things better, is a bad citizen.
 The man who goes through life and says he does not care what happens so it doesn't happen to him, is not worthy of the protection of the flag of any country.
 The man who says there is.no use attempting to do anything toward bet ter living or better citizenship because abuses have always existed, is exceed ingly ignorant and exceedingly selfish.
 The man who says that there will always be ballot box stuffing because there has been ballot box stuffing for 25 years, does not grasp the funda- mental principles of this. government.
 The oldest monotheistic, cult in the world is Judaism. If Jewish law givers, teachers and preachers had given up their work 2,500 years ago as Hopeless task, civilization might have. been thrown back 5000 years m it's progress. Yet unselfish Judaism strives today to have better things to- morrow than were yesterday. In the second century of the Christian era, the members of this cult were driven into caves. They were thrown to lions and boiled in oil. They were struggling for principle which is inn perishable. They were preaching, doctrine of service to neighbor. They were not content with things as they existed. They determined to struggle to make an ideal a reality.
 In view of the fighting frame of mind of the world both the cults of Judaism and Christianity just now are charged with failure. The struggle for right and truth may be halted; 1t may look at times to be hopelessly beaten, but it always wins. It may win in day, or it may take a century or a thousand years to win.
 This effort can be applied to things in our own neighborhood. A city that does not go forward toward better things, goes backward. The same is true of city or of county. It IS equally true of school district or neighhorhood.
 The character of a city's citizenship declines just in the proportion that the effort to improve it fails.
 If everybody accepted the phllo- sophy of letting things drift, nations, cities and towns would perish. If the individual himself looked no further than his feet he, too, would sink into degeneracy because of his own worth lessness.
 It is the duty of every man to at tempt to improve conditions ln his own neighborhood. It is the duty of every member of municipality not to stand idle in the market place, but to be vigorous in those things which he conceives to be right.
 A man who realizes the necessity of an everlasting struggle for better things is sometimes called retormer. Those who would salve their own conscience, because of their indiffer- ence, delight to call him fake re- former It delights others who have scriptural knowledge to denounce him as a Pharisee. The more kindly call him a crank and let it go at that.
 And yet the struggle for the forces of order must be unceasingly pressed If it ceased the forces of disorder would triumph. There would be disintegration of organized society
 Accepting things as they are IS dangerous thing for the life of any community.
 The foregoing appeared in Mondays issue of the Memphis Commerce. Appeal, but it is as applicable to fln' Bluff as to Memphis; it fits any com munity and should be taken to heart especially by the people who ar' given to Accepting things as the. < are" for this "is dangerous thin|
 for the life of any community. Amendment No. 12 will not lncreas
 t.:e tex ~ate It will simply give tA
 people tie right to determine by pop
 i,1ar vote whether or not they CeSlr