The star-progress. (Opelousas, La.) 1917-1921, 1919-11-29
A STIRRING CALL TO
MANHOOD AGAINST
SERVITUDE FOR STATE
Bv BENJAMIN T. WALDO, of the
Orleans Bar.

By BENJAMIN T. WALDO, of the
Orleans Bar.
Let me address myself particularly
to the young men who will vote for
the first time on January 20.
/ take it you are Americans-per-
haps of those lofty spirits who offer
ed to make the Great Sacrifice that
America might still be America. l
! take it that you are ambitious; that
you believe you have brains; that you
have capacity and ambition; that you
think ''inaction the symbol of death,
if not death ITSELF that you want
the Equal Chance and Square Deal;
that you are self-dependent and want
to be self-confident. All of these
things l take for granted because
they are the basic characteristics of
most healthy-minded young men, es-
pecially Americans.
Do you want to be free to use your
brains; to exercise your ambitions
untramelled; to act unfettered? Do
you want to work and to reap the re-
ward; to SOW and to garner the fruits
Of your endeavor; to plan and to
bring your plans to fruition? Would
you like to feeI-to know-to be GER
tain, that John Hampden and Viii
liam Penn and Cecil Calvert and
Danton ard Washington and Lin
coin ard Lee and Beauregard did nc
live and die in vain? Would 70
perpetuate the efforts of all immor-
tails, from the first Brutus to our own
kith and kin who died on Flanders
Fields-who strove for civil liberty?
Then act NOW!
This American city of New Or
leans is in the hands, and its people
and its affairs are the profitable play
things, of a despotism that seeks to
encompass the whole state and that
aims to destroy not only your indie
pendenee of action and thought, but
to substitute for your very morals
code of public ethics guaged and
standardized to the responsibility of
a cabaret supported by pimps, cadets
and prostitutes.
Either you must destroy this des-
potism or you must live under it
there is no middle course. If you
choose to abide with it, then give up
all hope of individual initiative ;aban-
don the thought that you can even
hope for success without the assent
of the despot; Danish the idea that
merit, integrity, or high aspiration
brings reward. Put out of your
mind any thought that you can hold,
or express, an opinion of your own,
for your opinions must coincide with
those of despotism, or you will be
villified, spewed upon with all the
venom of ignorance drunk with power
and destroyed with all the ruthless
rancor of autocracy run mad.
All of the teachings of your life
time all of the judgments of your de-
liberations ,all the convictions of your
reflection, must give way to the mere
within of despotism. You must be
content to be a lay-figure, marion
cite, a puppet performing on the
string at the command of ONE MAN,
who thinks for you on all conceivable
questions, no matter how intimately
they concern you, and irrespective of
how his decision may affect you.
Do l exaggerate? Let me give you
one concrete example to prove / do
not. So do many others believe that
the civilization denying to one-half
of the units of society voice in gov
eminent is false civilization. Here
is question of the utmost import to
all of US; potential now, fat with pos
sibilities of all kinds; matter not to
be dismissed with mere signal of
thumbs up" thumbs down"
Be all this as it may, the democrat
ic president had endorsed woman's
suffrage and the democratic party
had approved it, when quite recently
it was put to vote in Louisiana. The
night before the election ONE MAN
in New Orleans, representing despot-
ism, (but masquerading before the
public as a democrat) passed the
word down the line" that the woman
suffrage amendment to the consti-
tuition was to be defeated. Thousands
of the complaisant tools of this ONE
MAN, without a thought to the mer-
its of the matter, proceeded to vote
the amendment down. By the voice
of ONE MAN, so far as their civiland
political rights are concerned your