The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1922-11-08
POST MORTUMS.

The election is over. To most people this comes
with a sense of relief. Of course we like the ex-
citement which always comes on election night,
the satisfaction of seeing that the majority agree
with our opinion of this or that particular candi-
date or issue, but in the main electioneering is a
tiresome business and, sad to say, not an endeavor
calculated to lift one to a higher moral plane.
One of the most Objectionable features of any
political campaign, and this last one in particular,
is the mud-slinging that is INDUCED in by different
candidates. Fortunately Gallatin county was rel
atively free from this as far as county politics
went, but with state issues it was a different mat
ter. AS has already been pointed out in these
columns, figures do not lie but liars often figure.
Take for instance the matter of state indebted
ness, which has been an important matter in the
campaign just closed. Letters from the state
auditor, the state treasurer, certified public &C
c~ountants and others have been so twisted, so
distored, so abused that it is hard for anyone to
get at the real truth of the matter. And that is
merely one side of the mud-slinging, perhaps the
least Objectionable side to say the least.
There is another unfortunate side to the politics
of the present day, a side that augurs i'll for the
future of our republic. Go back, for the time be-
ing, to the politics of the early days of this coun-
try. The men who took a leading part in the
formation of the union, Washington, Hamilton,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, the Adams and many
more-where can we find their like in public life
today. Those colonial forefathers of ours, they
gave their best men to the country, without
thought to their own fortunes and their own fu-
lures these men gave their services gladly, cour-
ageously, willingly, intellectually. It may be that
we have a different viewpoint today, that self
takes precedence over service, but whatever the
-
in public life today that served many generations
ago. Is it that the country is lacking the great
brains of that earlier day, or has politics driven
the most worthwhile men out of public office ?
That question each must answer for himself.
There are some of the younger generation, who
perhaps played politics, as the saying is, for the
first time this year. One such lad made the re-
mark, "I am beginning to despair of human ma,
ture." That lad is wrong-very wrong. Here are
some of us at least twice his age, with our whole
lives spent in that most cynical of all professions
the newspaper game, and yet our admiration fol
human nature grows stronger and stronger, day
by day. We listen to the pessimsits with a smil,
the prophets of evil do not brighten us. w,
grant al their contentious: that man is NATURALLY
evil, that he has used such glimmering light O.
reason as he may possess only to become mor
NN0i OHHh JIG OOooCo, ClAdC live iIOuodLu year
of civilization recently eliminated in five years o
atrOcity, fiendishness and insanity; yes, but i
the midst Of it all, in the very worst of it, out o
the muck of politics, war or any other event tina
stirs the beast that is in us, there are flashes O
splendor, flashes of kindness and courage an
self-sacrifce. There is something of that in a
of us and that is the miracle. It should nc
astOnish us that men are full of ignorance an
vice, but that they are capable of the heroism
they sometimes attain. We are too apt to loo
upon the wrong side of the shield.
In these occasional flashes of heroism, genuiu
or whatever we may choose to call them, the
lies the hope of the future.