The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-06-02
Many Good Guides
CNew York Times)


 Benjamin Franklin's ideas as cure Tor the ills of today strongly urged by Secretary of Con- merce Roper at the recent Philadelphia dedication Mr Ropers advice might well be taken to heart But if on another proper occasion other great figure held up for our emulation we can take him to heart too
 Let it be admitted that the procedure has become conventional Anniversaries and dedicatons sel- dom allowed to pass without some pointing out how this generation may profit by the spirit of Alex ander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Emerson, Lucreua M o t t. Longfelow Whitman, Thomas A. Edison Grover Cleveland Theodore Roose- welt, General Gorgas, to set names down fast as they come to mind. The rennder has become so conventional that apt to forget how sound and useful it is.
 To learn something from Benjamin Franklin, something from Abraham Lincoln, something from Edison and Charles ". Eliot and Louis Pasteur and w. E. Gladstone and Karl Marx and Goethe and Beet hoven and Joan of Arc and Thomas Aquinas and Confucius-such advice used to be commonplace. But it has faded out from large of the world in this new totalitarian age.
 It is a totatarian age in which the master of the State takes charge of the whole body and soul It is a "monolithic age in which nation of subu- gated men is tied down to the single doctrine the single faith In part of the world Hitler is the only guide and savior In another part of the world the whole meaning and conduct of life rests with Joseph Stalin
 Today in Soviet Russia people will tell you that Stan is not only the greatest of all political leaders but he is also the greatest educator the greatest writer, the greatest historian and, very likely, the greatest zoologs and miniature painter if his inter ests should turn that way
 Rigid doctrines enforced by iron-handed men have taken possession of large part of mankind and are contendng for mastery the rest. Hitler's doctrines Stalins socalled feminist doctrines, must be accepted the answer to everything.
 That is why it is good to be reminded how really complex is the structure of human history Many men and races and nations have contributed to the human story. Many men of opposing likes and be- efs have shaped us And despite the totatarian and monoithic drum -beaers of the moment still learn from Benjamin Franklin and from Edgar Allan Poe from Alexander Hamilton and from Thomas Paine from Grover Cleveland William J. Bryan and Eugene V. Debs
 We live in age which compes us to think much more endery of the old-style welkin-ringng orator ill politics and the prosy er-dinner and corner stone orator in general affairs We are in the mood today to recognize that whatever the sincerity and technique of the Fourth-of-July table -thumper he does speak up for freedom and free men, Today masses of men are being educated to the idea that it is beautiful to be slaves in economically deter mined world or a Hitler determined world.
 We live in an age when it sounds much less hum drum than formerly to be reminded that we have much to learn from George Washington and Thomas Jeffer- son and Joan of Arc and Aqunas and Socrates. Once upon time the world took these things for granted and to be reminded of them was an impertinence or a bore. But today these names from all ages and all climes have fresh and cheering sound. for we live in a world which is being taught forced to deny the brotherhood of man.