The Commoner.
Vol. i. No. 18.
Lincoln; Nebraska, May 24, 1901.
$1.00 a Year
William J. Bryan,
' Editor and Proprietor.
t
ilrs. McKinley's Illness.
Tho serious illness of Mrs. McKinley has
cast a shadow over an otherwise enjoyable trip
and called forth universal sympathy. It is a
matter of profound gratification, however, that
she is now on the road to ..recovery. Her con
valescence "began, fortunately, in time to per
mit the president to attend the launching of
the battle-ship, Ohio the event which led him
to undertake tho journey across the continent.
The incident has brought out in strong
light Mrs. McKinley's heroic effort to meet the
responsibilities of her position, in spite of
feeble health, while it has given new evidence
of the tenderness and devotion of the chief ex
ecutive. W
Plutocracy in Education.
Unfortunately tho-tendency of a principle
to expand until it pervades every sphere of
humansthouglit and activity is nofrconfined-to
good principles. Thd idea of liberty, based
upon the doctrine that all men are created
equal, has for more than a century been mani
festing itself in government, in society and in
church organizations, and it has tended to en
noble man and to exalt human rights. But the
opposite doctrine has not been entirely dormant.
Just now the plutocratic idea is very active.
The tyranny of organized wealth in industry
is sure to be followed by an increasing influ
ence of money in government, society and the
church. Everything wll be colored to a greater
or less extent by the theory that money is the
one thing of overshadowing importance.
The commencement period, when schools
are closing and graduating classes are occupy
ing public attention, is a good time to consider
the influence of plutocracy upon education.
Fortunately Mr. Charles Schwab, the million-dollar-a-year
president of the steel trust, has
spoken so plainly on the subject that little
room is left for conjecture or speculation. In
speaking to a class at an evening school in
New York a few nights ago, he said:
"Let ir 3 advise you o to make an early start
in life. The boy with the manual training and the
common school education who can start in life at
sixteen or seventeen can leave the hoy who goes
to college till he is twenty or more so far behind
in the race that he can never catch up. This, how
ever, does not apply to the professional life. The
other day I was at a gathering of somo forty
business men men in industrial and manufactur
ing buslness-and the question arose as to how
many were college-bred men. Of the forty only
two had been graduated from college, and the rest
of the party, thirty-eight in, number, had received
only common school 'educations and had started in life
as poor boys. So I say, as parting advice, start
early."
This is tho advice given by the best
paid employe in the United States tho ad
vice given by a man who receives a salary
twenty times as great as that paid to tho presi
dent of the United States, one hundred times
as great as the salary paid to a-justice of tho
Supreme Court, two hundred times as great as
the salary paid to senators and representatives
and more than a thousand times as great as
the average salary paid to ministers and school
teachers. His advice shows that he miscon
ceives the main purpose of education, and val
.ues going to school only as it enables the stu
dent to get ahead of some one in the business
world.
The prinoiple value of education Hob in the
fact that it disciplines the mind, enlarges the
mental horizon and enables one to view men
and things in their proper relations. Educa
tion is intended to make a citizen useful to
his country as well as successful. It makes
its possessor the heir of the ages and enables
him to judge of the, future by tho experience
of the' pas t. D: aT'boyTs 'taken but of ' school at -the
age of sixteen or seventeen and put to
work "making a fortune," he is never likely to
have time to study history or political econ
omy and will be apt to accept without ques
tion the opinions of those who are a little
ahead of him in the race for wealth opinions
which are in turn received from those still far
ther ahead.
Plutocracy boasts that it is practical; it has
no ideals, for an ideal is looked up to, while
plutocracy has its face to the ground.
Mr. Schwab's advice will do infinite dam
age to the young men of the country, but it
ought to awaken the thoughtful to the tenden
cies of commercialism. If we are to have the
oppression of a trust system at home and the
despotism of an imperial policy abroad, we
must expect to see education dwarfed, social
intercourse debased and religion materialized.
W
Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech.
As the survivors of the Mexican, civil and
other wars prepare for the solemn services of
Memorial day they will find both pleasure and
profit in re-reading Lincoln's Gettysburg speech.
To tho veteran it is an expression of lofty pa
triotism, to the student of oratory it is a model
of brevity, beauty, simplicity and strength,
and to all it is an inspiration:
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers
: brought forth upon this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposi
tion that all men are created equal. Now we are
engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedi
cated,, can long endure. Wo are met on a great
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedi
cate a portion of that field as a final reUlng-placo
for those who hore gave their lives that that na
tion might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that wo should do this. But in a largor sense wo
cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, wo cannot
hallow this ground. Tho bravo men, living and
dead, who struggled here, havo consecrated it far
above our power to add or detract. Tho world
will little note, nor long remember, what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, tho living, rather to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they who fought hero
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for
ua to be hero dedicated to the great task remaining
before us, that from these honored dead we I 'ia
increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we
hero highly resolve that these dead shall not havo
died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall
have a .new birth of freedom, and that government
of the people, by the people, and for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
At no time within tho past quarter of a
century has there been more necessity than
there is now for the lovers of liberty to exert
themselves to preserve "a government of (he
people by the people and for tho people."
An English Opinion.
The London Speaker is guilty of Icsc
majesto when it attempts to speak disparag
ingly of the right honorable Marcus A. Ilanna.
The criticism shows a lack of gratitude as well
as a disregard for Mr. Hanna's feelings for
did not Mr. Uanna speak in glowing terms of
the English system of government after his re
turn from Europe? The Speaker says:
"There is not much to awaken the spirit of
national vanity, alert as it is in the states, about
a political system in which Senator Hanna is one
of the greatest and most powerful figures. Not
that Senator Hanna is a wicked, man. He is sim
ply a kind of man that a respectable neighbor
hood' would be shr of putting on its district coun
cil in this country that is to say, there is nothing
to distinguish him from an uncultivated, slightly
brutal, ignorantly forcible and hard-headed vul
garian. Self-confidence and energy rule him, as
they should rule a politician; but, knowing all tha
world of business, he can think of nothing higher.
No tradition makes him bow to men whose insti
tutions are of more practical value than the whola
of his experience or teaches him to recognize that
tho government of a nation Is a field for qualities
of sympathy and imagination and sane idealism."
A Rebuke From Jay.
Of John Jay, tho first Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court, one writer said:
"No myths have grown around John Jay. Ho
lives in our memories a faultless statue, whoso
noble lineaments have everything to gain from
the clear light of history." Webster in speak
ing of this same man said: "When the spot-