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The
WILLIAH J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
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Vol. 3. No. 39
Lincoln, Nebraska, October 16, 1993.
Wholt No. 143
THE BEGINNING OF EVIL
There is perhaps no more Important lesson
that young or old can learn than that evils are
more easily resisted ir the beginning than after
they have been allowed to develop. Take, for
instance, disobedience to parents. It usually be
gins In some small matter when the child feels
that the parent has required an unnec scary thing,
or refused to permit something that the child do
sires to do. If it were in an important matter tho
child would shrink from an act of disobedience,
but it seems so small that tho wish of the child
triumphs over the will of tho father or mother,
and that act of disobedience becomes the precedent
for others until disobedience is easier than obed
ience. Disobedience usually leads to other offenses;
untruthfulness, especially, is apt to follow in the
wake of disobedience, being resorted to as a
means of avoiding punishment or even reproof.
From disregard of parental authority it is an
easy step to the disregard of the authority of gov
ernment, and the disobedient child not unnatural
ly develops into the lawless citizen until finally
the downward course leads to the door of some
institution established for correction and reform,
Disobedience to authority Is more easily checked
when it first begins to manifest itself than after
the habit has grown strong by indulgence.
So, too, with the liquor habit. The taste for
intoxicating liquor is far more easily avoided than
it is overcome when once it is established. The
moderate drinker has not only to risk the strength
of the liquor habit when it once gets a hold upon
him, but if he drinks at all he mui . defend his .
refusal to drink either on the ground that he is
going to change his course, a thing which implies
an acknowledgement of previo-s error, or he must
give a reason that fits tho particular case in hand.
If ho drinks with one it is difficult to refuse to
drink with others, and if he accepts invitations to
drink he must give invitations or seem stingy.
There Is less difficulty and more safety, there
fore, in not commencing.
It is the same with gambling, and it is 'hard
to conceive of a more demoralizing vice. If one
gambles at all it is not eas to HmiUthe things
gambled for or the amount wagered. If one beta
at all and refuses to back up his opinion with
money, his opinion is, in the minds of some, dis
credited. If he does not bet at all, that is a suf
ficient reason why he should not be called upon
to put up money in support of his opinion on any
subject. Then, too, the gambling habit weakens
a man's energies. Money on a bet or in a
lottery seems to be much more easily obtained than
"money secured by industry of an: kind, and after
one has obtained his living for awhile from games
of chance he becomes practically incapacitated for
any legitimate effort, and is not content with the
slow accumulation that generally accompanies the
ordinary forms of industry. It is the part of wis
dom not to gamble at all. Where Ono resolutely re
fuses to begin he is not worried about a stopping
place. And so with other evus into which the
individual is likely to fall.
The experience of the state Is not essentially
different from the experience of the Individual.
As a rule the first departure from .file right path
7
are slight and scarcely observable, but they b
come precedents for more and more serious de
partures, until tho country ' imperceptibly com
mitted to policies which cannot be endured and
hardly remedied. Every one recognizes in the ab
stract tho evil of class legislation and the grants
ing of special privileges to a favored few, and
yet it is difficult to apply tho Jeffersonian prin
ciple of equal rights to all and special privileges to
none. Some powerful interest asks tho govern
ment to suspend the principle In its favor, and the
principle once suspended for ono is suspended
again and again with Increasing frequency.
There is no reason why the financiers should
determine the financial policy of the government,
and yet concession after concession has been made
to the financiers until they not only run the gov
ernment In their own interes-, but resent any In
terference with tho prerogatives which they havs
assumed.
The samo is true of the class legislation whick
has grown up under the guise of a protective tar
iff. Each new industry that desires an indirect
bonus out of the pockets of the people claims as
an excuse that others have been given a like
privilege. The party that grar.s tho privilege calls
for a campaign fund in return, and as a result Is
re-obllged to tho protected interests.
The monopolies that today menace the indus
trial independence of small producers would not
be permitted for a moment if they had sprung up
full-fledged. The public would have been alarmed
at once, but they began one at a time and grew
little by little until many good citizens have been
made impotent to strike at the general principle
involved because they have given countenance to
the principle as manifested in "ome particular di
rection. Those who defend a cracker trust can
not consistently oppose a sugar trust or an oil
trust. Those who think that their community will
be benefited by the location of some particular
trust are powerless to attack other kinds of trusts,
and thus the system of private monopoly has
grown until it will take a gigantic effort to rid
the country of tho full grown evil.
The encroachments of the judiciary through
what is known as government by injunction il
lustrate the tendency of an evil to grow. One
judge begins by Issuing a restraining order so
mild that public attention is not attracted to it.
Judge after judge enlarges upon it until now
some of the federal judges assume to issue orders
declaring to be unlawful that which has never
been prohibited by law, and if laboring men are
accused of violating this judge-made law the
judge who made the law deals with them-summarily
without giving them the protection of trial
by jury, a right guaranteed to the meanest crim
inal. Gradually the jury system is being under
mined, and if present tendencies continue it is
only a question of time whe we may expect
some open attack to be made upon this ancient
form of trial. In fact, even now with increasing
frequency contempt is expressed for it as a part
of our judicial system. The sooner government by
injunction is abolished the better; the sooner the
courts are prohibited from making penal laws and
the sooner the people are restored to the protse
tlon of a jury trial, the safer .will be tho HberUsa
of the citizen,
Perhaps in no other respect has the slow an4
constant growth of an evil been shown than ia
the country's dealings with tho Philippine Islands.
No one would have been foolhardy enough to pro
pose an Imperial policy at the time of the mak
ing of tho treaty with Spain. The argument the
was that the war must be onded and Spain drive
out of tho Philippines as well as out of Cuba, ant
everybody acquiesces in this purpose. The mean
of accomplishing It woro not so closely scrutinize
as the thing to bo accomplished. If the admin
istration had, as it should have done, provided
for tho independence of the Philippines when It
provided for tho Independence of Cuba, tho ques
tion of imperialism would never have been raised;
but Instead of that the islands were ceded to the
United States. But even the c 'ling of tho islands
to this country would not have caused any trou
ble If the administer' 'on had Immediately upon
the ratification of the treaty announced Its pur
pose to give independence to tuc Filipinos as soon
as a stable government was established. But In
stead of that those in control of the government
have studiously avoided any declaration of pur
pose or policy, while thoy have, step by stop,
adopted Imperialistic methods. At first thoy said
that It was too early to make any statement of
tho nation's purpose; they then said that no
purpose could be announced until tho Filipinos
laid down their arms; and then when Agulnaldo
was captured (by artifice) thoy announced the in
surrection over and declared that the possession
of the Philippine Islands had become permanent
The republican leaders today Ignore the question
so far as the principles Involved are concerned,
and without attempting to 'fend the acquisition
of people either by conquest or by purchase, as
sert that it is Impossible for the nation to hon
orably withdraw. The defense of a government
emanating from without and resting upon fores
is already sowing the seeds of imperialism in this
country. From a denial of t1 1 right of the Fili
pinos to control their own government it is an
easy step to the position now taken by republican
leaders in Ohio, and elsewhere, namely, that
the people of the larger cities are incapable of
governing themselves. The t 'tempt to transfer
to the state authorities the power to control city
fire and police departments is consistent with our
policy in the Philippines, but not consistent with
the doctrine of local self-government which has
for a hundred yars been a fundamental tenet of
government in this country. From the transfer
of the government of cities to the state capital it
is not a .long step to the transfer of state gov
ernments to tae national capital, and this was
really a part of the Hamilton Idea which,
seems to be growing among republicans. It is
impossible for any one to foresee the results of
Imperialism, but every one who studies publis
affairs must know that in government as in na
ture growth Is a universal law. Those who plant
corn can expect to gather c rnj those who scat
ter thistle seed must expect a harvest of thistles.
It Is written that the wise man foreseeth. evil
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