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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (May 11, 1905)
fwT Si- Wmm nff WW WW GEORGE W. BERGE, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Volume 17 Lincoln, Nebraska, May 11, 1905 Number 51 THE AWAKENING ' There are those who confront the great problems of the day with timid hearts, fearing the forces of error and forgetting that the Apostle said: "Know the truth and it shall make you free." It is natural that those who see immense difficulties in the way of eliminating the ills that beset the body politic should be troubled iu mind lest the power of corruption prove too strong to be dethroned. The advocates of special privilege have taken advantage of this faint-heartedness to encourage the people in the belief that reforms are impossible of attain ment. One of the chief arguments against municipal ownership is that the intrusion of politics will prove disastrous. Although it is now well under stood in this country that municipal ownership has been successful in Eng land, we are warned that different results must be expected in the United States. This is an indictment that the people can not afford to accept s the truth, and the most hopeful sign of the times is that they are appa rently determined to prove its falsity. The individual should remember that human happiness is not assured by social reforms. Under the best forms of government, when the people are freest and all share fairly in the general prosperity, the individual may be miserable. As only the desire to know the truth and abide by it in matters of personal conduct can bring happiness to the individual, so only the desire to know the truth and abide by it in matters of state can secure those reforms which make the pursuit of happiness possible. In the middle west so much "has already been accomplished for reform that the opponents of railway and trust domination are no longer dispirited by the croakings of the professional pessimist. They look to the future with the sun in their eyes, dazzled, perhaps, by the brightness of their vision, but certain that the triumphs of tomorrow will far surpass those of today. Inspired, therefore, by the evidences of progress about them they take up as a refrain the words of the poet who sang, "I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, and the thoughts of men are widened with l the ! process of the suns." ; . " , 7' And so if the ways are dark and the obstacles seem many and insuper- able here in Nebraska, where the railways have so long been dominant in politics, the citizen need only turn his gaze upon neighboring states to find renewed hope and encouragement. If the people are not always able to destroy enthroned wrong quickly it is not because they are corrupt or daunted by the strength of the nemy -they are called upon to assail, but rather because the true remedies for present evils can only be discovered by patient research and constant discussion. And when the seekers after the truth know the truth they may feel certain that it will make them free. It was in such a confident spirit that our revolutionary forefathers carried on the agitation against taxation without representation and won their independence. The headway, which has been made against the railways in Wisconsin, grafters in Missouri, Standard Oil in Kansas and the antagonists of munici-. pal ownership in Chicago, should serve to convince the people that they will yet obtain such legislation as will take the railways and corporations out of politics. The spirit of independence is still strong in the hearts of the American people. For some years it slumbered amid the platitudes of partizanship while the trusts were growing into gianthood. It required grave crises to awaken this spirit from its sleep, but none can doubt that the awaken ing has come. It is absolutely essential that the " citizens of every com monwealth should believe that the right shall prevail. It is upon this prin ciple that all successful tgitation is founded, and it is only by confidence in the power of truth to achieve what the Master has promised that state or nation can be freed from the yoke of the unrighteous. THE REAL OPTIMISTS 1 . At the present time the press of the country teems with tales of cor ruption, dishonesty and injustice in business and in politics. The worst stories are of commercial dishonesty which emanates fron the greed for money and the luxury and social distinction which it brings. But it is a superficial view which discovers pessimism in the exposures and complaints of these evils. For the press is also fruitful in remedies for them, and the burden of its contention is that they must be applied. This indicates a spirit of hopeful and courageous optimism; courageous in ex posing the wrongs which are committed mainly by the strong and-tho great, and hopeful in pertinaceously pressing remedies for them. . Another ground for optimism is the keen apprehension by the public or its representatives of prevailing evil and the great ability with which both wrongs and remedies are presented. In the universal chorus of condemnation there is no note of despair That fact holds the true American spirit, and-which will be the saving grace of the nation. When, therefore, The Independent uncovers bad men and bad measures' it is for the primary and preliminary purpose of helping to put good men and good measures in their place. This is the highest optimism. The work of the greatest champion of purity, equity and good will to ward men was as much destructive as it was constructive. He lashed the money-changers out of the temple, while he healed the sick and fed tha hungry. With unsparing invective he shamed and sought to, destroy the presumptuous ascendancy and the selfish vices of the rich and the hypoc risy of self-satisfied Phariseeism. But he pressed in their stead a new dispensation, the equality of individual rights, the value of a man and the universal brotherhood of men.. NOT GOOD AUTHORITY Mr. Carnegie Is issuing fresh editions of his stock , protest against riches in general and in particular against letting a boy have anything but poverty to begin business on. Mr. Carnegie's paeans to poverty fall flat because he not only has never been in touch with it, but also because his own case and career aro strikingly exceptional. From the first he had almost superhmuan power for money-making, and his own experience is no criterion whatever for the average boy. His contention that every boy should be condemned to rise, if at all, on a capital of poverty is as economically unsound and unwise as it is cruel. It is a platitude to say that if a boy possesses a capital of industry, - good judgment and good health he will be measurably successful in the industrial struggle, but if he possesses these elements of success he will succeed niofe surely and more rapidly if he has some capital, in the ordi nary meaning of the word, to begin with than if. he has nothing. As a gen eral rule if he has the right stuff in him he will be much more likely tc succeed with, than without capital. We shouldmake the rule for the gen eral run of sensible young men and not for the moral weaklings who are spurred to industry and economy only by destitution. As a rule these last will eventually fail anyway. Mr. Carnegie's foolish philosophy assumes that young men in general are fools, and he makes his rule to fit the foolish few. ; , Besides, grinding industrial struggle does not make the well-rounded man the best kind of a man having regard to himself or to society; and the boy who would succeed at all will succeed to a better and nobler man hood with capital or other external aid than without it. The gnarled and twisted oak because it tells in its deformity the story of partially successful resistance to unfortunate environment is not the de sirable type for the forest. It did not seek, but was unable to escape the storms that destroyed its symmetry. If storm and struggle are necessary in the making of men they are on hand in plenty; and Dr. Carnegie's prescriptions are not merely-superfluous; they are brutal. No young man needs to borrow trouble, whether he has capital or not, because everybody is waiting to give it to him outright. A JUDICIAL TRUST There is plenty of evidence that large judicial salaries do not by any means insure the choice of able judges. Neither, it seems, do high salaries insure against lazy judges, as witness the following complaint of the Chi cago Record-Herald: "The Circuit and superior court judges of Cook county have decreed unto themselves a vacation of nine weeks; from July 15 to September 18. These judges get $10,000 a year. That is over $190 a week. Four weeks would be an ample vacation for them. The other five weeks, which represents about $950 of their salary, they are seizing and con verting to their possession without due excuse." NO MORE RAILROAD JUDGES It is stated that every member of congress from Nebraska is petition ing the president to appoint Mr. Charles J. Greene judge of the Unltef States court of appeals to succeed the late Justice Thayer Let it be granted that so far as Mr. Greene's standing as a lawyer is concerned he is fit for