& ' ' "
"TSSP . . 1JI
*
Conservative.
The pop u 1 i s t s
HATE IT and other com-
BUT GET IT. mnnists teach hat
red of wealth as a
cardinal virtue. To acquire , to ac
cumulate and conserve capital is an
atrocity. It is plutocracy plundering
the poor , whenever a citizen creates ,
by industry , sobriety , good manage
ment and self-denial , enough capital
to hire mind and muscle to work for
him. Then it is that he becomes a
target and is denounced as a tyrant.
Then it is that ho is lashed by the
tongues of those fervid lovers of ' ' the
plain people" who prance up and
down the country proclaiming the
greed and wickedness of the capital
istic classes , and are also collecting
money from wage-earners with which
to pay themselves for making an econ
omic disturbance. They hate money ,
but get it by any and every device ex
cept that of honest efforts to earn
money. Each one of them denounces
capital and capitalists , and each one
of them is ambitious to get capital
and become a capitalist. They tell
how hard the times are , and how
close money is , and brag of getting
five hundred dollars for a single
speech full of froth and fallacy. 'tThey
talk of the limited libraries for plain
people and boast of sales , amounting
to hundreds of thousands of dollars for
books like Coin Harvey's School for
Idiots , or that bigger volume of bigger
bosh ' ' The First Battle. ' ' They de
nounce monopoly and then seek the
monopoly of the gullibility of all the
emotional , ignorant people in the
country for the purpose of doing them
out of their [ ballots and their del
lars.
lars.Recall
Recall the campaign of 1896 ! Re
read the prophecies of Bryan and the
other calamity forecasters as to the
evils which the defeat of 1(5 ( to 1 and
its ticket and the success of the gold
standard would inexorably precipitate
upon the American people.
Did they not toll you that wheat
prices and silver prices were indissolubly -
ubly and forever married and that no
power on earth could ever divorce
these commercial affinities ? Did
they not even declare 16 tel a God-
instituted ratio and did not Senator
Monologue Morgan of Alabama preach
to the senate by the day upon the
heavenly origin of the sacred 16 to 1
ratio and dogma ?
Aud-what financial prediction among
them all has been verified ? What
prophecy of evil to agriculture , com
merce and manufacture made by
those oracles remains unimpeached ?
Sparkling oratory , pi easing metaphor
and even skillful elocution are as de
licious as soft , soda-pop , fizzing
drinks at drug-stores in summer. But
the intellect starves without some lo
gic and the soul sickens without some
truth just as the body would on no
other sustenance than soft summer
drinks.
That populist exhorters and com
munistic declaimers all aver their
hatred of thrift and its accumulations
everybody knows. And everybody
but their immediate dupes sees and
understands that by more words thosoi
exhorters and declaimers would got
money which successful men get by
work and retain for use as by good
judgment , self-denial and careful
management.
To hate people who have earned
and saved a competence ; to array all
the thriftless against the thrifty ; to
stir up discontent and make antagon
isms in the social and industrial life
of the United States ; and at the same
time to gain for themselves political
prominence and a pecuniary compe
tence is the object and aim of ninety-
nine out of every hundred of the bla
tant advocates of populism , which is
communism only thinly disguised.
A marked weak-
THEY DREAD .ness in the public
TO BE ALONE , men of the United
States is their al
most universal dread of being alone.
Nothing frightens the average states
man in this country so much as to
find himself alone in the support of a
great truth or principle , which in a
moment of uncontrollable vehemence ,
he may have proclaimed to his party
or the whole people and had rejected.
This idea of being with the crowd ,
herding with the majority , permeates
all the politicians of the partisan or
ganizations of the different states.
And never until the present discus
sion as to whether the Republic had
better or better not add to its citizen
ship ; besides the already secured lep
ers of the Sandwich Islands , , millions
of half civilized , hybridized and in
ferior beings in the Philippine and
West Indian Islands , has this fear of
being found alone with a principle era
a truth which the multitude repel ,
been so visible amidst the officialism
and officeseekingism of the United
States.
Moral courage seems to have been
pretty thoroughly bred out of the
male mass of humankind. The cus
tom of ascertaining the trend and
tone of the mob and following the
same , while posing as a leader , has so
long obtained that it has become a
sort of second nature among American
politicians. And the voice of the
slums and sins of great cities , al
though known to be the utterance of
ignorance and crime lias been and
continues to bo accepted as the Vex Dei
for patriots in pursuit of ballots that
may place them in offices. The oft-
repeated lie that "a majority is al
ways right" lias come to be regarded
as a social and political axiom. And
as a majority are sinners , unconnect
ed with any religious faith , many
have seemingly concluded that
wickedness is therefore , especially in
a public matters , moro popular and
valuable than straight-forward truth
and honesty.
West Point and Annapolis perfect
the youth of the country who are
there schooled in all arts of war.
Physical courage is coached , exer
cised and disciplined in those great
national institutions until their pupils
are perfectly prepared to enter npon
those vast international corpse-mak
ing matches , called battles anywhere
on earth. Such splendid machinery
has modern civilization and Christian
ity invented for the wholesale de
struction of humanity when the op
posing armies of two refined and pi
ous people meet in conflict that physi
cal courage has become almost a part
of the mechanism of that magnificent
murder which we call war.
And now the need is for men who
have that sort of intellectual and
moral bravery that will make them
bold enough to tell the truth , to ad
vocate the truth , and if need be , to
politically die for the truth.
The schools , colleges , and universi
ties of this Republic should teach
their students the importance of think
ing instead of depending upon what
others have thought.
Individuality and the strength and
self-reliance of an enlightened inde
pendence in thought aud speech are
sadly lacking in the public life of the
United States.
Men who dare to denounce wrong ,
in the face of a mad populace who for
the moment approve and support the
wrong , are needed now.
The old fallacy that' ' a majority is
always right" was exploded on Cal
vary , at Jerusalem , more than eigh
teen centuries ago !
In business
BUSINESS affairs men get sal-
AFFAIRS. aried positions be-
cajBe they can do
aud have done useful work. But in
political life they frequently are nom
inated and elected to salaried offices
because they have proved themselves
useless everywhere else. Why not ad
opt the methods of business when voting
ing for officers ? Why not pick out
men who have merit , and record of
usefulness , to perform the duties for
the people ?
Self- ul-
Selfforgetf -
A CITIZEN'S ness is the first
DUTY. duty of the patriot-
i c public man
when he discusses a question involv
ing the institutions and permanent
welfare of the Republic. No states
man can consider first his own per
sonal popularity aud the needs of his
countrymen and the Republic after
wards. Man's first duty is to his
native land and his second to human
ity in all lands.
