USA > Indiana > History of the Indiana democracy, 1816-1916 > Part 68
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Some of these days the people of Indiana will find ways and means to enable them to vote on the adoption or rejection of a new constitution framed by a convention especially elected for that purpose. In view of the objection commonly interposed to the proposition of such a procedure, it will not be amiss to direct attention to the views held by Thomas Jefferson, father of American Democracy, as expressed by him in a letter addressed to Major John Cart- wright, dated at Monticello, June 5, 1824:
"But can they be made unchangeable? Can one generation bind another, and all others, in succession forever? I think not. The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and pow- ers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed with will. The dead are not even things.
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The particles of matter which composed their bodies make part now of the bodies of other animals, vegetables or minerals, of a thousand forms. To what, then, are attached the rights and powers they held while in the form of men? A generation may bind itself as long as its majority con- tinues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and in- stitutions to suit themselves. Nothing, then, is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man."
Elsewhere he says no constitution should last more than twenty years. That's the limit fixed in the State of New York. Every twenty years the responsibility of framing a new or revised constitution is imposed upon the electorate of the Empire State of the Union. A change may or may not be effected at such stated periods. *
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Generous space is accorded the forego- ing citations in the hope and expectation that they may serve as an incentive to earnest study of the various problems call- ing for solution in the near or remote fu- ture. With the illuminating products of some of the ablest minds of the Republic placed before the studious reader, and con- spicuously brought to public attention, these citations ought to prove helpful in forming sound conclusions and reaching righteous decisions. The voice of states- manship ought to be listened to eagerly and the siren song of demogogy shunned determinedly. The line of distinction be- tween the statesman and the demagogue ought to be sharply drawn. With this end in view there is herewith presented a comprehensive delineation from the mas- terful pen of a former New York editor, Charles H. Betts, whose keen analysis is unreservedly commended to the thought- ful consideration of every studious reader of these pages :
"In this noisy and sensational age we are told by the false political prophets that we should blow out the light of reason and rely upon the impulses of emotion ; that we
should disregard the lessons of history and experience and be guided by the noise and confusion of the hour ; that we should cease to reverence the wisdom of the fathers and that in order to become progressive we must stand trembling and awe-stricken in the shadow of the babes unborn. I care not what course others may take; but, as for me, I hold that the wisdom of the fath- ers who founded this republic is a better and safer guide than the noise of their hysterical, office-seeking sons.
"In the Revolutionary period character, stability, brains and statesmanship were necessary to fit a man for leadership. To- day all that is required to be a popular idol is to become a poise-making, leather-lunged demagogue-a political jumping jack.
"I can tell you what is the matter with this country. It is being conducted by 10 per cent. of cranks and 15 per cent. of cow- ards. The 10 per cent. of cranks create the noise. The 15 per cent. of cowards, who are politicians, become frightened, lie down and accept noise as their guide. The other 75 per cent. of normal, decent, intelligent people are absorbed in their own business affairs and give no time to politics or pub- lic questions and neglect their civic duties. "Is it any wonder that the machinery of our representative government is being clogged by ignorance and incompetency ?
"We are told that the cure for the 'evils of democracy' is 'more democracy,' which is equivalent to saying that the cure for a lack of brains is more lungs. What we want is not more democracy, but better de- mocracy. What we want, what we need, is fewer talkers and more thinkers, fewer word brokers and more dealers in common sense, fewer curbstone orators selling the people 'balloon common' and more sages and philosophers to mark out the proper ends of government.
"We have in this country too many Pla- tos in politics. They have been correctly characterized by the Hon. Andrew D. White as 'political dreamers and schemers.' They soar around in the rarefied atmos- phere of the intellectual Himalayas, and they are out of touch with the earth and with humanity. They are mental aero- planes. Their chief accomplishment is the creation of theories that will not work. They are the creators of tragedy. It was Professor Huxley who defined a tragedy as 'a theory busted by a fact.'
"These political sophists are so busy
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these days creating political theories that it is keeping sane and intelligent people working overtime to find facts to bust their fool theories. It is becoming so tiresome that it is making life itself almost a trage- dy. But I do not mind this, for I am fond of tragedy. I am never quite so happy as when I am sticking the pins of truths into the frauds of politics.
"I want to call your attention to the fact that there is a vast difference between a demagogue and a statesman. The dema- gogue aims at temporary success. The statesman aims to be eternally right. The demagogue aims to stand on the quicksand of expediency. The statesman aims to stand on the rock of truth. The statesman in defying the uninformed sentiment of the hour may be and he often is sacrificed, but his name lives in history. The path of progress is paved with the bones of mar- tyrs, but as Bruno has well said, 'Truth is the food of heroic souls.'
"On the other hand, it is the cheap, tem- porary idols. of the hours who cowardly abandon truth and principle in order to win a temporary success, who in all his- tory have furnished the permanent pave- ment for the bottom of oblivion.
"There has never been a time in the his- tory of our country when we could study the lessons of history and experience with such profit as in the present, and there has never been a time in all our history when we were in greater need of the guidance of the sane wisdom and statesmanship that gave birth to the American republic."
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There is much force to what Professor Harold C. Goddard, of Swarthmore Col- lege, says with reference to the necessity of the United States awakening from compla- cency if it would bring about lasting peace :
"To awaken from complacency, indeed, is the first step the United States must take if it desires peace for itself and to help bring peace to the world. That step taken, it must cease squandering its inheritance and set about the task of mobilizing its dis- integrated forces of super-resistance-so- cial, industrial, political, educational, and religious. It must wipe out the stigma of
dollar worship by fashioning a creative na- tional purpose. It must focus on itself the admiration of the world by making an America where men are free in fact as well as in name. The program for that work must be bold and imaginative. No half measures will suffice at this crisis of world history. And the working relation that the political part of that program should bear to the question of military pre- paredness is this : No increase in armament that is not coupled with some social ameli- oration, some enhancement of genuine de- mocracy, is entitled to a moment's consid- eration from the American people."
So long as the American spirit survives the greatest Republic that the world has ever looked upon will move forward to new problems, solved in human uplift, new tri- umphs won in the extension of the bless- ings of liberty and peace and plenty not only to a few, but to all capable of utilizing the same. What is this American spirit? It is the golden key that opens the door for humanity into an ever richer future. It is the spirit of independence and the spirit of love for the common humanity around us.
One of the Republic's truly eloquent presidents declared once upon a time that "It behooves the jealousy of a free people to be constantly awake." In Proverbs we are told, truly : "Where there is no vision the people perish." Ruskin was eternally right when he declared: "Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known." And I fully concur in the thought expressed by Lyman Abbott not long since: "No man has a right to take part in governing others who has not the intellectual and moral capacity to govern himself." But, alas! That implies an ideal hardly attainable under any sort or sys- tem of government known to mankind. The best we may hope for and strive to estab- lish in the main is an alert intelligence and patriotic electorate.
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GEMS OF THOUGHT
I hold this to be the rule of life-too much of anything is bad .- Terence.
What a man knows should find expres- sion in what he does. The value of supe- rior knowledge is that it leads to a per- forming manhood .- Bovee.
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Liberty does not consist, my fellow citi- zens, in mere general declarations of the rights of men. It consists in the transla- tion of those declarations into definite ac- tion .- Woodrow Wilson.
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It is a source of unbounded gratification for me to be enabled to say, truthfully, that I have not knowingly thrust a thorn in the side of my fellowman .- Abraham Lincoln. * *
The only way to love the forest is to stay in it until you have learned its pathless travel, growth and inhabitants as you know the fields. You must begin at the gate and find your way slowly, else you will not hear the great secret and see the compelling vision. There are trees you never before have seen, flowers and vines the botanists fail to mention, and such mu- sic as your ears can not hear elsewhere .- Gene Stratton Porter.
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Might we not all resolve that every day we will do at least one act of kindness? Let us write a letter in such terms that the post will bring pleasure next day to some house ; make a call just to let a friend know that he has been in our heart; send a gift on someone's birthday, marriage day or any day we can invent. Let us make children glad with things which they long for and can not obtain. And a thousand other things which we could do within a year, if we had eyes to see and a heart to feel and had the will to take some trouble. -Ian Maclaren.
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help to create the fact .- William James.
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The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses nor fine furniture. - Benjamin Franklin. * *
% Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue .- Francis Bacon. * *
I believe that today is better than yes- terday, and that tomorrow will be better than today .- George F. Hoar.
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The longer I live the more I am per- suaded that the gifts of Providence are more equally distributed than we are apt to think. Among the poor so little is en- joyed so much, and among the rich so much is enjoyed so little .- Margaret Bot- tome. x *
Sanctified work is a blessing. The com- mand to labor for six days is as binding as the command to rest on the seventh. Work that is a blessing is work that creates. When creation ceases slavery begins. There must be human interest in work or it deadens both mind and muscles. The shoemaker of the old school used to see a shoe grow under his skill. Love is an- other element in making a life. Love is not passion ; it sanctifies passion. Love is as broad as humanity .- Dr. Emil G. Hirsch. *
The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always first to be touched by the thorns .- Moore. * *
The weakest spot in every man is where he thinks himself to be the wisest .- Na- thaniel Emmons.
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Is it not a thing divine to have a smile
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which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all the living in common drag be- hind them ?- Victor Hugo. * * *
Let me gather to myself the secret and meaning of the earth, the golden sun, the light, the foam-flecked sea. Let my soul
become enlarged; I am not enough; I am little and contemptible. I desire a great- ness of soul, an irradiance of mind, a deep- er insight, a broader hope .- Richard Jeff- ries. *
In a sound sleep the soul goes home to recruit her strength, which could not else endure the wear and tear of life .- Rahel.
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PATRIOTISM
The way to be patriotic in America is not only to love America, but to love the duty that lies nearest to our hand and know that in performing it we are serving our country. It is patriotic to learn what the facts of our national life are and to face them with candor. We set this na- tion up-at any rate, we professed to set it up-to vindicate the rights of men. I would be ashamed of this flag (stars and stripes) if it ever did anything outside America that we would not permit it to do inside of America. When I have made a promise I try to keep it, and I know of no other rule permissible to a nation .- Presi- dent Woodrow Wilson.
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The test of an American is not where he was born, but what he is doing and will do for the republic. If with resolute heart and clear mind he says, "I am an Ameri- can. This country is mine. I am for it first and always," he is a good enough American to maintain our prestige, defend our honor and promote our welfare. He is a desirable .- Martin G. Brumbaugh, Governor of Pennsylvania.
America holds out an example a thou- sand times more encouraging than was ever presented before to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank .- Daniel Webster at Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death !- Patrick Henry. * * *
Love of country is one of the loftiest virtues which the Almighty has planted in the human heart, and so treason against
it has been considered the most damning of sins .- Emory A. Storrs. * *
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it .- Justice Story.
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Patriotism, pure and undefiled, is the handmaid of religion. Love of country is twin to the love of God. The instinct of love of country, of patriotism, dwelling in every human breast, is the abiding and unchangeable source of every nation's strength and safety and the inspiration of the most enlightened civilization has been the inspiration of all the people of the earth through all the ages: "Dulce et dec- orum est pro patria mori." Strong as love of country is instinctively, it can, by cul- tivation, be made stronger in each individ- ual and thus become a source of greater national strength. It is a part of the edu- cation and experience of a true man and of the real business of life that he should be a patriot. The instinct of the love of country is as natural as the parental or filial love or as the attachment for home. As the bird returns to the nest, so every fiber of a well-educated and well-developed man swells in sympathy with associations of family, home, community, State or Na- tion. No man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. There can be no well-rounded character in selfish individ- ualism .- Chief Justice Hay Brown of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
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To my eye the path of our duty is as clear as the milky way. It is the path of active preparation, of dignified energy. It consists not in abandoning our rights, but in supporting them, as they exist and where they exist-on the ocean as well as on the land .- Josiah Quincy, Jr.
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Be loyal to the United States, your fam-
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ily and your employer. Beware of snakes. Unanimous United States would bring peace quicker than discordant talking ma- chines. Now is no time for wrist-watch patriots. Make cabinet changes early. Lincoln did. Allies did after they made serious mistakes. Wilson should. Pres- ent cabinet was organized for peace. War is on. We must prepare quickly and wise- ly. Get the best. Forget partisan poli- tics .- Frank I. King, Toledo, Ohio.
I believe that I am not mistaken in see- ing these new purposes come into the hearts of men who have not permitted themselves hitherto to see what they now look upon. For the Nation cannot move successfully by anything except concert of purpose and of judgment. You cannot whip a nation into line. You cannot drive your leaders before you. You have got to have a spirit that thrills the whole body, and I believe that that spirit is now beginning to thrill the whole body. Men are finding that they will be bigger busi- ness men as they will spend some of their brains on something that has nothing to do with themselves, and that the more you extend the use of your energy the more energy you have got to spend even upon your own affairs-that enrichment comes with the enlargement, and that with the enrichment comes the increase of power .- Governor Woodrow Wilson at Trenton, January 13, 1913. * *
It is my duty as an educated American citizen ; your duty, young gentlemen, is to see to it that the sun of opportunity shall not drop below the horizon and guild the few mountain peaks of education and wealth and refinement, while the great masses of the people, like the great val- leys, are shrouded in the gloom and priva- tions of poverty and ignorance, but that this glorious sun that is enlightening you and me shall rise to the meridian splendor in the firmament of American life, and
bathe the lowliest home in its effulgent glory .- U. S. Senator Ellison D. Smith to Students of South Carolina University.
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The very colors (of our flag) have a lan- guage which was officially recognized by our fathers. White is for purity, red for valor, blue for justice; and all together- stripes, stars and colors, blazing in the sky-make the flag of our country, to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld by all our hands .- Charles Sumner. * *
Great and worthy of all gratitude and fame were those men who have devoted their best faculties, poured out their best blood, for the land they called their own; but greater far, and more worthy of grati- tude, and of purer and more enduring fame, are the very few who lived not for an age, a country, but for all ages, for all mankind; who did not live to preach up this or that theory, to insist on this or that truth, to sustain this or that sect or party, but who lived to work out the intellectual and spiritual good, and to promote the progress of the whole human race, to kin- dle within the individual mind the light which is true freedom, or leads to it. Such was the example left by Jesus Christ, such a man was Shakespeare, such a man was Goethe .- Mrs. Jameson. *
Democracy is the grand adventure in the growth of civilization. Whenever men have struggled to be free the world has progressed; but, after all, popular govern- ment is still an experiment measured in terms of world history. Above all, the struggle is not a political one. You and I and all men live lives that are more indus- trial and commercial and economic than political. And so political freedom is only a part of democracy-a part that has long since been won. What the people want is not only political freedom-it is industrial freedom and the equality of opportunity. Industrial monopoly is simply industrial monarchy .- Joseph E. Davies.
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This is the best government on earth- the one most responsive to the will of the people, but it is a government of the peo- ple-not of one or a few men. If a few are permitted to resist .a law-any law- because they do not like it, government becomes a farce. The law must be en- forced-resistance is anarchy .- W. J. Bryan. * * *
The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality. There ex- ists in the course of nature an indissoluble union of virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between honest policy and public felicity. The smiles of heaven can never be expected on a government that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has or- dained .- George Washington, President of the United States. April, 1789.
We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrongs done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are ob- served among the individual citizens of civilized States .- Woodrow Wilson, Presi- dent of the United States. April, 1917.
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It is a question of loyalty, not of nativ- ity. Those Americans, of German birth or lineage, who have plighted their vows and adopted America as their home and their hope, establishing themselves among us, as one of us, and making common cause with us, are as good Americans as the rest of us, and are to be congratulated and en- couraged rather than discouraged and condemned merely from a nationality .-- President Woodrow Wilson.
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WORDS OF WISDOM AND TRUTH
In maintaining that play is an essential element in making a life there must be spoken a word of caution about amuse- ments. Whatever wastes the strength of body or mind and destroys the purity of the soul is not legitimate play. Dancing is not essentially irreligious. David danced before the ark. But those dances which weaken the moral sense and give offense to purity are irreligious and are damaging to character. The final element in making a life is worship. Worship is the acknowl- edgment of our limitations. To refuse to worship is to manifest selfishness. Self- sufficient men cannot worship. We are all compelled to make a living, but for com- pleteness of living we must all make a life. -Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, Chicago. * *
The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who, early in life, clearly dis- cerns his object, and toward that object habitually directs his powers. Thus, in- deed, even genius itself is but fine observa- tion strengthened by fixity of purpose. Every man who observes vigilantly and re- solves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius .- Bulwer-Lytton. * *
Many a man defers his happiness until he gets rich. Then he is surprised to find that his manna is spoiled, that he should have eaten it when first given. Deferred happiness and the deferred good deed do not keep .- The Christian Herald.
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Of permanent mourning there is none; no cloud remains fixed. The sun will shine tomorrow .- Richter. * *
It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition .- Goldsmith.
Phobism is an addition to fear (another name for worry). If smugness be unlove- ly from a social point of view, phobism is fatal to its victim. Did it ever occur to you that fear can become a habit and a luxury, just as smoking is? But phobism is the more hazardous. We fear poverty, we fear disease, we fear death, we fear that we shall be snubbed socially. And each separate fear impairs our capacity for work in a definite, measurable way. I know many people addicted to the use of fear. Some of them use it to excess. To the psychologist fear is the most expen- sive of all habits that people indulge. Nine- ty-nine and forty-four one hundredths per cent. of fear is as useless as a deckhand on a submarine .- Elliott Park Frost.
I believe that the country, which God made, is more beautiful than the city, which man made; that life out of doors and in touch with the earth is the natural life of man. I believe that work is work wherever we find it, but that work with nature is more inspiring than work with the most intricate machinery. I believe that the dignity of labor depends not on what you do, but how you do it; that op- portunity comes to a boy on the farm as often as to a boy in the city; that life is larger and freer and happier on the farm than in the town; that my success depends not upon my location, but upon myself- not upon my dreams, but upon what I actually do-not upon luck, but upon pluck. I believe in working when you work, and in playing when you play, and in giving and demanding a square deal in every act of life .- Edwin Osgood Grover.
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