Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], October 24, 1908, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

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Goodwin's Weekly. II
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I Vol. XIII SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, OCTOBER 24,1908. )gK No. 25 ' ;
I Campaign Perplexities
IN ONE of his essays Emerson says: "This
country is filling up with, thousands and
millions of voters, and you must educate
them to keep them from our throats." To look
over the political field just now one would say
"They are educated, but they are at each
other's throats." Seven candidates, seven par
ties, and each one dead certain that he holds the
only safe line of procedure for this nation, and
all the rest wrong. And why should parties and
candidates be limited to seven? Why not
double the number? There are foundations
enough for plenty more parties, foundations at
least as tenable as are some which are demand
ing the suffrages of the people. And what is the
poor voter to do? Today one candidate comes
along and explains that only a few changes are
needed to make the country perfect. Tomorrow
another will be here to affirm that save for the
wonderful resources of the country and the in
dustry of the people, the country would have
been ruined long ago, and that a change of pro
gram must be made at once if we would save
some fragments. Then day after tomorrow an
other will come and explain how much money is
being spent annually for strong"drink, and show
how many homes the amount would found, and
I by easy mathematics demonstrates that the
amount thus spent would, in fifty or one hundred
years, banish poverty and make everybody com
fortable. Then Mr. Debs will come and make it
clear that with a fair distribution the hours of
labor would be reduced two-thirds, wages doubled
and every man would have at least eight hours
a day to devote to study, good works, and that
instructive contemplation which matures and up
lifts the mind and makes man indeed only a
little lower than the angels.
And so they go, and the poor voter is pulled
this way and that and is liable to decide that it
is all too deep for him, that a land in such a des
perate stage is hardly worth the saving. That is
the condition outside of Utah. Here wo have
things arranged differently. "We have two or
three men to arrange matters and to instruct the
people how to vote, and we avoid the doubt,
anxiety and solicitude which distresses men on
the outside.
All that is needed here is to go to the polls
and vote as instructed. See how much trouble
is saved by that method!
We are not sure that a sharp war between our
country and some foreign power might not be a
good thing. That would bring people back and
make them reflect that the creation of ouir Repub
lic was intended to change the face of the world,
to giva to the poor a chance to advance, and to
insure first to our countrymen and later to the
world certain inalienable rights which through
the ages had been denied the masses of man
kind. It would make men reflect upon the con
dition of the world's poor when our Republic
rounded into form, what it has already been to
humanity, what it promises to be, and then the
old thought would come back that it is a land
worth living for; if need be, worth dying for;
and that any who would alter its plan would be
enemies not only of the country, but of mankind.
"What Though the Field be Lost"
THERE is a hinttWat young Mr. Knight, the
candidater Governor, seems a little
short 'n statesmanship, but long in confi
dence that he is all right and that his candidacy
is all right. He is sure that he Is going to be
elected; he has reached the delirious point that
is common to youth some time in life, when he
wakes up to find that he is in a position to at
tract attention, and those who have seen most
of him, say he takes to the situation as a duck
does to water, as a sail takes to a breeze; that
he has none of the repugnance that Coriolanus
manifested when requested to show himself to
the people, In order to win support. It is said
that Mr. Knight is so using his nomination that
every time Governor Cutler sees him he grows
proud of himself by comparison. The chiefs of
our holy church are shrewd. Sometimes they
give a brother permission to run for office, know
ing that if he is beaten the loss will not be irreparable.
Not a Cheering Outlook
THE election is drawing near and a great
many people are waiting impatiently for
the result. There are others who feel that
no matter who may be elected, there is nof
enough in the platform of any party to inspire
great hopes, and there are thousands and tens
of thousands of earnest men who are anxious for
the future of the country. Not three hundred
years ago the Spaniards dethroned the Astec
King and subdued his country, and the Inea's
possessions were treated the same way. There
were no braver men than Cortez and Pizarro and
their followers. Never before was such spoil
found by conquerors; but the mass of the people
in those countries now are inferior to the races
their ancestors destroyed. There Is much to
hope for in our country, but there is much going
on that is disquieting. Selected students from
all the states recently went to West Point and
Annapolis to submit to examinations as to their
fitness to receive a military training. More than
half failed. The conclusion cannot help but be
that the schools of the country are so defective
that a revolution is needed in them, that their
whole plan as now pursued should be changed.
But the showing makes clear that parents are
as neglectful as those who have charge of the
schools. The showing carries with it a mighty
Indication of national degeneration. Because of a
tropical climate and the easy gathering of
wealth, we find that the first race of brave men
who from Spain peopled the New World have in
nine generations degenerated Into a race which
but cumber the earth. When Diaz took charge
in Mexico he promised bounties to energetic
foreigners who would come to his country and
help restore It, admitting frankly that the ele
ment of advancement had been leashed out of
his own people. Have we any guarantee that
the end of our Republic will be better?
There are but three things that can hold up
our race. One is education not a skimming of a
few books, but a thorough grounding; a national
belief in the dignity and necessity of honest la
bor, and third, obedience to the laws. We have
seen in the last year that the Governor and all (v- M
the force he can summon cannot maintain peace B
and give security to life and property in Ken- l B
tucky. The news, this week, is still more start- W MH
ling from Tennessee. It was almost as bad in jH
Illinois th)vee moriths ago that disposition to M
throw off all restraints of the laws, when evil $ M
passions are aroused. And the fault in every case M
originated in the homes of the men who com- M
mit the violence now. There is no honest dis- L
cipline, no respect taught for authority, but U IB
rather a false pride that when any man thought 1 IH
himself wronged or imposed upon he must seek jf B
revenge through violence. if JH
Then the ignorant,-the vicious and the law- H
less elements are being reinforced annually by If jH
hundreds of thousands of wretches from Russia f fl
and southern Europe, who come only with the m fl
thought that freedom means license. And they if fl
come bringing their feuds with them and work fl
their revenges out on our soil. There is nothing i H
in the coming election that promises any Im- I fl
provement on these conditions. The most cheer- f fl
ing thing before us today is the order and dis- I fl
cipline of our fleet in foreign waters. They show f " fl
men devoted to duty and the discipline needed I fl
to Insure order. t B
W'3 H
,, The Great West j 5
THOMAS JEFFERSON bought Louisiana " fl
from Napoleon; he sent LoavIs and Clark to i Rj
explore it; but even Jefferson had no idea ,' xj
that the Republic would extend to the Pacific. f'
Of course the revolution that steam, on land and ' M
sea, would make, never dawned upon his vision.
The Pacific coast in his day was a year distant ' H
by the shortest route, three years distant by I H
ship, and the idea of one country extending so '' Bj
far that a law passed at the capital would be a 1
year and a half or two years in reaching the V B
people, was not to be considered. In 1812 he ' H
wrote a letter to John Jacob Astor, in which, J? Hj
referring to the commencement of a settlement B
by Astor on the Columbia, and declaring the L H
gratification with which he looked forward to the j$ I
time when its descendants should have spread II I
through the whole length of the coast, he adds: fi H
"Covering it with free and Independent Ameri- J; I
cans, unconnected with us but by the ties of S M
blood and Interest, and employing like us the p Iffi
rights of self-government." The next year, 1813, , jgj H
ho wrote again to Mr. Astor, characterizing the jf I
settlement as "the germ of a great, free, and In- J) H
dependent empire on that side of our continent." 1 M
It was different with John Adams, who saw H
our Republic coincident with the North American K
continent. But as late as 1848, after railroads i! B
were a success in the East and steamships had
begun to venture out upon the deep sea, in a 1
speech in Fanueil Hall, Daniel Webster declared I H
that the west coast could not be governed from jfi
Europe or from the Atlantic side of the conti- V. M
nent, and continuing said: li m
"And now let me ask if there is any sensible "1 I
man in the whole United States who will say for ; D
a moment that when fifty or a hundred thousand ,) 8
persons of this descrlptioxi ( Americans mostly, r
but all Anglo Saxons) shall find themselves on K
the shores of the Pacific ocean, they will long H
DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER ON TUESDAY I
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