Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1893 — They Were First. [ARTICLE]

They Were First.

The man who is first in a line is always more prominent than any of the others simply because he is first, and the achievements of the first man in any kind of literary or artistic work are always valued far above their real worth. A hundred better speeches than any ever made by Demosthenes have been delivered in the halls of our own Congress; a hundred better orations than any credited to Cicero have come from the lips of leading American speakers. Hundreds of paintings have been exhibited in the last half century which surpassed anything that Raphael could do; a dozen long poems equal or surpass those of Homer. But Demosthenes and Cicero, Raphael and Homer, were first in point of time, and so absorb nine-tenths of the glory in their line. It may be that without the leaders the followers would not have been able to do as well, but even this fact does not furnish a sufficient reason for attributing to the former all the honor or for depreciating the efforts of those who really are their equals if not their superiors.—[St. Louis GlobeDemocrat.