Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1910 — PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PAPERS BY THE PEOPLE

BEWARE OF THE MAN WHO TELLS.

By Bart Kennedy.

If you have a brick handy, present it without ceremony to-the man who is always telling you what other people say about you. You will injure* him with the brick, and you will doubtless be locked up for assault; but you will galp in the end. Foryou will have rid yourself of a friend who is more dangerous than the most dangerous foe. Gossip in itself is not a bad thing at all.

And even scandal is shorn in a vast v measure of its power to injure wfien the person about whom it is circulated knows nothing of it. If you don't know what people are saying about you, the thing largely is, in effect, not said. And, even if you do know what is said, absolutely the best way of dealing with it is to wear a bold, unconscious front. If you do this you will always find people to take your'part. This is as true of hulman nature as it is true, that it loves gossip and scandal . It is the one who tells who really causes the trouble. This dealer in the truth that is necessarily in part a lie causes more mischief than any other kind of criminal. I say criminal advisedly, for the man or the woman who is in the habit of telling people what others say about them creates far more mischief and causes far, more misery than the more honest and bolder type of criminal who is sent into penal servitude. The law is unable to touch them, I know; i but their crimes are thqise that the law is unable to punish.

COMPETITION AND BROTHERHOOD OF MAN.

By Prof. George B. Foster.

How does it come that weaker mam has maintained his place upon the earth, while much stronger animals of the primeval world succumbed to their fate long ago? Only through social life, only through the bond of common, if so be, primitive order, the first traces of civilization! And the higher humanity has ascended the ladder of development, the clearer is it to be seen that the

power which makes man strong to triumph in the battle of life, .thus to fill the law of social progress, consists in increased capacity to serve the interests of other men, to understand the problems of other men, and to serve other men’s lives In fair competition man sees all the foolish scheming and striving which goes on around him and makes him sorry for the people; he tries to be strong so that he may not be upset hy the general confusion of moral Ideas; he feels that he must be better, even if he stands alone, than all his so-called competitors. If he/ remains strong, he will become ever stronger, ever freer, a fountain of life, a stirring example for others, showing them new paths of life. It is ours, then, to seek the best, to excel all who lag behind in that which is

s » r 4 ;.*# '•■l. ‘p ">■ •>: - : . * "... •'/- truly human, good and great. The truest love, the finest . sense for truth, open righteousness, magnanimity, and gentleness—in a word, brotherhood —all this secures a victory in which, the vanquished share in the triumph!

POWER OF MORAL COURAGE IN WAR,

By Lieut. Gen. Reginald C. Hart.

It js Instructive to study the, moral forces that contributed, so largely to the Japanese victories. It is sufficient to say that re- . ligion, call it any other name you like, enters into the-daily private and public life of bhe whole nation. . Boys and girls alike are brought up to treat their parents with honor, respect and unselfish devotion, and to revere past generations to whom all living men are so

much indebted. In Japan the young men and women of the nobility and wealthy classes would think it dishonorable to devote the best years of their lives to idleness apd the result of selfish pleasure, because they are taught that it* is wrong not to work. The causes of courage are mostly moral. There is some mysterious working in the minds of ordinary men that gives a force of character that determines them to ignore or control the strong natural instinct of selfpreservation and to accept self-sacrifice more or less completely. * Religious feeling is a moral cause that produces an almost irresistible moral forcq. We need only recall the religions enthusiasm of the followers of Moses, Joshua, Mohammed, Cromwell and scores of others. Indeed, the greatest things have been done by armies ol God-fearing men.

FATHER THE BEST ADVISER OF THE BOY.

By John A. Howland.

As a matter of stern, hard common sense truth, most of the advice which to-day is given to the young man in person, long before ought to have been impressed upon the father, in order that the growing boy and young man might have been made open to all else that may come to him in spoken advice and personal experience.. It isn’t, easy to normal boy, who is

overfull of high spirits and lightness of heart and feet and full of high spirits and lightness of heart and feet and hands. But when it is brought home to him that some of his heedless actions just a little later in life may “put him out of business”—the application is direct and indisputable. Hold that boy to his accountabilities as you would hojd the stranger boy. If you won’t do this, don’t ask that son to do anything. Open, irresponsible idleness is the better for him fiy far. He will have a better show, wholly without training, than if lazily and indifferently half trained.