Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1910 — MODERN HERO WORSHIP. [ARTICLE]

MODERN HERO WORSHIP.

It Seems to Be Drifting Away from the Old-Time Ideals. The world seems to be seeking for nerw heroes to worship. Apparently, in the rush of events of the last decades of the preceding century and the first of the present, there have been presented numerous temptations to drift away from the ideals of those who have passed the meridian of life. We may not ignore, at any time, the Cincinnati Enquirer says, the tendency of the average mind, as we observe and study it, to admiration of characters possessed of strange and startling phases. We may have been taught In our childhood that the Ilves of great men should serve to remind us of the possibilities of sublimity In our own and that we should exert ourselves In that direction. But to-day many of us are at a loss to know who are the /'really “great” in achievement. ’’ Those of the older school wer taught to respect and even admire men and women whose pedal impressioiis upon the "sands of time” have told of devotion to their fellows; of permanence in literature making for our improvement; of philanthropy of a kind that some of their fellows might be relieved of some of the burdeqs of Introspective study and anxious thought for the future; of those great in Inventions that resulted in vast improvements for the world,and for the Indi-

vidual; of these who have directed ua in advancement in medicine and surgery, that the physical sufferings of their fellows may be more speedily and permanently alleviated; of warriors on the land and on the seas whose deeds have advanced freedom of thought and action in nations; of discoverers of countries, new. to the world in their time, to be benefited by -those advanced thinkers and martyrs, and of many other characters who have illuminated the world’s history. But does the average mind now turn to such characters for instruction and pleasure in the study of the so-called “great”? And if not, why not? No doubt all persons of all climes have legitimately acquired, by heredity, the disposition to look with profound admiration upon those physically superior to their fellows. .Not so many centuries ago the great robber in European wilds and fastnesses who could overcome his neighbor robber and thus inerease his holdings and prestige managed to boost himself or his descendants to what we have become accustomed to know hs royal or -imperial power. They were served by their fighting Intimates and vassals, who followed and admired them. We of to-day are descended from these masters or from their friends or vassals. We have not forgotten, down through the centuries to admire the power of the physical stroke and its results. The wars of the last three-fourths of a century no doubt produced men who may become heroes for the worship of the future, but very few of the great characters of those wars now linger In the memory. The great searchlight that will be thrown upon them 'by historians may serve to make them heroes for generations now unborn — perhaps. In the great advance in sciences heretofore almost undreamed of there are many brilliant characters exploiting the seemingly impossible. To them, perhaps, we may immediately turn for the focal points of our admiration; to that man of our navy, for instance, who recently caused himself to be shot through a torpedo tube from a submarine to demonstrate how thV lives of a crew of such a vessel may be saved in case of Imprisonment within the depths; to those men who are now risking their lives upon the Integrity of a single cog or fragile wing, thousands of feet above the earth, that we may advance our flight through the air without the aid of gas. And there are others, including some who have exerted the magic of their inventive genius to give us more intimate communication with each other through the vast reaches of our atmosphere without visible means between points of sending and reception.