Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 234, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1910 — NO CLOUDS IN SIGHT [ARTICLE]

NO CLOUDS IN SIGHT

COLONEL GEORGE HARVEY SAYS COUNTRY ALL RIGHT. THE WRITER SEES HO CLOUD Striking Article In North Review That Is Attracting Wide Attention. The attention of business and professional men in all portions of the country has been attracted to a strikingly strong article by Col. George Harvey in the September issue of the North American Review in which the writer takes a view of the greatest hopefulness for the future of America and Americans. The article is entitled “A Plea for the Conservation of Common Sense,” and It is meeting with the cordial approval of business men of all shades of political opinion throughout the entire country. In part, Colonel Harvey says: “Unquestionably a spirit of unrest dominates the land. But, if it be true that fundamentally the condition of the country is sound, must we necessarily succumb to despondency, abandon effort looking to retrieval and cringe like cravens before clouds that only threaten? Rather ought we not to analyze conditions, search for causes, find the root of the distress, which even now exists only in men’s minds, and then, after the American fashion, apply such remedies as seems most likely to produce beneficent results? Capital and Labor Not Antagonistic. “The Link that connects labor with capital is not broken but we may not deny that it is less cohesive than it should be or than conditions warrant. Financially, the country is stronger than ever before in its history. Recovery from a panic so severe as that of three years ago was never before so prompt and comparatively complete. The masses are practically free from debt. Money is held by the banks in abundance and rates are low. “Why, then, does capital pause upon the threshold of Investment? The answer, we believe, to be plain. It awaits adjustment of the relations of government to business. • • • The sole problem consists of determining how government can maintain an even balance _ between aggregations of interests, on the one hand, and the whole people, on the other, protecting the latter against extortion and saving the former from mad assaults. “The solution is not easy to find for the simple reason that the situation is without precedent. But is not progress being made along sane and cautious lines? • * • Conserve Common Sqnse. “Is not the present, as we have seen, exceptionally secure? What, then, of preparations for the future? Patriotism is the basis of our institutions. And patriotism in the minds of our youth is no longer linked solely with fireworks and deeds of daring. It is taught in our schools. A new course has been added—a course in loyalty. Methodically, our children learn how to vote, how to conduct primaries, conventions and elections, how to discriminate between qualifications of candidates and, finally, how to govern as well as serve. They are taught to despise bribery and all forms of corruption and fraud as treason. Their creed, which they are made to know by heart, is not complex. It is simple, but comprehensive, no less beautiful in diction than lofty in aspiration. These are the pledges which are graven upon their memories:

“As it is cowardly for a soldier to run away from battle, so it is cowardly for any citizen not to contribute his share to the well-being of his country. America is my own dear land; she nourishes me, and I will love her and do my duty to her, whose child, servant and civil soldier I am. “As the health and happiness of my body depend upon each muscle and nerve and drop of blood doing its work in its place, so the health and happiness of my country depend upon each citizen doing his work in his place. 1 “These young citizens are our hostages to fortune. Can we not safely assume that the principles animating their lives augur well for the permanency of the Republic? When before have the foundation stones of continuance been laid with such care and promise of durability? “The future, then, is bright And the present? But one thing is needful. No present movement is more laudable than that which looks to conservation of natural resources. But let us never forget that the greatest inherent resource of the American people is Common Sense. Let that be conserved and applied without cessation, and soon it will be found that all the ills of which we complain but know not of are only such as attend upon the growing pains of a great and blessed country.