Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 242, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1916 — Enlightened Public Opinion Alone Can Bring Free and Wholesome Government [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Enlightened Public Opinion Alone Can Bring Free and Wholesome Government

By SENATOR WILLIAM E. BORAH of Idaho

The call of America today is less.for a change in institutions than for a change as to the vigilance and civic activities of individual citizenship. If there bedevils menacing our institutions, if: - these.-evils seem, to strengthen—year by year, the lawmakers and administrators of the law are not the only sinners. Ours is a .government of public opinion, not in a superficial but in a most profound way. If was to he, so and it cannot it cannot liver except it be sustained bv a well-informed, eternally

Vigilant and thoroughly sustained public opinion . The whole scheme of this government, its efficiency and its strength, rest at last upon the shoulders of the individual citizen. The whole structure has no other guaranty, no protector save an enlightened public opinion.,. , We can make up our minds once and for all that if we are not willing to make the sacrifice in time,' thought and means, by and through which _citizenship is kept'up tu the highest standard of intelllganea and physical well-being, and bv and through which the powers of the government are exercised for the general welfare, tlien while we may have some furm of~ “organized some shambling' pretense of a government, we will not have a republic in fact—a free, wholesome, uncontrolled government having its well springs of national purpose apdF power in the esteem and affection of a loyal and devoted people.