Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 249, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1916 — TRUE PATRIOTISM. [ARTICLE]

TRUE PATRIOTISM.

Under the head of Community Loyalty, the Goodland Herald outlines very ably the duties of every man in his community. The article strikes us as having so much food for thought in it that we give it below:Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that loyalty to community interests “is”the Tighest type~of patriotism? Show us the man who is loyal an J true to every interest of his own community and we will show you in that same man an individual in whom his country can repost absolute confidence in any emergency that calls for his allegiance. On the other hand the man who is carleless and unconcerneel for the interests of his community is more than apt to display the same spirit of indifference toward his government or his state should any serious danger threaten either. One of the most commendable traits of the old Scotch highlanders was their loyalty to their own clan. Good or bad, right or wrong, their elan had their first allegiance. The life and service of each one was always placed at the service of their clan. Try to imagine an entire state composed of innumerable communities welded and cemented into a whole, each striving to excell the other, but each, from its own loyalty, developing broader and deeper loyalty that reaches out and embraces the whole. Utopia, you say? By no means—merely what could and would be the result if we only could see that we owe allegiance to our own people, and that the prosperity trf others is in no wise a detriment to us, but rather a help; that if each community would develop itself to the utmost —physically, mentall y and morally—none would need be envious of others and neither would any need to do anything that would detract from the others interests. Let us develop~ commimity loyalty to the fullest.