Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 272, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1918 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE]

HOME TOWN HELPS

HIGHEST TYPE OF CITIZEN HHHM MurWh. See, Tendency of the Times ancLHelps Direct It Correctly. Who is be? A person who keeps, his eyes open and knows what is goini im, and who asserts a smarlction from what fie sees. OneuiiajfthiPk it is very difficult, considering fee complexity and multiplicity of event*. to possess oneself of a governlngriruth from the driftwood of the rapidly passing stream of things. But that is not what he has to do. If a person has to wait for every little particular he will never reach a judgment or belief. You can see such pedpie in a community, mere peckers of bird seed, full of vapid talk and controversy. They are no more agents of truth than Old Nick is. ’ You don’t have to inspect each particular straw to see what a haystack Is. You can look at It, see its form, understand its purpose, and know al! there Is in a haystack to know. So in life, the small facts are endless and shed no light. One must turn from them to the tendency or policy and make up his mind from that. Such a discovery is easier than a single fact. One cannot make up one’s mind from little things, for they are endless, one suggesting another infinitely. So a general view that expresses a tendency provides the opportunity for a conviction. The civic duty, then, is to get acquainted with the tendency of a measure of policy, the influence it has on other things and how it affects the habits of a community. This constant lowering about particulars never constructs a real faith. One has to take his stand on an axion or self-evident truth and then look out and see whether a circumstance Is coming to him or going frojn him. That is the way to get at a tendency which is the necessity habit of good citizenship. It is the small mind that is constantly looking for peanut facts and reasons. It is the larger mind that looks for tendencies, and the field for Its exercise includes all national, state and city affairs. A man who doesn’t see tendencies there is a poor citizen, and they are legion.—Columbus Journal. 1