Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1903 — THE COLLEGE SPIRIT. [ARTICLE]

THE COLLEGE SPIRIT.

Dowie has made a aatiafactory settlement with his creditors and is again at the head of Zion City, the receiver having been discharged by court. The supreme court has declared the gravel road law of 1903 (Acts, page 255) constitutional, and says the defects in the title of the act cut no figure. It says the act does not provide for the taking of private property for public purposes without due process of law, in violation of Section 12 of the bill of rights, as charged, and is in no sense class legislation. It is becoming more and more apparant to the conservative, thoughtful republicans that Roosevelt is not the man for President, and it is extremely doubtful if he has a walkaway for the nomination. Roosevelt is impetuous, headstrong, boyish, if you please, and not a safe man to be at the head of a nation. The more conservative men of his party are turning to Hanna as the better fitted for the place, and it will not be surprising if he is the nominee. The State Asphalt and Oil company of South Dakota, organized during the last session of the legislature, by politicians and business men, principally members of the legislature, has cost many of the stockholders several hundred dollars in experience. The company wascapatilized for $1,000,000, and purchased 350 acres of arid Wyoming desert land, said to be not worth twenty-five cents an acre. It was announced that the land was rich in oil and asphalt, although it is now stated there is neither. Our own Senator Wolcott was one of the officers of the corporatiom “Honest Abe’s” tax-ferret fiasco drove a great deal of capital away from Remington, and we presume the same is true of other sections of the county. Michael J. Costello, J. E. Hollett, F. R. Curtis, Alpheus Elmore, and others, all monied men, have left here during the past and taken their money with them, while much other capital that was needed here has found investment in other states. Remington would have been much better off financially, and in every other way, besides realizing much more now from taxes if Abe and his scheme had never been born.” Such was the expression of an old citizen of Remington to us the other day, and he was right. To m ike a war on local capital—such as the tax-ferret deal did —drives that capital to seek investment elsewhere and the foreign capital that comes in to in part take its place pays no local taxes whatever. The Democrat thinks every man should pay his just burden of taxation, but to follow out the tax-ferret idea that every man who has money or loans money is a thief and a rascal, and subject him to insult and abuse, results in driving away the local capitalist and losing the taxes that he formerly paid.

Beating a pig to death, after painting it iu an interclass rush, two students bruised and unconscious, street signs and lamps stolen and a student shot, such is one day’s news from three seats of higher education. These occurences did not happen in mining camps and the Wild West, but in Baltimore, Ithaca and Boston. “Boys will be boys” is the usual easy-going - comment. But as Charles Kingsley said, boys must be taught that they can’t be boys, if that means freedom to be brutal. The boy is father to the man, and the brutal boy later feels the attraction of a mob of lynchers. What does this wave of brutality and lawlessness mean? With a record of criminality which outstrips many of the countries of the Old World, must we believe that America is more cruel than England, France or Germany? That Ido not think, but we are less disciplined and crime is encouraged among us because the offender so often slips away unpunished from hia crime. History proves that wherever the law is laxly enforced there lawlesness increases. England furnishes striking contrast in the effect of a law enforced and a law regarded. The law as to murder is strictly carried out; the offender has a fair and speedy trial, appeal there is none, the sentence, under the law, is pronounced and executed. The fact is, as Professor James of Harvard says, the savage is near the surface in us all, and to let down any of the restraints is to endanger civilization. And so it is that the college prank has a deeper significance than mere youthful exuberance. I believe that American college boys are less brutal than the youth of other nations, but lack of proper discipline gives full play to their worst side until they are guilty of unexampled cruelties. If a group of college boys boards a street car order usually gives place to chaos. They begin to push each other and exchange cheap jokes, “guy” the conductor, in fact try to attract attention to themselves by every device of the vulgar. The other passengers complacently smile and think “boys will be boys.” But, unfortunately, the refined cruelty which finds pleasure in ridiculing a conductor, and dares do it because he is a mere employe, will by degrees deepen into a brutality which finds fun in torturing a dumb beast. But the greatest spurs to right action would be for our young men to know that punishment, adequate and swift, would follow every injustice and cruelty wherever and by whomsoever committed, and above all to see their mothers, because of moral worth, honored to the full in the state instead of being classed with idiots and criminals. —Harriet Stanton Blatch in Chicago Examiner.