Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1903 — CIVIC DUTY HIB PLEA. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CIVIC DUTY HIB PLEA.

Ex-Prealdaat Cleveland Urges Unselfish -PatriotLim on All Citizens. His speech a plea for civic duty, for conservatism in the industrial world and for a patriotism unmixed with selfishness or sloth, ex-President Grover Cleveland addressed members of the Commercial Club at the Auditorium Hotel. His subject was “American Good Citizenship.” He avoided politics with tin almost religious care, but dealt in keen sarcasm for the man who says “I am not a politician.” He said: “Every citizen should be politician enough to bring himself within the true meaning of the term as one who concerns himself with ‘the regulation or government of a nation or a State for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity.’ This is politics in its best sense, and this is good citizenship.” The speaker was applauded frequently. The most noticeable applause came when be announced-his creed bf -’American Good Citizenship,” which was: “Their creed should bind together in generous od-operation all who are willing to fight to make our government what the fathers intended it to be —a depository of benefits which, in equal current and volume, shoujd flow out to all the people. This creed should teach the wickedness of attempting to make free opportunity the occasion for seizing especial advantages, and should warn agaiust the danger of ruthless rapacity. “It should deprecate ostentation and extravagance in the life of our people, and demand in the management of public affairs simplicity and strict economy. It should teach toleration in all things save dishonesty and infidelity to public trusts. It should uphold the interests of

labor and advocate its fair treatment, but should sternly forbid its interference with those contented with their toil, and its attempt to force compliance with its demands by violent disturbances of peace and good order. “It should recognize in the wide distribution of capital and industrial enterprise the best assurance of intelligent, wholesomely interested political conduct and should condemn unnecessary, unnatural and speculative combinations iu trade or enterprise ns teaching false business lessons and putting our consumers at their mercy. “It should enjoin respect for the law as the quality that cements the fabric of organized society and makes possible a government by the people. And in every sentence and every line of this creed of good citizenship the lesson should be taught~that our country is a beautiful and productive field to be cultivated by loyal Americans, who, Tilth weapons near at hand, whether they sow and reap or whether they rest, will always be prepared to resist those who attempt to despoil by day or-pilfer in the night." Other excerpts from the address are: “The abandonment of our country’s watch towers by those who should be on guard nnd the slumber of the sentinels who .should never sleep, directly invite the steulthy approach and the pillage and the loot of the forces of selfishness and greed. “Can any of us] doubt the existence of odious and detestable evils^which, with steady cankering growth, are, more directly than all others, threatening our safety and nntional life? I speak of the corruption of our suffrage, open and notorious, of the buying and selling of political places for money, the purchase of political favors nnd privileges, and the traffic in official duty for personal gain.” Closing his speech, he said: “It is ns clear ns noonday that if the patriotism of our people is to be aggressively vigorous and equnl to our national preservation nnd if politics Is to subserve a high purpose instead of degenerating to the level of a cunning game, our good men in every Walk of life must nrouse themselves to a consciousness that the safety and best interests of their country involve every other interest, nnd that by service iu the field of good citizenship they uot only do patriotic duty, but in n direct way save for themselves the share of benefits due them from our free institutions.”

EX rnSSIDENT CLEYELAXfi,