Atwood Hammond High School - Post Yearbook (Atwood, IL)

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ley and Mr. Lorimer would have us believe. If Mr. Lorimer worked his way up from a bootblack to I niter! States Senator; if, as a young man, by many acts of kindness, he made a host of friends, we are glad. '-Ve are proud that there are many things about his career that serve to prove the possibilities of American citizenship, hut we should not allow these things to obscure the fact that cor ruption was used in his cation, as Mr. Beveridsre, in answer to the somewhat foolish argument that Mr. Lori mer possessed no had habits, that his private character was unblemished, said: “The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la. have nothing to do with tin case.” While we take no stock in the wholesa’e denunciation and muckraking language which have been hurled at the United States Sen ate, nevertheless we believe that the Senate has overlooked the vital question in this case and has assumed a position fraught with fatal consequence for the republic. The lessons of history are plain. They sneak with thundering elo-ouence of the fate of that nation which permits corruption to miter into its life. Because the sons of Samuel took bribes, ancient ■ Israel was hurried into monarchy. The Praetorian guards of Rome, seduced by gold, raised a usurper to the ini penal throne and at once the glory of the greatest empire the world had seen began to wane. We have reached a high stage of national development. Success and prosperity in a full measure have been our lot. Shall we, flushed with the splendor of a brilliant success, fail to read the lessons of time? Shall we cease to strive onward and upward? Shall we allow the subtle and insidious forces of iniquity to find their way into the life blood of the nation. The place of the United States is at the forefront of the nations as a moral and spiritual power. We are a liberty loving people but there can be no permanent liberty without honesty and righteous ness. “You may build your eapitol of granite,” said Wendell Phillips, “and pile it as high as the Hockv mountains; if it is founded in or mixed up with corruption, the pulse of a girl will in time beat it down.” Democracy is on trial in America, and if it is to come forth victorious and free from the blighting effects of corruption we must do our part. Let us quicken our consciences and bestir ourselves from the moral apathy into which we have fallen. We are just now flushed with an unparalleled commercial and industrial success. We have carried the flag to sunny Hawaii, the Philippines and the bleak shores of the north, and for that very reason, if for no other, it behooves us to keep in mind those stirring lines of Kipling: “Hod of our fathers known of old — Lord of our far-flung battle line, Beneatli whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet Lest we forget! Lest we forget!”

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W. E. Lorimer. Augustus South, ’ll. When the time came for the election of another United States Senator for the State of Ilinois, the names that stood highest on the list were Hopkins and Foss, Hopkins being the choice of the Republicans at the Primary. Mr. Lorimer, although not an avowed candidate, received only a few votes. The deadlock which followed was soon broken, however, by the election of Mr. Lorimer. Scarcely had the tedium of the long election disappeared when rumors liegan to enin ground to the effect that Mr. Lorimer gained his seat in the Senate by ouestionable. not to say corrupt methods. In a short time an aroused public opinion was demanding a thorough investigation. Now what did this thorough canvassing of the case which followed reveal and what is the significance for us? In the first place the evidence showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that bribery was freelv used at this time by his friends in his behalf, and that he was in Springfield at the time such corruption took place and freely associated with those by whose cor-runt influence he was. elected. As the hearing of the case progressed, two questions became paramount: First, admitting that bribery was used and this was generally conceded. did Mr. Lorimer know of and sanction this briberv? Second, granting that he had no knowledge of such cornmtion, is the existence of bribery not enough of itself to invalidate the whole election? Now. in answering the first of these great onestions. it w»s not nroven that Mr. Lorimer was directly connected with or knew of the Hrikerv. nevertheless his nreseuee in Snringfield during the whole cam-v ai«m looks verv snsoicious. Also it would seem that he must have been exceedingly dull not to have known about it. That a man of Mr. Lori-mer’s political experience and astuteness could have been in So: ingfield at the time this wholesale corruption took place and could have worked day and night with the very men who were doing the bribing and knew nothing about it surpasses belief. We are forced to the conclusion that either he had a guilty knowledge of this corruption or else that he has not sufficient intelligence to be a United States Senator, and in either case he ought to resign. However, we shall drop this phase of the question and concern ourselves with what is after all the ledly vital question in the Lorimer case, viz.: Is not any degree of corruption in an election whether with or without the ! uowlcdge of the candidate in itself enough to invalidate the whole election ? Ladies and gentlemen, I contend that it is. We have reached a point in our national growth when we must assume a high moral standard in our public conduct if we are to maintain our honor and our institutions intact. This, the dawn of the twentieth century, is no time for a great people to onibble over the amount of corruption necessary to vitiate an election. Corruption in whatever degree is corruption, and any nation which blinks at or condones it is inviting its own ultimate destruction. Shall we permit to be introduced into the veins of our vigorous young republic any amount, however small, of that fatal poison? ('an we afford to send men to our law-making bodies who have been elected bv corruption? That, my friends, is the real i sue in this case. It is not a question of Mr. Lorimer’s personality, nor is it a question of sentiment, as Mr. Bai-

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War and Its Equivalent. WlNIFRKI) W'lI.SON, M2. W'liat are some of the causes of war? What are some of the forces which are working against it? These we must first know before we can sug gest an equivalent of war which will remedy its defects and preserve its virtues. War in the beginning was a normal condition, for among tribes living upon food produced without etfort upon their part a large amount of land was required for each tribe. The lack of food due to tribal growth soon forced them into hostile territory and they were compelled to fight to keep from starving. Then as the tribes grew into states and advanced in the scale of civilization, the desire for religious unity caused innumerable wars of the most horrible and disastrous kind. The series of wars, a conspicuous example of which is the Thirty Years War, char-cterizing the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, illustrate this typ' of warfare. Still another cause for war was the elfish desires of kings and rulers to obtain new lands and riches, or to avenge personal grudges. In truth, we may almost say that tlie greatest part of the bloody wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries weie the direct result of royal ambitions and nar row sectarian controversies. Then, too, misunderstandings have been a fruitful cause of war. The Spanish-American War, which wa finally assured by the unexplained Maine destruction, is a case in point Now against all these causes of war are working many strong forces for peace. One of these is the feeling of international dependence due to commerce. Another is the better knowledge and understanding which all nations have of one another as the result of the increased facilities of communication. Furthermore, modern inventions in warships and guns have made warfare so costly that it has become well nigh prohibitive. It is a sad hut illuminating fact that a modern warship whose life of usefulness is only thirteen years, costs more than all the grounds and buildings o1' Harvard ITiiversity. But these forces, which are working toward permanent peace, are not so strong as one which owes its development to the general expansion of civilization into all parts of the world. In the earliest times the tiibes occupied a veiy small portion of the country. As their numbers increase i and they came in closer conta-1 with each other, they fought, and the conquered tribe was gradually absorbed by the stronger. This eliminated war to a great extent within the confines of the1 territories consolidated. ith the fusion of new tribal territories, this constant augmenting of i!.e peace area went on unti from tribe to city state, from city state to small independent principalities, we ha e now come to great nations whose millions ol people are under the same government. At the present time with (he whole world composed of a tew vast peace areas of indep ndont countries we may look forward to the end of war. provided, of course, this evolution of peace goes on to its log! cal (onclusion. .’aide, the brillian! Fren h sociologist, has said, “What char ' terhes especially our own epoch is this: that now for the first time in history the international policy of the great state of civilization embraces within its purview not merelv a singl continent (or two, at most)’, but the whole globe, so that the last stage of the evolution of war is at length discovering itself in a vista so dazzling that we can scarcely believe our own eyes. ’ ’ .Vow we have yet one great obstacle