Central Washington University - Hyakem / Kooltuo Yearbook (Ellensburg, WA)

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this our voices will be low in condemning them. In the national congress for the past several years, a few staunch, strong, wonderful men have been in complete power, men who know the condition of the country, and the wants of the people, but who are conservative, with an inclination to run matters to suit themselves. This inclination comes as a result of their force, ability, and efficiency in doing big jobs. While giving these men due honor and respect, let us see if we can mark the differ¬ ence between them and the new man. There is a difference, a great difference, which in the course of our government is bringing and will bring untold results. The new man acknowledges moral obligations as the supreme force, lie acknowledges them as binding not only in relation to fellow-countrymen but in rela¬ tion to all mankind. This difference is becoming more evident every day. and wc may say it will be the supreme characteristic of the rising statesman. The pendulum has lieen started on its ltackward movement. The emphasis on integrity at the expense of executive ability will force it to its limit, and then it will swing again to the center. Italanced on one side by ability in all affairs of our government and life, and on the other side by that deeper sense of moral obligation to mankind. How do we know this? Why liecause we see evidence of it at every turn, we see the people of Minnesota clinging to a man who stands for the right, a man whom many people delight to compare with Lincoln, not only in his long lank form and dropping shoulders, but in tile way he has overcome circumstances and embraced opportunities as they arose, serving as errand boy, grocery clerk, country editor, plow¬ ing and plodding his way from the very gutter to the governorship—and who knows to what in the future. It was Governor Johnson who began investigations in Minnesota that would aid in protecting the people from the powerful corporate interests. He labored particularly to safeguard insurance, and so caused a similar safeguarding in many other states. We have seen the great state of New York slowly coming to the realization that all was not as it seemed, that there was untold opportunity for corruption. This was dawning on them, yet it took a great man to bring the fuller light, and to carry the people even licvond their own desires. It took a man who could stand the pierc¬ ing search of the public eye. and who dared to sacrifice all for the force that is swinging the pendulum on its backward course. He has stood erect even against his personal friends, his legislature and all moneyed interests, and so great has been his influence that even his immediate successors will have to lie men like him. the great Governor Hughes. We have lieen witnesses to tile best fight of the new man against the old. in the state of Iowa. Ill 1803, Allison, Garfield and Blaine each entered upon his service ( 26 )

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turn set the wheels of industry moving, until all was one great buzz in the line of whirling advance. Science was turned everywhere to the effecting of a great com¬ mercial nation. We had no war of 1812, no Civil War. to turn the thoughts of our people from the material, to arouse their patriotism and high ideals, all was the material in every line or path of life. We do not hear a voice denouncing the maxim of worldly wisdom, which bids men “(Jet all they can and keep all they get. We do not hear Renjamin Franklin saying. I am old and good for nothing, hut as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth. I am hut a fag end and you may have me for what you please.” We do not hear a proud John Adams say to his wife. “I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin and the ruin of our children.” Nor do we hear the voice of a Roliert Morris saving. The United States may command all 1 have except my integrity.” Or a Samuel Adams, impoverished, living on a pittance, hardly able to provide a decent coat for his hack, rejecting with scorn the offer of a profitable office, wealth, a title even, to win him from his allegiance to the cause of America. No. this kind of a man is not prominent, hut in the third period, which as far as commerce and science are concerned, will lie a continuation and perfecting to the present, he will reappear. t ur public men are a result of the thoughts, conditions and ideals of the people. As a result of the great wave of commercialism that has swept over our country, tve find our statesmen thinking, working, legislating, always from a commercial stand¬ point. and as a natural consequence the almighty dollar lias become the supreme force. Public life means a full grasp of the laws of our country, of the material and economic welfare of the people, these qualifications t eing the important ones, and the deeper finer qualities, that go to make up the truer statesman lieittg of a smaller force. The result is that public men act not because they think something is right hut because it affects their immediate prosperity in some way. I do not wish to |xause with the criminal public man. the one who exploits uthers to add to his own vast fortune, he has always existed and always will. Nor is it my purpose to praise the great exceptions, those beautiful characters that our country has reared, whose very names make us thrill with admiration, who have won the affection and allegiance of their nation F-verv country has them to boast of, Kngland lias her Gladstone; France her Mirahcau; Germany her Bismarck: Greece her Pericles; and we, second to none, our Lincoln. It is. then, neither the criminal public man nor the ideal public man of whom l wish to speak, hut the representative public man. e have seen the swing of the pendulum towards commercialism. 1 hope we may see why this was and why our statesmen became commercialized, if wc do see ( 25 )

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in the House of Representatives. Since that time until his death Allison has been a member of Congress, since ’73 a member of the Senate: he has lieen Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and Finance, has had more influence in shaping tile public expenditures than any other person, and has always lieen one of the few leaders in the forming of our laws. Vet we have seen this line old man—of wisdom, of experience, of power, grown gray in the service of the people—struggling and fighting in the last election to retain his place against the new spirit of statesmanship, leading the way in Governor Cummings; and Allison only carried the day, perhaps, liecause of his long service and desire to spend his last hours in his workshop. In the campaign of 1900 Joseph Folk said: Yes, 1 will accept the nomination for Circuit Judge, but if I am elected I will obey my oath of office. The bosses heeded not the remark. )ierhaps they thought the young lawyer was only trying to save appearances. How well he has olwyed his oatli of office, and lifted the people to a full consciousness of their needs, is clear in the minds of all of us. the world knows the story. As Governor he has kept his oath of office as truly, and through his efforts we find an anti-race track gambling law, a law making the operation of bucket shops a felony, a general state primary law. a law providing for the regula¬ tion of rates charged by public service corporations, a law providing for the removal of public officials who fail to do their duty, a two-ccnt passenger fare law, a factory inspection law, a child labor law and a pure food law. While these are only a few examples of what he has done, they serve to illustrate the broad scope of his work and to mark his deep interest in the moral welfare of the state. Indeed so numerous are his public sen-ices, that we are tempted to say of him as Macautev said of Bacon: Turn where you will the trophies of his mighty intellect are full in view; we are judging Manlius in sight of the capital.” Wisconsin has achieved a more perfect control of her own government than any other state in the union. What I have said of the other states we sec fully developed in U isconsin, and may say that as far as statesmanship is concerned, the present of Wisconsin is the future of America. If we want to know what the United States will he in its political organization in the coming era. we can find the fulfilled prophecy ready to our hand in the present political organization of this country. It ran justly claim to lie more nearly a representative democracy than any other state The state Legislature is superior in intelligence, independence and character, to any state Legislature. Each man does hLs own thinking and there arc scarcely half a dozen who take orders from anybody. It is truly a deliberative and representative body ' , and lobbyists say that it is the only 1-cgislature that takes up economic ques¬ tions on their merits, without regard to personal or party advantage. I cannot here ( 27 )