Westport High School - Herald Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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mple and 1 society. ver there are men. owerless, vhen not strength and re- tlly weak dividuals s was the followed : in such ht of its al weak- n. ns. They then has y when, at of the tion and re weak s of her ered- the subjects time of it grew st Rome mr. And former a huge power. alization ain the ie land, l-, well- Hg them 'as con- now en- lt never United rfection at pres- of out- lOn con- course, THE. WESTPORT HIC-I-I SCHOOL HERALD. I5 can we maintain our position as the greatest of the modern nations? Une of the chief causes of our present prosperity is the great financial institutions which have grown up in this country since the time of the Civil VVar. They have raised us to our present commercial status and they are still reaching out to work greater wonders. In this wonderful progress is to be found the germs that will either make us the greatest nation the world has ever seen or dragfus down to the dust. Experience has often shown that when a nation is most-con- fident it is many times in gravest danger. Al- ready through the influence of these gigantic companies many former individual rights and privileges are being destroyed. Are we in the same position as the Fish-eaters-are we fall- ing under the control of a corrupt financial monarchy ? I do not cry against a centralized govern- ment, but I do warn against a corrupt, extra- legal rule. Carlyle has said: A governing power must exist, your other powers are si- mulacra, this power is 'itf What is it in America? It is stated as a polit.cal axiom that all human societies are governed, directly or indirectly, by the strongest constituent ele- ment or elements in any given political entity. If the ordinary legal government is stronger than any element in the body politic, then the legal government and the real government are identical. But this condition is almost ex- ceptional in the United States. At times in the national government and frequently in states and cities, there have been two govern- ments: the legal government weak, badly or- ganized, corrupt, and the real government, consisting of men seeking office for personal ends, backed by public utility corporations, railroad companies, banks, trusts, and monop- 'olies. In city governments we have the ex- amples of Tammany in New York and Schmidt and Ruef in San Franicsco. In states New York and Pennsylvania, stand, not ex- ceptional, but as types. It is a universal law that all society is strongly ruled-it cannot exist under a weak government. If the legal government is inef- fective, a strong, extra-legal power will gain the upper hand and usually in such cases the people are cruelly and harshly ruled. The choice of the people lies between a strong, just government and a strong, cruel govern- ment. And they must be educated to make their choice. The struggle in the United States today, one manifestation of which is insurgency, is to re- move the go-vernment from the real seat of power to the legal one. The legal seat of government is Washington, but the real center is Wall Street. To deny this is useless-the United States today is in the hands of the money power and we are just wakening to our condition. The country is governed by a strongly centralized power wh-ose throne is VVall Street, and there it will remain till the general government is given enough power to attract the true government to Washington. The present well organized systems of rail- roads, banks, and trusts form a powerful na- tional authority. An equally strong govern- ment, organized by men of equal power, with equal efficiency, must exist before we may hope to separate the national administration from the corporate interests. We talk of driv- ing the corporations out of politics-this is im- possible. What we must do is to give the legal government enough power to again con- trol the financial interests. lfVe have been looking-we arehlooking for a way to accomplish this, for a remedy for the prevailing evils. Is it revolution, or anarchy, or socialism, or nihilism? No, none of these, but one much more simple and effective, with more lasting results than all. It is popular ed- ucation. The masses must be educated- to the point where they may not only know which is the best course to follow, but to the point where they are willing to put self aside and work for the good of the nation. The successful operation of a highly or- ganized government intimately depends upon the character of the citizens. What forms this character but the instruction they receive

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I4 THE WESTPORT HIGH SCHOOL HERALD- certain territory. or of certain racial charac- teristics united under one common rule-and now we have the tribe. Iirom this it is but a short step to the more highly organized nation, and our tracing of primeval man to the con- dition in which history finds him is completed. But this was a slow growth-each stage took centuries to develop. Thus we see society was formed primarily for the purpose of protection and it is to gain the help of his fellows that leads man into social relations. The society thus created has certain duties toward its individual -units. Consideration of the'cause of its formation shows that the first duty must be the securing to men of their rights and compelling them to perform their duties. Aristotle has said: jus- tice is the bond of men in states, and the ad- ministration of justice is the principle of order inpolitical society. All men must have life, liberty and the freedom of the pursuit of hap- piness-this is a rule now almost universally recognized. But the securing to one of these rights depends on the assent and concurrence of all others. All men, however, will not deal justly if left to the guidance of their own will or fancy. Here arises the need for laws and authority to compel the units to obey the man- dates of society in general. It is self-evident that the more complicated human relations be- come, in just that ratio increases the need for individual restraint. In the past ages a fam- ily of fishers or hunters leading an isolated ex- istence in some lonely spot needed few laws, b-ut as it expanded into the clan, the tribe, the nation, the necessity for the impartial rod of authority increased until the complicated ex- istence of the present day is the result. This instrument used by society to secure its ends, the agent of the body politic, is gov- ernment. A group of savages eating shell- fish by the seashore has no written laws, no legislature, no courts, no president, but it has some customs that take the place of laws, and a head, as the father of the family or the chief of the tribe, who sees that the customs are fol- lowed. Government will always be rude and simple where society is rude and Simple .and will gi-ow and become powerful with society. But there will be government wherever there is society and society wherever there are men. 1 have said that man is weak, powerless, when outside the pale of society, when 110i united with his fellows, uniting his strength with theirs, gaining all their power, and re- strained by commo-n laws. He is equally weak where one individual or set of individuals restrains the wills of the many and, as was the case with the Fish-eaters, is blindly followed by the unwitting comm-oners. A race in such a state, when apparently at the height of its power, gradually reverts to its original weak- ness and loses all the strength of union. Such has been the history of nations. They have become stronger and stronger, then has followed an age of great prosperity when, materially, they appeared on the crest of the wave. But prosperity breeds corruption and over-confidence-internally they.were weak and suddenly they fell. In the days of her greatest integrity, Rome easily conquered' the wild Teutonic tribes and made them subjects of the city. But gradually from the time of Caesar and Pompey the government grew more and more centralized till at last Rome was equivalent to one man, the Emperor. And gradually also the people lost their former characteristics and became merely a huge .beast blindly following the man in power. And what was the result-over-centralization had produced weakness so when again the Teutonic hordes came down upon the land, they no longer found the well-led, well- manned legions of former times opposing them -and the mistress of the world was con- quered by a host of untrained savages. Several of the modern nations are now en- joying material prosperity to- an extent never before dreamed of and we of the United States are regarded as the acme of perfection in present day development. We are at pres- ent strong enough to render all fear of out- side intervention negligible-the question con- fronting us is: holding to our present course, can we ma Qf the 1'I'1O causes of 1 financial in this countr They have status and greater WC is to be fo us the gre: or drag 'ui often show fident it if ready thri companies privileges same posi ing undei monarchy I do n ment, but legal rule power m mulacrag America all huma indirectlj ment or If the o than any legal goi identical ceptiona the nat states ai ments: ganized consistii ends, b railroac olies. amples Schmid New H ception It is strongl

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I6 THE WESTPORT HIGH SCHOOL HERALD. -and herein lies the importance of education. But this training must not be hap-hazard. It is most important that it have regard to the institution under which the people live. The education which would do for children of a monarchy would be entirely inadequate for the inhabitants of a republic or democracy. In the former ease the ignorance of one genera- tion might not influence the character of the government, but who can measure the results were such to be the case in a republic. W'ash- ington, our great po-litical -prophet-gigantic in his foresight as in everything-in his Fare- well Address, insisted that the more potent public opinion is ini any country, the greater the need of its being intelligent, and he might have added particularly upon political sub- jects. Therefore, to make the people see the need of the hour, to make them understand that the legal government must be given 'power to con- trol the corporate interests, popular education must come. The powers of the government must increase as the powers of forces and in- stitutions increaseg the government which was the real power a century ago would be inef- ficient in this age of monstrous business cor- porations. But the citizen must be educated in the problems of the day, and in his p-ower to control them. He must be made to see and realize the power of the corporations. He must be educated to know what power the government has and what it needs. But most of all he must be forced to understand his duty as a voter on whom the destinies of the nation rest and must be forced to exert his in- fluence through his suffrage in favor of right, justice, and good government, so that this nation may not meet with the fate of the Fish- eaters, but may increase and prosper. When this is done we will need fear no longer the extra-legal power, but our government will be truly of the people, by the people, and for the people. SIDNEY ALTsCHULER, '1l. THREE PINES. Three pines stood on the wooded plain Compartiorzless amid the glade, And thru their boughs the winds long sweeping train, A constant miirmettroas rustling made. Alone they stood in SIHI and shade, Erttwining close their eoronals High o'er the foresfs nether inter braid Of light and gloom at irzterztals. lfVith noise of many waterfalls, Wiiid-sittept their boughs moved Cease- lesslyg- They heard, and dreaming of their mrozuztatin- walls, Wept odorous gums in memory, EDWARD WY Moses, 'll. The natt political fel ways been acteristics. ture that l in bettering society cha tive state, changes in llope mths human brf equality, l' been the in the wot lelut the about by day. On -those t and lreligi of mankii slow gro sions, in prodigal, ly, of ma of attem noble hea cause trii Christ revolutio has surp sults. It ' twenty c because love wh whose g manity. in tht arisen v tionized all. Dir an hone quell th