| Show A NATIONAL DISGRACE the liberation of ferdinand do de lesseps leaser and hla his associates la in the panama scandal oa odal la Is at once a cause or ef pleasure and regret to the enlightened and unprejudiced among mankind pleasure plea aure because they should not be imprisoned and regret because the slowly disappearing fact that bat they were imprisoned is ie made vivid again it is ia well understood that what was designed as a humiliation to the men spoken of has reacted upon the nation which sought bought to inflict it and the outcome of an individual scandal was wae a national disgrace the burden of ef which la Is in nowise lessened leB Bened because of the ments mena release for it was the expiration pi ration of the term by limitation and not the sober second thought of the government that caused them to be frred freed some men me by their achievements and learning become so BO great and potential among their fellows fellow that they are above the commito fi of mien offenses they move in a sphere which calls calli lot for grandeur of action and which can receive nothing else an and the atmosphere of such a plane to ie not productive of crime or t triviality rivia lity because offering no suggestion of or incentive to it who could for instance imagine thomas A edison lelson stealing a pocketbook chauncey M depew figur tug in a prize flecht or Pres president idest cleveland crawling over the fence to avoid paying his bla fare at the gate of ef a baseball game with just its as much m bob reason can we conceive of a petty act or any theft being planned or consented to by the master mind which cut a month Is timeout time out of the calendar of oriental traffic and presented it as a so BO much imperishable capital to the world of dromm commence euce by plowing a mighty furrow between two vrest sesel such minds minde are oftener than otherwise worse than ua useless elenin in dealing with finance they can compass groat great projects conceive of mammoth enterprises and be an aa innocent of the practical means by which such buch achievements are to take adape and finish as an though they were the minds minda of little children and when men of that cliss got get beyond their depth and fall because of a MID mia calculation as aa to the cost coat to accuse acou them of erime to la itself criminal and when such buch a charge te fe followed acwith up with prosecution aud and pun lehment lah ment it becomes a tift ruce for the world to take noto note of and hold bold the authors morally responsible besides all thing lesseps and hla his associates no BO havoc that they did not participate in to the fullest OhA extent tent it is i true that a 81 g great rest many people lost loaf their all in a financial fina racial way in the flasco but no ao did the men who were and imprisoned and a great deal heal besl es ee they lost honorable reputations reputation their hopes to in life their familee prospects the great returns which must have been theirs with success Bucce ae it i Is a sad bad thing for those in bumble life whose basinga were ruth lessly squandered iut hut they have something left to be thankful for the others have not with the former all may imay be retrieved with the latter everything out but the mere fragment of a life to la gone forever |
