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Show Took a Risk THE Argonaut half facetiously tells the people peo-ple of Seattle that they took a big risk in erecting a colossal statue to J. J. Hill; that the only safe way is wait until a man is good and dead before taking any risk, in permanently honoring hon-oring him. In a most serious sense this is true, thore is no telling. It not only goes to the eroc- Hon of monuments, but to the naming of children. For fnstancO, we suspect there were 100 per cent more children named Theodore in 1903 than there were in 1908. There is danger, even after death, for it is a habit with many people to reverse the sentiments of their own countrymen every two or threp generations. Indeed it is the way of the world, one generation burns a herltic at the stake, ; the descendents of those same executioners a little lit-tle later build shrines and hail as a saint the martyr. Then the wicked even come in for their Innings' In-nings' if we only wait long enough. There is a society in Boston that every year meets and has a sort of memorial service for Charles of England, whom Old matter-of-fact Cromwell thought beheading behead-ing was good medicine for. The Borgias have their defenders, and one ingenius writer makes out a good case for Judus Iscariot, by showing first that he was the most trusted of the desciples, for it was given him to carry the sack. That is, ho received the contributions and paid the bills, so when offered the thirty pieces of silver he took them, believing firmly that the Master could by a word paralyze the force that came to arrest Him, and they would be the thirty pieces of silver ahead. So it is not impossible, at least not quite im "possible, to imagine a day in the future, when the Federal Bunch in Utah of today, will be singled out by some lunatic of a historian and pictured as strong mon and true, who, at great personal sacrifice, held watch and ward over the politics of Utah and to keep 'bad men out of office, held the offices themselves. We do not think the men of Seattle made any mistake in honoring a master spirit of industry, indus-try, who linked their city in bands of steel to the gieat east, and by his ships made of their city a signal station, to lure the ships and trade of the orient and the islands of the sea to their port. But we agree with the Argonaut they took a risk. |