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Show Political Bosses and Why. At a mass meeting in Newark, N. J., tho other day Senator Everett Colby made a speech. He is striking for higher politics. In the course of his speech he said: "Wo are not trying to make a killing in one grandstand campaign, but instead wo are inaugurating inaug-urating a veritable siege of reason that will ultimately ulti-mately starve the bosses out of business, for reason rea-son means thought, means growth and the progress prog-ress of ideas, and the political boss who is made to feed on ideas soon gets blood poisoning and retires from tho field. You cannot kill a sound idea that is based on reason and the right of the people to control their own government. Lot a sound idea onco take root and It gathers unto itself all tho elements of truth, as a plant gathers moisture from tho air and licks it up from the soil." That is excellent sophomore talk, but for how much does it count? To make ideas like those convoyed in the extract ex-tract quoted avail, the people must be arousod and made to think. There is whore the trouble comes In, because the great mass of mankind is content to let others do the thinking. Bosses are successful because they organize their armies ar-mies and push them in solid phalanx Into tho field. Mr. Colby is a bright man; he thinks ho has an idea that is tipped with celestial fire. Well, lot him push it, picking up a recruit here and there until the control of the State is in the hands of his friends. Well, long before ho gets that work accomplished he will pick up a newspaper some morning and find a demand to tho people to rouse themselves or that insidious boss Colby will have tho State bound hand and foot. A few years ago a young man appeared in Wisconsin, toolc the stump, told the people that their State had been under the direction of some old fossilized fossil-ized plutocrats long enough, to come out from their holes, shako off their political inertia and bo men, live men, real Americans. He succeeded. He gained triumph after triumph, tri-umph, but so soon as his abilities and his energies ener-gies had been crowned with success, he found himself assailed on all sides as a persistent and undesirable boss, and the Legislature of tho State gave him a direct snub. Onco in a generation or two tho people can be aroused, but not much oftonor. There was a mighty uprising in 1801; tho people were all ready for another uprising when tho Maine was sunk and her crow assassinated, but it takes an overwhelming appeal to their pride and patriotism! patriot-ism! to awaken them. About all that can be done by orators ana newspapers is to .change tho drift of tho people j a little. If Senator Colby Would spend his vaca- ' tion in preparing a toxt book for use In all the public schools in Now Jersey, a text book with questions and answers, reducing tho history of our country with all its stirring deeds to form, giving tho outlines of our system of gocernment, O make clear that tho two masterful thoughts that the fathers clung to when thoy framed that government, gov-ernment, one that man should bo absolutely free under the law, the othor that a people so froe would be certain to guard their liberties even as ; they do their own flosh and blood; In another generation tho mon of Now Jersey would be more enlightened than they now are. Included in that book should be a clear show- 4 . ing of how necessary it is for a free people's lib- s erties that all righteous laws should bo obeyed, and that whon a citizen of this Republic fails to givo his best thoughts to his country; when he fails to guard always what ho thinks is right, and fails to express his convictions through his ballot, he commits a crime. There should also bo included a synopsis of othor governments and examples given of nations ! that lost their liberties because thoy had not tho energy and patriotism toj preserve them. B Fix those thoughts on tho plastic hearts of children and they will grow up patriots, and when a boss seeks to control thom, they will insist that he give reasons why he should. |