MANDY DID HER SHARE
THE CANAL DIGGER
Further, so far as there is a difference between the conduct of the North and South, the explanation is not far to seek. Once admit the validity of the principle that it is right to do wrong for a good end, and a whole stream of moral duplicity is turned loose in public and private life. Jesuitism will account for almost any moral lapse in a land where all thinking has come under the spell of a creed in which the end justifies the means.
Let this principle be ever so carefully guarded and proscribed, so long as human nature remains what it is, where personal interests are at stake the individual is going to be his own final judge of the value of the end for which the means are devised. And on the basis of every man adapting means to his own ends we have moral chaos.
Much has been said of the personal immorality of many people of these southern lands. That the Latin-American is in any whit behind his northern neighbor in the integrity of his personal and domestic life remains to be proven. That his deflections from the straight and narrow path are much less concealed and by him are regarded as of small account is to be conceded. Here, again, the cause is not far to seek. With a sacerdotal example loose and irresponsible, it would be strange indeed if the men of South America showed a higher personal chastity than their spiritual leaders and moral guides.
The third accusation brought against our neighbors is that of political undemocracy. Government by revolution is said to be the rule, and an election in which the "outs" win a victory over the "ins" is practically unknown. Victorious majorities are governed in size only by the discretion of the dominant power, and the Latin mind seems a stranger to the fundamental principle of accepting a majority decision as binding until the next election.
To accept gracefully a majority decision against himself or his party is an art slowly acquired by any politician. On the playgrounds we see this trait; in amateur clubs and literary societies we find it; in the arena of political strife it does its worst and results in a state of affairs in which revolution becomes the general substitute for elections.