Thus broad and clear ideas of perfect honesty, with Abraham Lincoln and other good and great men as examples, form the foundation of clean politics, and should be impressed upon the children in our schools. The daily papers often describe shining instances of this cardinal virtue.
Suppose that a theater is burned and many lives lost. Laws may have been passed for the safeguarding of theaters, but the manager of this house disregarded them in order to save a few dollars. There is a chance to impress regard for law and its enforcement.
Or suppose that bribery is under discussion. Here is a true story of the way in which its devious methods were impressed upon the mind of a small boy:
He was stopping with his mother in a country town, when the tailor of the place, in speaking of the day's voting, remarked: "I don't gen'ally vote, but I did to-day, because they sent a carriage up from the Center for me. It takes time to vote and 'tain't much use. What does one vote amount to anyway? But when one of the bosses is anxious enough to come an' git me, why, then I'll vote, or if they'll give me my fare on the cars."
"Why," said the boy quickly, "isn't that bribery?"
"Lord, no!" said the man, shuffling about uneasily. "That jest pays me for my time an' trouble. I don't git nothin' for my vote."
Sophistries like this should be immediately made clear to the child. It would probably be impossible to show them to that tailor.
"Our Revolutionary fathers," said Horace Mann again, "abandoned their homes, sacrificed their property, encountered disease, bore hunger and cold, and stood on the fatal edge of battle, to gain that liberty which their descendants will not even go to the polls to protect. Our Pilgrim Fathers expatriated themselves, crossed the Atlantic,—then a greater enterprise than now to circumnavigate the globe,—and braved a savage foe, that they might worship God unmolested,—while many of us throw our votes in wantonness, or for a bribe, or to gratify revenge."
This is a terrible indictment. It is not as true now as it was in the time of Horace Mann. Still, the lesson contained in it should be impressed upon our children.