Article October 26, 1912 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from A. R. E. Wyant

[Continent.]

The outstanding characteristic of the political campaign of the year 1912 is the sensitiveness of the electorate of the Republic to moral issues. The moral heights of a half century ago have been climbed again. The radical moral idea that the people must first of all do right for and by one another, no matter whether business prospers and parties win or not, begins to dominate once more the political thinking of the typical American. The potent note to command voters today, as the politicians have already come to recognize, is an appeal to their conceptions of fair play, just chances, and fearless loyalty to right. Platforms and stump speeches have not abandoned the old materialism wholly; there is still argument to attract the self-seeking. But above all this stands clear one significant fact: the party leaders of the present year are each and all counting for their hopes of victory on their ability to convince the people that their respective candidates represent the best expectation of cleaner, fairer, squarer, more wholesome life in the land.

This eagerness of today's politicians to strengthen themselves in those moral appeals that their predecessors spurned, is but a sign of the spirit which their sensitive ears discover in the heartbeat of popular sentiment. The current of public feeling today carries in solution a yet uncrystallized but a real and true longing that America shall be the home not only of the brave and free, but of the good, the noble, the helpful, and the unselfish. A leadership strong enough and sincere enough not to balk at any hill of difficulty—thorough enough, too, to get at the root of immoralities which it assails—is the absolutely necessary condition for realizing the power of righteousness in this mighty wave of moral intent now surging to flood among the American people. [Christian Work and Evangelist.]

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