The Voice of the People and God
By Editor
We are asked by one of our exchanges, which is working in the interests of government ownership of public utilities, to make an extended notice of the matter, publish a list of questions, and ask our subscribers to vote for or against the proposition. As that is entirely outside of our mission in the world, we respectfully decline the invitation; but there is one point in connection therewith which we notice. The editor of our exchange says: "Here is an excellent opportunity for every editor who believes in the saying, 'Vox populi, vox Dei' (the voice of the people, the voice of God), to prove his faith by his works." Now, we are not of the class that believes that pagan saying to be the truth. More than that, we are absolutely certain that that ancient slogan is not true. Many a ruler has found to his sorrow that the "vox populi" was a very capricious, fickle thing; but on the other hand, we know that the "vox Dei" is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." The "vox populi" in the time of Moses clamored for a golden calf, by whose worship they dishonored God—and that, too, at the very time when there was being engraved upon the tables of stone the "vox Dei" which declared, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. . . . Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them." In the time of Daniel the "vox populi" clamored for his life because he obeyed the "vox Dei" with all his heart; and when the voice of the people had induced the king to permit Daniel to be cast into the lion's den, then the voice of God commanded an angel to come down and shut the lion's mouths, that they should not harm that man of God. In the days of Christ the voice of the people, the "vox populi," clamored for the death of Him who was Himself the "Vox Dei," the Voice of God—and clamored so insistently, so thunderously, that the representative of the greatest power in the earth yielded to the "vox populi" and took the life of the very "Vox Dei" Himself. No, we do not believe the pagan maxim. The voice of the people is the voice of God, only when individual men and women are commissioned by Him to speak His will. The "civilization" of the older and more exclusive section of our Republic recently received a sharp rebuke at the hands of General F. D. Grant, who has been in command of the Department of the East. In a recent speech he is quoted as saying: "You hear a great deal about the force necessary to keep those degenerate people [the Filipinos] in subjection. There are 12,000 soldiers out there. My department in the East maintains 14,000 men to keep you citizens of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places in the straight and narrow path." It is a great mistake to suppose that the building of great cities is a sign of true civilization. Their slum districts, their criminal hatcheries, and their great police forces are arguments to the contrary, to say nothing of political corruption and the debaucheries in aristocratic society circles. The enforcement of the strong drink curse upon the world is producing its blight as effectually and far more widely than the opium scourge in the Orient, of which we hear so much complaint. With all the heroic work of temperance workers in the United States, bringing many localities and some quite large areas under the good influence of prohibition, it seems there is but little, if any, decrease in the aggregate consumption and effect. The victims and increase of the dire effects of alcoholism seem to increase so fast in privileged territory that the aggregate output of the traffic holds its own—and a little more—despite the good work of prohibition in some parts. If it were not for the salutary effects of loyal temperance work through various lines, the flood of intoxicants would soon overwhelm and, morally, if not physically, destroy the populace in the so-called "civilized" and "Christian" nations.