The Practical Politician
By Editor
"The Practical Politician."—Incidentally American Industries, of September 1, offers a suggestion which national and other political reformers would do well to heed. In speaking of a class which advises its members to vote for old-party candidates "if those candidates will make a few promises," it asks, "and what practical politician will be slow in making promises before election, or in forgetting them afterwards?" Erect a standard of reform as high as the moral law, and if it becomes popular, the old-time corruptionist in politics will swear by its chiefest god that he always believed in that standard and will vote for it. And he catches the votes as a sugar-and-water mixture catches flies; but his heart is the same, and he is the same old corruptionist in a new role. Reforms do not come that way. Papus, a Spiritualist, says the Christian Advocate, has given fifty seances to the czar, receiving twenty-five thousand dollars as compensation. The Russian czars have been very superstitious. Henry Slade utterly fooled Alexander II. No wonder the czar has been vacillating. The press has revealed the situation and brought out so many facts that Papus has gone abroad for medical treatment, his nervous system being shattered by the attacks upon him. The czar must be on the intellectual and moral grade of Saul when he went down to see the witch of Endor. It is a case of the blind leading the blind. Three days of race riot in Atlanta, Ga., September 22-24, resulted in the death of twenty persons, two whites and eighteen negroes. The arrest of 257 persons by the militia succeeded in quieting the storm. A meeting of business men demanded vigorous action on the part of the authorities in the matter of closing the saloons. There is one thing always notable where social trouble arises, and that is, the open saloon invariably adds fuel to the fire—which, in nine cases out of ten, originates by the combustion of saloon goods. The apostle does not exhort us to deceive God; for he knows that God can not be deceived; "God is not mocked." Our greatest danger is self-deception, and the only thing which can save us from that is God's revelation of self and Himself. Thus will we learn to distrust self and trust Him more. Only God can know the motive; only God can deal with the heart, and religion is a matter of the heart.