Accommodating.
Grunigen, a village near Zurich, Switzerland, boasts of a newspaper which is certainly unique. It is named the Wochenblatt, and its enterprising editor and proprietor is Herr J. Wirz.
Now Grunigen has only fifteen hundred inhabitants. Herr Wirz realized, therefore, that he and his paper would starve together if he did not succeed in obtaining as subscribers practically all the people within reach. So he built up a literary product designed to please. He had four pages. Two of them are given up to the liberal party of Germany, and two to the conservatives. One week the editor writes for the first side, and the second his editorials are on the second side. In each issue he demolishes his arguments of the preceding number. He condemns himself unsparingly. He heaps ridicule and sarcasm upon himself with no fear of a duel. He conducts a desperate war with himself, and his readers look on, delighted. His happy artifice brings him a comfortable reward.
I laughed when I read the story; for, after all, Herr Wirz is not unique, but is one of a large and flourishing class of agreeable toilers. You find them in thousands of editorial chairs. Many of them are professors, many are politicians, some are ministers of the gospel. They are found in all occupations and in all grades of society.
What they want is a living, not a personality. They readily sink their manhood in any scheme that ends in a bank account. If they have opinions, they will not utter them. If they learn of evils, they will not proclaim them. They will turn no client from their office. They will debate on either side, accept any commission, enter any alliance. They know only one thing, that the world, as they say, owes them a living. They hold to only one allegiance, and that is their loyalty to themselves. The Wochenblatt comedy is played in every town.
But the comedy becomes a tragedy ere long. "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you!" Woe unto you when all men subscribe for your paper or join your church or vote your ticket. You have passed, by that token, the limit of true manhood. One of the first duties of a man is to take sides. He who is not for Christ is against Him. His enemies must become your enemies; and not to-day only, but all days. For if all men speak well of you now, a time is coming when no word can be spoken well of you, on earth or in heaven.
Abused and Popular.
Senator Lodge's famous description of his friend, President Roosevelt, as "the best-abused and most popular man in the United States," made a tremendous hit at a Republican National Convention, and is sure to stick.
It will stick because it is true. That Theodore Roosevelt is the most popular man in the country has been conclusively proved many times. That he is roundly abused by thousands and heartily disliked above all our recent Presidents by those that dislike him at all, is matter of easy observation; and the two things go together.
They go together, because one of the chief reasons for Roosevelt's popularity is the kind and the number of enemies he has made. Every man that has fattened upon unjust privileges hates him, because he has done his best to overturn those privileges and has measurably succeeded. Every political and social hypocrite hates him, because he has made hypocrisy unfashionable. Every hide-bound aristocrat hates him, because of his invincible democracy. Every formalist hates him, because of his open contempt for foolish hindrances and meaningless red tape. Every "peace-at-any-price" man hates him, because he is a fighter. Every "war-at-any-cost" man hates him, because he is a lover and prophet of peace. Every "stand-pat" man hates him, because he does not believe in standing still and is incapable of it. Every crank hates him, because with all his progressiveness he refuses to take leaps in the dark.
"Woe unto you when all men speak well of you." This woe will never be imposed upon Roosevelt. We may parallel Christ's saying with another: "Blessed are ye when some men speak ill of you"; and just the right men speak ill of Roosevelt to render him conspicuously blessed!