The World Needs Mitchell's

Bg Jach Dionne

As far as the detailed merits of the case of the Governmenl against Col. Mitchell are concerned, we offer 4o opinion.

Whether or not he violated his obligations as a soldier by attacking his superiors is a point we will not attempt to pass on.

But insofar as the PRINCIPLE of the thing is concernedWE ARE STRONG F'OR THIS MITCHELL PERSON.

The world owes all of its progress, from the day when Adam Stonehatchet chipped his first weapon of offenFe and defense but of the living rock up to now, to men of the Mitchell type; men who were totally unwilling to keep in the rut, to follow the footsteps of plodders, and to permit themselves to be muzzled when the speaking time came.

If it were not for men of the Mitchell type-progressives-men who cannot be restrained from raring up on their hind legs and speaking the truth out in meeting whether it pleased the powers that be or not-we would still be living in caves, clad in the skins' of wild beasts, and chasing one another around the trees with knotty-headed clubs loaded to scatter.

Only through the Mitchells has the world progressed, have foolish and wornout traditions been disrupted, and shackles been stricken from the minds and the hands of humanity.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth, and it is through the fearlessness of men who won't be held down and cannot be restrained, that the world keeps forging onward.

Moses uras one of that type.. So was Jesus. And Buddha. And Confucius. And Socrates. And Gallileo. And Roger Bacon. And fsaac Newton. And Luther. And Cromwell. And the men who took the Bastille. And George Washington. And Abraham Lincoln. And Columbus. And Robert Ingersoll. And countless others.

Not Iconoclasts ! Not simply men who tear down, but men who destroy in order that we may build to better advantage. Men who have visions of better things for men, and who throw off restraint and assault worn-out, cast-off, erroneous thoughts, and methods, and replace them with better thoughts and better things, in order that mankind may live the more abundantly, and may develop, and grow as God intended that he should.

The first Plan Book Man, whoever he was, was imbued with the same spirit.

Any man who fears not to tear down foolish illusions, or to strike with full thrust at unrighteous conditions, is a friend of mankind, without whose sort of spirit this race would long since have died of dry rot, or something worse.

In some ways this man Mitchell may be wrong, but there is the ring of sincerity in what he says, and there is a fearlessness about his methods that attracts the admiration of the American heart, and the Mitchell episode is going to do our Army and Navy situation a whole lot of good.

We need more Mitchells in all line of endeavor.