OCR Text |
Show HOW DEGENERATION COMES. A fad is going the rounds of writers just now that exhaustive wars so deplete the vitality of nations that degeneration must follow. A celebrated cele-brated London writer has just put out a book in which he declares that the present race of Italians are not descendants of the old Romans, but of the slaves of old Rome. All of which we do not believe. be-lieve. Great wars prevent thousands of marriages and stop the natural increase of population but we do not believe they cause degeneration. Early in the sixteenth century the men that Cortes led into Mexico were sure enough fighters. Three hundred hun-dred years later, when Wellington went to Spain to help drive the French out, after many trials, he declared that the Spanish army was a hindrance hin-drance rather than a help to him. That degeneration degener-ation did not come through wars. It came in part through a blending of church and State with the church in the ascendant, but chiefly through ignorance and such an adjustment of the finances of the State that the few possessed all wealth and the many lacked the comforts and many of the necessities of life. The same causes wrought the downfall of old Rome. While she was conquering the world her people did not degenerate. de-generate. The greatest Romans, greatest in arms and arts and learning lived just before her eclipse came and after she had been fighting and empire-building for seven hundred years. Her precious-metal mines ceased to yield. Naturally Na-turally her property began to fall in value; people who were in debt lost their homes; the wealth of the empire went to the few, hope died in the souls of the many, vices crept in to destroy the rich; to minister to those vices the poor were debased with bribes. Men and especially young women sold their souls for money until both men and women ceased to be worthy to become the parents of brave sons or virtuous daughters. The same results only in a reversed way wrought the degeneration de-generation of Spain. When the New World was discovered all the people of that country were poor. The mines of Peru and Mexico brought great wealth to a portion of the people. Their sons, not being obliged to work and having plenty of money took on all the vices that idleness breeds and invented others. The daughters of the poor became their prey, and the very poor looking at the wealth they could not acquire any portion of, lost hope. After that, deaeneracy was swift. Had Spain settled where the English did, on the northern Atlantic coast, where there were n great mines, they would have continued gradually gra-dually to improve even as did the men who peo-B peo-B Pled Chili. The rule is that when an ignorant People lose hope their decay is swift. If anyone H H1 go for an hour in the evening into the Wal-H Wal-H dorf-Astoria hotel and watch what is going on H there, and then go to one of the free-and-easy theaters that are the rage at present in New York H "ity, he will see the same causes at work there hich so swiftly broke down the manhood and Womanhood of old Spain. If the degeneration of this country does not Prove quite as rapid as did that of Spain, it will k because of three things. The first is our free schools which keep honor bright among the Masses of our countrymen; the second is that as Jet no creed has become dominant in the direc- Uon of politics, the third is the steady iramigra- tion of the strong races of the Old World. As yet the boy in the mill dreams of being a Carnegie, the boy in the mines dreams of being a United States Senator and the boy on the farm dreams of being President of the United States, and while this remains so, the rich man may "bribe counts and no accounts to marry his daughters; the sons of millionaires may marry prostitutes or get themselves killed by automobiles, and still the Great Republic will run on an even keel and more majesty and power as the years roll on. In case, too, there should be one or many calls to arms, in defense of native land, there will be the old-time response; from every State soldiers will spring as if from the ground and their tread will be like the beating of the pulses of Destiny. |