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Show who owns the lands if the lands are made to yield abundantly for the . 7-- ; - The Russians deeided to destroy civilization and build anew. The horrors they created were a warning to rich and comfortable Amercivilization as posica. ' OurfliWijric decided, to jireserve as much-o- f sible aid! work their way gradiin.lly to higher, levels. A' JJttlc m.ore'than a, century agj the French philosophers gabbled inanefy, but eautjfull), about a return to nature. nature had been so desirable mankind would never have drifted far from it. Rut men found nature a cruel mistress. Even the savage, in his struggle for existence, realized that he could not survive unless he improved on nature. When, in his chase for game, he was balked by a river he realized that he must invent some better means of crossing the stream than floating himself on a log. Therefore, he hollowed out the log and made a boat. At first he wore hides but these were unsatisfactory and he. or perhaps his wife, began to pluck the hides and secure the wherewithal to weave fabrics. The first fabrics appealed little to mans sense of the beautiful because the colors wefe few and unattractive. . Nature provided dyes which were employed to make the garments appealing to the eye and after dress had become both comfortable and attractive it did not occur to primitiveman to. abandon this slight gain he had made in civilization. The powerful of the earth adopted purple as their sign of superIt iority because the purple dye could be obtained only at great price. was supplied by a shellfish inhabiting the Aaegean sea and the merchants of Tyre charged as much for it as $300 a pound . For centuries so royalty clothed itself in purple ond fine linen .in silks and in satins, as to 'differentiate itself from the plain people. The royal Tyrian of the purple can now be made for a few cents a pound because discoveries of English and German chemists. And it is an interesting coincidence that kings are becoming as cheap as the purple that once marked them off from common men. Civilization is defined as an advance in material and social wellbeing. Its advance has. been, not toward nature, but away from it. It is true that man must coniine himself to the use of the materials of the earth. As Wells once quaintly said, the earth has no imports or exports. We get nothing from other worlds and probably never 'if i shall. Nature is simply the raw material of civilization. It affords us the means of making what our brains invent. Nature could not provide for an earth peopled by billions of manu people. If man had not invented rapid means of growing and facturing the necessaries of life ; if he had not invented rapid means of transportation, the human family would always be on the edge of starvation. Even with all our improvements on nature the race, as we learned during the war, is never far from famine. The methods of civilization are invariably imperfect and need constant changing, but if we were to go back, even part way, to nature, we would be in as bad a state as are the starving Russians. Modern governments are, perhaps, as imperfect as the other agencies of civilization, but we must use their machinery until we can provide better, and we cannot provide better by destroying what we have and then trying to create out of nothing. We must preserve our machinery if we would advance. We must bear those ills we have until we can better ourselves. What ' we have done is but earnest of what we will do. Today men squabble about hours of work and call upon government to reduce the periods of daily toil. Government does a little to lighten the burden, but not much. Some day science, by inventing the proper machinery, will probably cut down the hours of labor 50 or 75 per cent. It will be a social and material, but perhaps not a moral advancement. and virtuous can use leisure rightly. Only the strong-wille- d Leisure gives more time for building, but' also more time for destroying, more time for the arts of peace, but also more time for war. In medieval ages the leisure classes were at war constantly because they hod little else to do. War became the profession of a gentleman. It is folly, however, always to be seeing the worst side of progress. Civilization is bound to improve our material and social conditions; let us hope that it will not deny us spiritual gains. Our material progress will avail us little if we make no moral gains. If, after we have amassed the conveniences, comforts and luxuries of life for a few years, we go on war sprees and throw our riches away, we shall be constantly putting off the millenium. Wars result from denials of justice. If we rob our neighbors or refuse them their rights, or if they rob us or refuse us our rights, . . - t wars will result. To prevent war we must have, first of all, the will to peace-- the will to do justice. The means, the machinery for the preservation of peace will not be difficult to devise. The League of Nations failed because it was founded on injustice. The only league of peace that has a chance to succeed is one that has justice for its aim, but we may well ask ourselves whether the invention of the machine will be of advantage until we have chastened our national lives to the sincere wish and determination to do justice. , HOW THE RESTAURANT TRUST BROKE THE MEA T COMBINE Prices of meat in Salt Lake are high, but they would still be at the peak had not the resturant trust waged decisive warfare on the market combine. The market men rubbed their hands in glee when they read in the newspapers that, despite the decline of meat prices in the-eaprices continued at the old high level in Salt Lake. Ilad they not fixed prices at whatever level pleased them for several years and had they not maintained these prices in defiance of the law of supply aiid demand? The law was all right for high schools and colleges, but it must be made to keep its place, and the meat trust magnates thought they knew how it was to be done. When pork was selling at 22 cents a pound in Omaha it was still at 45 cents a pound in Salt Lake. It was a most enjoyable condition for the meat barons. They were planning to substitute for the sign Merry Christmas a sign like this: Take It or Leave It. Meantime complaints had attained such stridency in the restaur- ants that the Restaurant Mens Association concluded that they could st, , no longer shift all the blame to the meat combine, Their patrons continued to be bitter aiid sarcastic. Therefore, they decided to fight. A committee went about looking for a market man who would cut prices. He was hard to find. The committee kept at the task for a few davs and then there was a break in the combine. One market man agreed to undersell his associates if he were guaranteed a certain amount of business. In a few days he was swamped with business and the meat profiteers knew what had happened. They were wild. They raved and they cursed and they denounced the Judas who had dared to betray them. had stepped right out of the textbook and was going about seeking whom to devour. And he found many whoms and all boiling mad. Rut what could they do? market Hie restaurant men continued to buy of the d and meat began to accumulate in the besieged castle f the meat trust barons. The combine capitulated. They decided to undersell the cut-priSupply-and-Dema- nd cut-pri- ce high-price- ce |