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Show SOCIETY ADYAXCIXG. A German Paper on the Xew Orleans Matter. Rapid Approach to a Healthier Health-ier State of Public i Morals. Midway," UtTJ? April 2, 1891. Special correspondence of The Dispatch. Dis-patch. Anent the discussions caused by the New' Orleans lynching affair, many have been heard to express themselves them-selves that things are getting worse and worse in this country, and that lawlessness is on the increase. Not a few modern Jeremiahs and Ezekiels are proclaiming the wrath from on high upon the uunregenerate" nation and prophesy of us: "Iu all your dwel-ing dwel-ing places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be made waste and desolate, and your idols, maybe broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished." But therein is nothing further from the truth. And in support of this I quote from the Peoria Demokrat, a leading German-American paper in Illinois, which sneaks as follows: "European immigrants, who came hither thirty or forty years age, endowed with mature ma-ture intelligence and clear preemption, and have had occasion to move about much in this country and become familiar with life and thought therein, have arrived at exactly opposite opinions opin-ions and reached the conviction that to-day our situation and condition are eminently better than at the beginning of the "Fifties," and even before that epoch. In comparison with the prevalent pre-valent coarseness, lawlessness, corruption cor-ruption and violence, we are in spite of the defect in our present social and political condition enjoying a veritable elysium. "It must not be lost out of sight how the existing United States have been settled; that England, Ireland and Scotland Lave discharged on this soil the dregs of their religious and political poli-tical fanatics and cranks, and that from all other nations, besides many good people, numerous adventurers, criminals and good-for-nothings have made this the nursery or asylum of their viciousness and depravities. Hence it is quite natural that it took a long time until well-ordered conditions condi-tions could be established and maintained main-tained among us. Each single state, iu the incipient stage of its formation, has had to pass through a wild period of trials and excesses, in which many much worse disorders and wrongs have been committed, than those now occupying oc-cupying public attention. This people peo-ple has ever boasted of its loyalty, its respect for the law; but a good deal of it used to be only a "paper" consistency. consist-ency. Arbitrariness, corruption and the oppression of the weak by the strong used to be frightful. How much have the imimgrants had to endure en-dure in the first years of their usi- dence here through the brutality of j the so-called lords of the laud, with! what contempt and disregard of j their commonest human rights have they been kicked about, cheated, '. insulted and injured in their interest", j until the various foreign nationulit.es j -., f :- became sd strong that they would resist re-sist and at last exert political force and influence. How miserable, despicable des-picable were formerly our lower courts; how ignorant, corruptible and partial j tiie judges and juries; how many hon-1 est and industrious people were, through the vulgar avarice and bold fraud of externally 'respectable' scoundrels, reduced to misery, unable to resist, recover or retaliate; how many crimes, including murders, remain re-main to this day unavenged! Especially, Espec-ially, what tyranny and cruelty has been exercised by 'regulators' and 'vigilance' committees, presumably established for the maintenance of public order. "What frauds have been practiced with false money, with paper currencies and fraudulent titles. One need but remember the bloody fights of the lira companies, the election riots in all large cities, the public and barefaced trade in votes, the shameless frauds in election returns, the brutal manner in which meu of opposin.s political views used to combat each other in the p:ess and on the rostrum. What used to be the rule in this respect res-pect has fortunately become the exception, excep-tion, although the receptions are yet too numerous. Foimerly, fanatically-religious fanatically-religious one-sidedness (bigotry) would render difficult all sociability, and where there was an attempt at the latter, it soon degenerated into coarse brutality and ended in bloodshed. "No, indeed," the Illinois journal adds, "we have made immense progress pro-gress in civilization; we have become decidedly cosmopolitan. The sporadic eruptions of brutality, traceable backward back-ward to former conditions of laxity and unrestrained brutality, are becoming becom-ing more and more scarce, and we are rapidly approaching a healthier state of public morals." True, our great (I niiiy j is! as well avow my firm convicrion ;'4? American philosopher. Ralph Waldo Emerson, takes another view of it, more tinctured with the pessimism of Eeclesiastes. For in his admirable essay "On Self-Reliance," he says, without mincing matters: "Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the oilier. Its progress is only apparent like the workers of a treadmill. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelijration. For everything that is given something is taken; society acquires new arts and loses old instincts. in-stincts. But we have the American poet's word for it, that Were ft star fiuencod on hi-rh, u For ages would its Unlit, Still traveling downward from the n'y. j Sbina oa our mortal sijflit. Hence we will believe, if not in the Millerite Millennium, at least in a reasonably improved, Vc? t:ise . visibly improving condition of o-a- surroundings. surround-ings. Hope's bright star shall light us from dimmest distance. Even though March with us in Provo Valley goes out like a lion (anil a very ui) and roaring one at that), we hope thai April will bring n.s something better and brighter, anyway after thf "Conference" "Con-ference" storm. When our grey lands have discharged all their lachrymose lachry-mose greys and a clear azure vaults i itself over our emerald landscape we shall forget the rude blasts of the fifth act of a very real "Winter Night'.--Dream," which is blistering at our doors and rattling around our chimneys. Until then let the cheery fire crackl? I in the hearth and the old fVlts dry on i the rug beside. . Leo IIaefeli. i |