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Show B Not Prophecy Quite Yet T WO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT years ago Sir Thomas Browne put out a tract, in B which were these lines: M "When America shall cease to send out its treas- B H But employ ic at home in American pleasure; H When the New World shall the Old invade, M Nor count them their lords, but their fellows in m trade, M Then think strange things have come to light, H Whereof but few have had a foresight." M Those lines seem prophetic to many people, H and in a little way they are. The author evi- B dently believed a great empire would crystalize on M this continent, whose people would only accept M the "my lords" of the old world as their equals. m m But if his two first lines are prophetic, the pro- B phecy has not yet been realized, for if there is M anyone thing that the average American seems M to enjoy more than another it is to "send out his treasure" or carry it out and have the time of his M life abroad. Indeed, that disposition seems to B possess more than half our people. For instance, B a vast host affects to believe that to pay out B $5,000,000 per annum in ship subsidies to carry m our flag and our trade to foreign lands, would 1 be a direct robbery of the people in the interest M of a few men already very rich. Yet those same m people look on with perfect composure and see H $250,000,000 of American money sent out of the Hj country annually in fares and freights, though M tho interest on that sum in ordinary savings M banks would be (at 4 per cent) twice the $5,000,000 m which they so bewail in advance. Tho subsidy, M if paid, would all remain at home and continue B to be a part -of the volume on money in the coun- B try. Moreover, it would set probably 300,000 B Americans at work at generous wages, creating, H repairing and navigating American ships and it B would cause the important ports of the world to H be lighted by our flag, and add immensely to the M trade and prestige of our republic. It is clear H that there are still a host of Americans who do M not desire that "America shall cease to send out H its treasure," or to "employ it at home in Ameri- H can pleasure" This last is seen in the fact, H that though the scenery of our west coast ex- H ceqds In magnificence anything that the old world H has, there are multitudes of educated people in I S BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBh the eastern states who can tell all abuuv, Mount Blanc, the Highlands of Scotland; the loveliness of Norwegian scenery, who do not know vnat ' states, Shasta, or Hood or Ranler are in; who never saw the Columbia or the Canyon of the Colorado, or the glories of Yosemite or the Yellowstone, Yel-lowstone, which shows that they have no desire to employ their treasure "at home In American pleasure. ' And as to counting the lords of the old world as their fellows, there are plenty of old curmudgeons curmud-geons in our country who have been skin-flints from birth, who will pour out their treasure like water, if they can buy a foreign lord for a husband hus-band for their daughter, though "my lord" may be the sorriest chump in four counties. But Sir Thomas was a real prophet when he declared that "strange things have come to light," tnougn ne may not have anticipated just how they would come. He died not knowing how shoddy a great many Americans would be, or how densely ignorant ignor-ant a great many Americans would be after they were supposed to be educated. i |