The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1860-05-09
THE JOURNAL.
Lutte A. TAYLOR, Editor.
River Falls, Pierce County. Wisconsin.
Wednesday, May, 81 1850.
Written for the JoURNAI
SO GOES TIE WORLD.
BY OUR OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR.

BY OUR OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR.
WHEN God first dropped the mantle o.
Genius upon the Shoulders Of FAUST,
and unfolded to his conception the beau
ty and utility of typical impressions, the
Old World gazed with admiration upon
the result ard honored the instrument of
its timely contamination. When our own
beloved Franklin, drew down lightning
from the clouds, tanned its cratic spirit
and sent it all round the world upon the
brands of men, America was jHbilant in
echoeing the praises of her new found
Philosopher. When FULToN built the
1irst steamboat and sent it surging across
the waters, moved by the steam-breath
of its glowing enginery, both continents
were united in giving generous applause
to the greatness of the Builder and the
genius of the Man. When great Warri
ors and Statesman die, lamenting thou
sands arc ready to weave the cypress for
the bier of the departed. and their glory
is recorded in the fadeIess stereotype of
the monumental tablet.
60 goes the world. Praise is an invol
untary tribute which all souls pay to g. t
natures. Men honor q greatness which
they cannot equal, and wonder at ma
ture whose depths thew cannot fathom.-
Ii is out of this principle in mens's ma
lures, continually looking for and ready
To render honor to their so-caIled supe-
riors, shat grows all the distinctions in
the world, both political and social
Russia's tyrant-ruler, tightens the links
that bind his subjects, only at their own
bidding. Tho gay throngs upon the
hanks of the Seine, and who fill all France
arc willing captives to the chain that binds
them; let them but breathe upon the
paddock, and like that in tabled history,
it would fade forever, and the dynasty
Of the Napoleons be no more. InOu
own land, Oppression holds our destin.es
in its hand, only by the consent of those
it is crushing; let the oppressed once as :
sert their rights, and American Slavery
would shrink into nothingness. Men
greatly err in giving honors both to the
living and tho dead; 1t woull be far bet
ter would they more justly distribute
their Rewards of Merit" and with a
wiser discrimination "Give honor to
whom honor is DUE; and while they are
strewing with flowers the graves of the
great departed, throw one evergreen ~
on the resting place of crushed human
ity.
That circumstances make the man, is
too often true. Many whose memories
are porpetuated in statues Of bronze, hal
other and less favorable circumstances
attended them through life, their ashes
would lie beneath the sods of an I'M
known grave. The glitter of gold and
the sparkle ofgenius, give unmistakable
evidence of greatness only to those who
are incapable of reading the language
God has written upon the souls and ut
tered by the lives of many who are IN
Iettered, and have not where to lay their
heads. If monuments were erected to
those who have been truly heroic in their
lives and deaths, many q marble shaft
would point starward from pauper burial
grounds. Should the heroes and hero
ines ofto-day have their true positions
accorded them, the world would wonder
at the scene.
To day, I read of one, milliner girl,
whose vitality had all been shed from
her needle point, laying down her work
and going home to die. For a paltry
pittance she had sat in the fetid air of the
work room until she had 9ora yigor, and
elasticity, and life away. She had wro't
her most delicate fancies, her purest as
pirations, into the garments she had fash