The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1876-03-17

). Nlt.u u b -,4-'ttt|
aud "a as hii
mrnts 81 tue peJpl-. The VictOrs
are TOO often more severely punish
ed. IN the rr-uils ~ their victory,
than The vauvui-hed. The IatIeT
may BE- lett blet ding, destitute aud
stricken, but ia 'ir poverty is by no
means so dangerous or destructive
rs are the social corruptions which
have been planted among the VIC
tors. The long wars of England, at
the close of the last century, were as
fraught with loss to Ler "a to her
enemies. Comparatively, she had
but few of her own troops engaged.
Her contribution to the war was
chiefly in money and subsidies to
her allies, aud money is the least
expensive part of the war. She was,
TO a great extent, the manufacturer
and sutler of Europe. She made
and sold the guns and powder, the
clothing and the provisions and
supplies of war. Hostile armies
never stood on her soil. Her PEG.
people were employed working for
the troops in the field. Her mer-
chants were the traders and suffers
of Europe, and grew rich the mid
die and the higher classes had such
incomes that they would not haYe
cared il war was perpetual. With
deprecated currency, high tariffs
and enormously increasing paper
wealth, the people of England lost
established rectitude. Wealth, sud-
denly obtained, was the end sought
by all, and in that search the priuci-
pies were lost sight of, and society
was debauched-was q continuous
revel, marked by extravagant ex-
penditures, the wreck of female hon.
or and male integrity. With peace,
there was no abandonment of the
habits of war. Those who had
made money and those who sought
to make money without work con-
tinued their reckless career, and it
was not until fearful panic had
swept away the ill-gOtten gains of
the war, aud reduced the country to
the alternative of starvation or Ia
Dor, that England recovered from
the results of her own victorious
wars.
We, too, have passed through q
season of war. and debauchery. In
to four brief years we had concen-
trated greater military movements
than those of England's twenty
years of conflict. We had taken in
one way or the other into the field
two millions and half of the best
OF the young and able-bodied men
of all the States, and Tor four years
kept hurting them against each 9TH
er, and read eagerly the daily bulle-
Tins announcing the killed of our
countrymen by the thousand. In
addition, we had another million of
men employed in producing food
and clothing and arms for the men
in the field. Upon this carnage,and
blood and murder, there was feed
ing an army OF vultures, in the dis
guisc OF contractnrs, and plunderers,
and spectators, aud thieves, of ev-
cry possible shape aud form. As
one army OF these got gorged it
made room for a successor, and in a
brief time we had a new society
TIE men who had grown rich in a
day by the mere sleigbt-of-haDd in
executing a swindling contract, or
in the robbery of the nation. Sud-
den wealth is proverbially daZZ ing.
Strokes of fortune have peculiar at
fractions. Wealth can only be ac-
Tune honestly, with the infrequency
OF lightning vIsitations. But wealth
can be acquired suddenly and dis
honestly by nearly any form of
crime. The ambition once fixed to
secure large wealth without labor,
the observation of the moral senses
is rapid and the opportunity offer
ed, the means become matter of
mil hn hn rnf
rich in the early part of the war EN-
ployed that wealth not to promote
any intellectual or business purpose.
Their immediate application of it
was to the purchase OF a mansion,
its costly furnishing; the purchase
of carriages and horses, and plate
diamonds the employment of hosts
of servants the procurement OF the
most costly apperel, with the extras
of laces and jewelry. They prodn-
ced social revolution. Weak men
and weaker women aspired to the
possession of the same. Women
bartered peace and happiness, hon.
or and honesty, to procure the gild-
ed evidences of depraved taste and
senseless vanity. Men abandoned
the slow plodding of honest labor
to gamble for riches that they might
rival the shoddy mushroom who
had got rich by selling paper-soled
boots and shoddy coats and blank
cts to the army. Down in the So
cial ladder to the lowest round in
dustry and virtue were corrupted.
The boy behind the counter, the tel
Ter in the bank, the Waterman in the
warehouse, the manager in the ex-
press ofiice-everybody who had
the opportunity of charging his in
come dishonesty, tempted to rival
in display some other person -
adopted the theory that honesty was
too slow, and that the true policy
was to take all that could be got.
Oaths taken under the solemnity
of courts and of law once had
weight upon the human conscience
and inspired confidence. Who
places confidence in an oath now,
when the man detected with his
hand in the safe will appeal to
Heaven to strik him dead If he be
guilty? OAths have become a mere
auxiliary to crime, enabling men to
legally detraud, which they could
not do by telling the truth. Forgery
and perjury are common crimes,nnd
are committed by those who hold
what in other days would be called
respectable places in society. The
family relation is feIrfully weaken
ed and destroyed. Incidental to the
acquisition of dishonest wealth sud
denly aud without labor has been
the enlargement of vicious propen-
stiles. The unambltious home that
once furnished happiness and con
tentment has been supplemented by
Il fashionable establishment, at the
head of which is placed another
who prefers money and shame to al
inability TO dress as we'll as some
acquaintance. Though we have haC
eleven years since the war was clos
ed, the consequences of the war are
yet conspicuously visible in the
moral corruptions and vices, the ex
travagant and wasteful habits, the
thirst for money, the adherence Of
labor, the idleness of youth, the dis
respect for law aud religion, the
contempt for the obligations Of
oaths, and the reckless, untamabl,