The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1883-05-19
Dynamite as a Home Comfort.


One of the oldest incidents in the
history of dynamite is the laudation of
it by paper called the Home Journal as
means of elevating the condition of the
poor and oppressed, by enabling the
humblest and most obscure to blow upor
kill at trifling expense anybody who
seems to stand in the way of his happi-
ness. The home in which these doc
trines were accepted and acted on
would be very strange place, indeed,
and would not long need journal of
any kind. There is one comic side to
these views, but only one, and that is
the notion that if the use of dynamite
by the downtrodden, unhappy, became
general, it would only be used for the
destruction of the tyrant and oppress-
or. 1t would be used, as everybody
knows, or ought to know, principally
for robbery and the unadorned
murder of enemies, just as the re-
volver has been. Nearly everybody
who buys revolver thinks, or
tries to think, he is buying it for self
defense, but the cases in which anybody
defends himself with it are very rare.
1t is mostly devoted to killing the unof-
Tending, or making them keep still
while their pockets are being rihed. The
man who invented it has a great deal to
answer for, as any one will see who re-
| fleets for a moment on the awful de-
struction of life which it has enabled
| desperadoes in all parts of the world to
accomplish during the last thirty years.
| 1t gave the ruffian the power which he
never had before of carrying five or six
| shots in his pocket without exciting OBJ
| servation, and he has so used it as great
| ly to increase the difficulty of maintain
| ing law and order in all civilized coun-
tries. The best elements of society
have not profited by it at all. Its adj
vantage to the army or navy or police
| has been very trihing, and there are
but few households whom it has ever
protected against attacks on either life
or property.
| One of the most dangerous of the an
| archical notions now ahoat Is the notion
that the oppressed, even when acting
! singly, have Just as good right to use
the means of destruction against their
enemies as organized Governments have;
| that an Irishman who does not like the
way his country is governed is as much
| justified in blowing up the Houses of
Parliament as the Prussians to lombard
Paris. But the reason why the use of
the weapons of war against life and
property is reserved by old-fashioned
moralsts for established Goyernme
carrying on openly declared hostilities,
is simply that it is for the interest of the
human race that the destruction of life
and property should not be undertaken
except in cases where large body of
] fCtst,,ircr Or, t,iyaH cCpiafxr
have after elaboration agreed that it is
necessary or desirable, and a guarantee
that the world shall have occasional in
tervals of peace.
The progress of civilization has been
marked from the beginning by restric-
tons on the right of making war. First,
every one could attack anybody he
pleased, Just like the wild animals.
Then it was reserved for small parties
or families of savages under a chief, and
finally was reserved exclusively for the
societies called nations, When the tide
Of civilization receded during the Mid
die Ages, the right of wag ng war again
became difiused, and fell into the hands
of every large landholder To 90 out
and attack neighbor, and carry off his
cattle, became one of his every day
amusements. When the tide of civil
zation again began to rise, the right OF
attacking people again began to be re-
strlcted. In every century we find the
number of those allowed to exercise il
diminishing, until finally it has become
confined in practice to the great nations,
) Even small nations now are rarely al
lowed to go to war, and, when wal
, takes place, it is carried on by million
J of men on a side, and is therefore rarely
; undertaken unless a very large body OF
persons have agreed both that it is de.
sirable and that it is likely to attain its
; object.
: This is certainly on the whole a great
gain for humanity. 1t may crowd {
I great deal of killing into short space
, of time, but it gives long spaces of time
when everybody is sure that he will no
+ be killed. and will enjoy the fruits o
2 his labor. Moreover, it enlarges the
} role of discussion in human affairs, anC
Z nothing is so important for the race as
this. Nothing does so much to educate
Z it, and make it reasonable; or, in othe
words, to remove it from the animals
( whose unhappy fate it is not to know
1 how to persuade.
| The Nihilist plan of allowing ever
man to carry his own bomb, and ere
novel, such persons as he thinks su
2 perfuous or injurious to the communi
$ ty, would be a return to the wild-ani
NAL stage of human history. 1t woulC
> assimilate man once more to the tiger
= and, of course, if generally adopted
r would make organized society impossi
: BILE. The Industrious, the energetic
: the upright would in every generation
e be blown up by the idle and vicious
| IL 49,. ..ro.,ll Ernllrr hnrn 10 liz