The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1884-10-23


wn1eh Enable Us to See Ourselves ~
soms Others See Us.
Sir Lepel Grifin's book on sThe
Great Republic" is severely criticised
by American papers. It is not fatter-
ing to our national pride to have our
political life denounced by an English
man. Here are a few extracts showing
the style of his work: The most no.
ticeable defect of the towns is the infer
Tor character of the roadway. Paving
in America seems an unknown art; the
principles of Macadam have not crossed
the ocean and the paving generally
would be considered disgraceful in an
English village. Washington is in this,
as in almost every branch of civic adj
ministration, the honorable exception,
which is as significant as any in Ameri-
can political life, that the District of
Columbia, which is virtually no more
than the city of Washington itself, is
not delivered, like other American
towns, to the tender mercies of an inef-
ficient and corrupt municipality.
Republican institutions have had a
trial for hundred years and SO far as
outsiders can judge their failure is COM
plete. France under a republic has be-
come a by-word in Europe for weakness
and turbulence abroad and financial
imbecility and corruption at home,
while America, which boasts of equality
and freedom, does not understand that
with the single exception of Russia,
there is no country where private right
and public interests are more systema-
tically outraged than in the United
States. The ideal aristocracy, or gov
eminent of the best, has in America
been degraded into an actual govern
ment of the worst, in which the educated,
the cultured, the honest and even the
wealthy weigh as nothing in the balance
against the scum of Europe which the
Atlantic has washed up on the shores of
the New World.
Nothing is more striking than the
patience with which the free American
citizen bears the insolence of office, the
rudeness of ticket collectors, the I'M
necessary violence of the police, and the
general contempt of every petty employe
of the government, or private compa-
MES, who, one and all, seem to consid-
er the public they serve as beast Of
burden, to be beaten or driven at their
pleasure. We are accustomed to this
official aggressiveness and petty iuso-
lence in France or Italy, but it seems
strangely out of place in an Anglo Sax
on republic. For this temper IS alto
gether foreign to the people. There
is no more kindly and considerate person
in the world than the unofficial Amer
lean. Hospitable, generous and warm
hearted, he will take infinite trouble to
assist stranger and, if you ask him to
direct you in the public street, will
probably walk far out of his way to
point out your destination. But poll
tics have so demoralized Office that
with it's possession his whole temper
seems changed. The old wine of author
ity is too strong for republican bottles
aud, next to being an official yourself,
there is hardly greater misfortune
than to have to conduct dealings with
one.
Nothing is more pleasant in America,
or places the civilization of the country
in a brighter or more honorable
light than the universal respect
publicly paid to women by men of
all degrees. That their is in this some
thing of exaggeration, and that some
women abuse their exceptional privil-
eyes, demanding discourteously what
men are ready voluntarily to oiier, does
not materially affect the question. An
American gentleman who resigns his
seat to lady in steamboat or tram
car, or who wearies himself IN looking
after her luggage and wrestling on her
account with railway porters, does not
ask even the thanks which politeness
should be eager to proffer. His action
has been disinterested, instructive and
to satisfy his own sense of propriety.
The difference, in this respect, between
the French and American Republics is
curious indeed. A Frenchman will
ruthlessly turn lady into the mud of
the street rather than step off the pave
ment himself, or will bride the railway
guard to induce delicate women to leave
their pre-engaged carriage in order that
he may not sit with his back to the en-
CINE. He will hardly assist woman
in distress unless she be attractive.
The French, below the thinnest veneer,
are the most impolite of civilized races.
Americans, on the other hand, though
without superficial polish, ere worm
hearted and chivalrous in the highest
degree. The position in which they
have placed their women is the best
guarantee that the nation will outgrow
the blemishes which now disfgure it
and will in the future attain higher
civilization than has been enjoyed by
any people who have regarded the +
and political life as the
dominion of man.