San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1885-01-08

atively more keen than ever before
experienced, because its victims
know great deal moro about the
possible plenty Of the world than
their predecessors in other centuries
knew, what will be the likelihood Of
properly feeding and clothing these
masses, when we shall have nearly or
quite as much as we can do TO supply
ourselves The dismal conclusions
of Malthus that population tends to
exceed food supply, and must be
diminished by some disaster, seem in
danger Of taking dreadful body with
in a few centuries.
That multitudes here in America
will one day know distress to which
their fathers have been strangers
appears very likely. But pain is the
pioneer to new conquests Of nature
and superior order Of life; and,
under the pinch Of necessity, men
will open their eyes to neglected
opportunities and to needless abuses
Of the earth's bounty. What large
stretches Of empty and deserted land
the older States of the Union can
show, which under a culture as
thorough as that of Belgium would
become a fruitful garden! What
monopoly of precious soil for deer
parks,grouse thickets, and sheep pas
lures there is in in Great Britain, whose
agricultural laborers are among the
worst fed in the world What harry
ing of tillers of the soil and other
producers by bad governments there
is in the Turkeys, Persias, and
Egypts of the far East What waste
of fertilizing sewage in multitudes Of
towns and cities !
The Utopian sees an approaching
dissolution to Oriental governments
and q consequent restoration OF
productiveness to now desert lands
The Saharas will be irrigated and be
covered with date palms. Scientific
culture of the soil will supplant the
comparatively barbaric wasteful agri-
culture of illinois, and Kansas. The
great rivers instead Of, as often now,
being menace to the life and pro-
perty Of the dwellers in their valleys,
will be tanned and harnessed to agri-
culture as well as to manufactures.
The bare mountain sides, stripped by
greed and improvidence, will be re-
covered with useful forests, out OF
which only the mature trees will be
culled. The sea will be full of food
providing fish. And, heresy OF here
sizes, all land will, In some wise and
practicable way, be made available
for the sunstenance Of the whole peo-
pie Of the country. Private luxury
of soil possession will yield to general
necessity There can be no starya-
ton permissible so long as there are
hands willing to work and ground
capable of being planted. The prob.
lem of human comfort or despair is
for mans solution by positive intelli-
gent effort, and not to be left to o
fatalistic waiting upon Providence.
True it is, in general sense, that
the brutal past Of despotism and
intolerance, out of which most Of our
existing social evils spring, has been
the product of an inscrutable destiny
to which the masses Of men must
meekly submit, and whose drift they
have but dimly perceived. But it has
also been and is now true that human
wit backed by morality could change
the currents of fate. War, tyranny,
the oppression of the poor, the thous.
and grinding wrongs of the world,
and especially the devastation Of
lands and other wanton extravaganza
of naure's gifts, have their origin in
mans refusal to use his brain or to
listen to his conscience and it is in
the hope OF mighty awakening Of
human intelligence that lies the
prospect of satisfying everybody's
hunger and covering everybod's
nakedness.
So q second condition Of the
new Utopia is that everybody shall be
educated. As for the outside barba-
rians. we must for the present leave
them 10 the operations of the strug-
gle for existence, with chance that
they will all go to the wall. But the
barbarians within our borders must
be imprisoned in the school house
long enough at least 10 obtain some
idea OF their place in nature, OF the
sort of forces, wild or social, with
which they will have TO grapple in
life, and the readiest modes Of beat
ing the enemy.
The modern faith in the all regen-
erative power OF the schoo-master is
somewhat off fanaticism, perhaps; but
there is experience enough 10 show
that the chief alternative 10 intelli-
gence which sundry ecclesiastics and
other reactionaries recommend under
the misnomer Of religion (rore prop
erly, hapless superstiton) has had
but poor success in making energetic
and quick-witted people. such alone
as the coming crisis must have.
What q difference IL makes in deal
ing with preventable disease, 20 a. to
keep up the physical vigor and that
mental tone which il condition Of
productive enterprise, whether q
strange remedy like vaccination Is Of
fsred 70 . torpid sOuled people OF
those accustomed 10 thinki
What a battle with stupid igno-