The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-01-28
A Goddess System.

cepted as the lndlSputaDle oasis OF tnelr
treatment of all public questions by
nine-tenths of the American press, is
simply the apotheosis of British brutal
ity. The great bulk of English writing
upon this subject has been by men who
have accepted the existing state of
things in England as, if not ordained of
God, at least as being the natural and
inevitable result of social laws as firmly
based, and as unvarying in their action,
as the laws which regulate the motion
of suns and planets.
1t is truly stupendous assumption.
A nation, where for many centuries the
rich men have made all the laws and
modelled all the customs of the country,
so that they should invariably work to
their own personal enrichment at the
expense of the ignorant and powerless
producers of wealth, would be little
likely to be model state, after the type
of the Christian ideal. One might easily
believe that a state so formed would,
when perfected, become a veritable hell
upon earth, but it would seem to require
even more than British conceit, and
British bumptiousness, to set it forth as
an embodiment of the inevitable work
ing of Gods providence.
Even in England there is a strong
revolt against these horrible theories,
and the writings in which they are set
forth are being made the subject of
scathing and shrivelling criticism which
cannot be without powerful effect.
Part of this is the work of the modern
scientific spirit, which relentlessly seeks
for truth, and looks with deep, if quiet,
scorn upon any Investigator who allows
interest to warp veracity, or to set aside
or conceal even the most unwelcome
deductions from premises that all must
receive as unimpeachable. Another
part springs up from the warmth Of
Christian benevolence, which in the
light of revelation, can not make itself
believe that physical wretchedness and
mental darkness are the unacceptable
lot of nineteen-twentieths of the human
race forever. The two, together, are
working towards the light, and the
spread of the new truths in regard to
social evils, and their origin, is helped
by the very fears of those statesmen
who, in championship of privilege,
have been squatting upon social safety
valves until the tremor of boilers and
the upward thrust of steam have filled
them with black forebodings of a wrath
to come-perhaps with the suddenness
oflightning from the cloud-unless some
means can be speedily brought into
action for the redress of grievances so
grave and penetrating that those who
suffer them have lost all fear of what
their fellow-men can do to them, and
are ready and glad to die, for even a
chance of some better order of things
for their posterity.
These working men of Europe are
beginning to think, and thinking they
PROFOUND to one another the question
why they must toll and sweat, and suf-
fer and die, without hope in the world,
and with lessening hope in better
hereafter, while fifth part of the
youngest and most vigorous of the peo-
pie are kept in armed idleness to prop
up arbitrary governments in which the
people have no effective voice; while
the bread is taken from their children's
mouths to feed these great armies the
scanty garments from their backs that
these same armies may be clothed and
equipped, their cabins kept fireless all
winter that furnaces and FORCES may
glow to produce the infinitely costly ar
maments of war, not to protect the just
rights of any people, but to maintain
idle aristocracies and bureauocracies,
and to preserve the balance of power "
between the autocratic dynasties that
sit upon thrones which the experiences
of another and happier continent have
proved to be worthless and needless for
any good or honest purpose of govern
ment whatever.
America has taught the world this
lesson, which makes every privileged
person in Europe to tremble in his
shoes. And yet, all over America, the
vicious philosophy of human relation,
ships, upon which all these cruel abuses
are supported, has been adopted and is
promulgated, Notwithstanding the mani
fest fact that its acceptance mean:
nothing less than the reproduction here
of all that is abhorrent in European
governments.
Yet American love of liberty is no
dead, nor American common sense
clouded in this matter Though ex
cluded from all the leading organs
of so-called public opinion, though
frowned upon in the schools, ant
banned from prominent pulpits, a new
political economy is making itsel
known. 1t is as yet by no means {
perfected system, nor are its apostle,
agreed upon the details of its principles
but the purpose is strong to show tina