The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1888-10-12
dbe Lebanop Express.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER Il, 1855.
Fri l.EL AND 10 t1cA \.


a niuch-traveled man is seldom
bigot in religion, morals, social life or
politics; for no man of brains can see
many lands and cities without ceasing
10 be clannish. parsimonious in his
views, or narrow in matters of Chris
tian civilization. The hernit's life is
neither good for the individual nor col
lectively fer a people. A man of large
travel is apt to be man Of large views.
Isolation is nen-progressive, and seclu-
sion means no progress, knowledge
increases Is man runs to and fro in
the world, . and our best educated men
and women are those who travel with
ears and eyes open and who study ma
ture in the lieht of revelation.
II China would accept Christian
ity, adopt the material comforts Of
a Christian civilization in shape of
dress, the application of the arts and
sciences to agriculture, to transporta-
tion and TO oinslustriaI machinery, what
apeople would her stagnant, sleepy mil
lions become. India, not deficient in
.acuteness of intellect, suffers because
her religion and limited railroad and
steamboat transportation keeps her yet
largely a hermit civilization If India
had such a web Of railroads, covered
with swarm of industrial spiders
moving in all directions, as we find in
New York and Massachusetts,; if In
dia's rivers We're covered with such a
fleet of light draught but powerful
steamers as plough the Columbia. the
Willamette and Puget sound, what a
country India would become BY
another century! Look at Russia, once
the hermit nation of Europe, how rap
Idly she has grown to be one of the
great powers since Peter the Great had
the genius TO see that the Chinese pol
icy of exclusion was fatal TO national
growth, and had the courage to aban-
don it.
Bitterness of section and strife OF
party grows less and less the more we
mix and mingle with each other.
Southern mon who have never trav-
eled North, who have seen nothing oi
s'tiown east Yankee ways, are narrow
and parsimonious in their conception
of the true genius and advanced eivi-
lization of the North; and Northern
men and women who have never
mixed and mingled with the chiv:sIry
of the South, who have never shared
their warm hospitality or grasped the
warm hand of friendship, know moth
ing of their noble and generous nature.
Bitterness and estrangement is fast
giving away as travel brings men more
and more face to face. The broades;
and most benevolent minds among the
fFamers Of our constitution were the
Travelled Statesmen, Franklin, Jefferson
and Adams. Hamilton may seem an
exception, but he was bred, though
not born in New York City, and as d
member of Washington's staff, associ
ated with cultivated and distinguished
foreigners, and was as much of a COS
mepolitan in mind, tastes and training
as it was then possible to be without
foreign travel and considerable resi-.
denee abroad.
In the middle ages none but the ricl
could afford to travel; the yeonanry
never Travelled, save when they went
TO war or followed the sea, and TO this
absence of quick and cheap transporta.
ton was due the narrowness, bigotry,
Ignorance, stolidity and sIuggishness
of the common people. The yeomanry
seldom moved cut of their native coun.
try seldom saw great city; seldom
saw any civilization save their own
Books were few; there was neithtl
cheap books nor cheap transportation
The railroads in their wide circle ii
quick travel collect large variety q
articles that stand for those thin: 5
that come home ito the business al d
iosomss of men, and through the. {
modern opportunities for education ~
observation and attrition the country
man is-cured of his provinciaIism and
becomes cosmopolitan in thought and
knowledge; and tie hermitic civiliza
fion vanishes at the sound of the steam
whistle.
Oregon has more of the dregs of wal
bitterness, perhaps, than almost any
state in the Union. This is neither fol
want OF intelligence or a spirit of Chris
tian forgiveness. She has had less com
HauHion and contact with the outside
world, and less to do with the realities
There is more talk about the war here
three thousand miles from the scenes
Of strife, and one quarter of century
after the smoke Of battle has dice
away, than along the Potomac to-day
on either side. Let US hope, as tn,
moss wears of and the webs grow less
by railroads and travel, we shall heal
less of war and more of peape and goot
will.