Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1888-06-30
THE WANING CENTURY.

THE WANING CENTURY.
A Retrospect and Forward Glance-The
World Revolutionized.
/ lAlbany JournaL]
Few realize that In less than thirteen
years we shall have entered upon new
century. Happy indeed has been the
lot of man who has lived in the closing
years of the nineteenth century. He
has witnessed the greatest achieve
. ments in science, if not in art and liter
allure, that the world has ever known.
He has seen nation of free people
celebrate the first centennial of q great
republic. He has seen the develop
ment and application of electricity al
most to magical uses. He has seen an
uplifting of mankind in every sphere of
life. Superstition has faded away as
science has advanced Religion has
spread its white wings over earth and
sea and the spirit of militancy has given
way everywhere before the pacific ten
denotes of modern society.
What would have been deemed i'm
possible fifty years ago is to-day COM
monplace and at most necessity, The
telegraph and telephone, the electric
light, the various applications of light
and heat are specimens of the develop
ment of science to the utilitarian and
useful 1t has been we'll said that tour
era marks one of the great epoch of
humanity. It has been fateful fifty
years. If not pre-eminent in art it has
been in science, if not in song in phil
anthropy, if not in philosophy in phys
les. It has produced no Phidias, no
Virgil, no Raphael, no Shakespeare, it
has produced Stephenson, Daguerre,
Morse, an Ericsson, an Edison in
science Cavour, Bismarck in prac-
teal politics; Lincoln, a Gladstone
and Victor Hugo, among political
seers; Dorothy Dix, Clara Barton
and Lucretia Mott. All these have
been representative men and women,
not separated from their fellows like
mountain peaks from plain and valley,
but rather raised on grateful shoulders
because they have been the servants of
all men,"
Men of science who live to-day have
almost created new world. To go
back fifty years is to go back to the
slow process of thought and labor, that
in this rushing time seem incompara-
bly, tedious and slow. The last half
century has witnessed the greatest Of
American inventions-the mower and
reaper, the rotary printing press, the
sewing machine, the India rubber
industry, the horseshoe machine, the
sand blast for carving, the grain ele.
vator, the gauge. lathe, the telephone.
electric magnet. Strip the world of
these to-day and how greatly progress
would be retarded! No nation that
ever lived has been so conservative of
physical forces or done so much for
mankind as the people of the United
States during the brief existence of the
new Republic, As an offshoot of the
only race that has ever been destruc-
tive, the Anglo-Saxon, the American
people have solved the question of self |
government and justified the apothegm
of Sydney Smith that humanity is a |
modern invention.
We live in a different world from
that of our fathers. No other race has |
ever known its like. It has witnessed
transformations SURPRISING the great |
est miracles. It has seen cities spring |
up on the prairies and become magnifi-
cent centers of business and popula- |
ton in less than a score of years. It |
has seen one of the greatest cities of |
the world, the rival of the oldest and
grandest centers of foreign wealth, rise |
in its might at the ocean gateway of |
the Empire State.
What will the twentieth century see?
Will its restless people be satisfied with
present means of communication and of |
Will electricity, with |
development, continue to
unfold its weird resources and afford |
the vital energy. that shall Danish time |
and long distance almost altogether? |
Will nations learn to leave the arts of |
war to the past and submit to the arbi-
trament of peace? Will the cry of hui
man liberty ring around the world
without once reaching the ear of
slave? Will the divine dispensation be |
sufficient to bring unity to the Chris
tian churches? Will poverty be BAN
ished, ignorance and superstition give |
way to the march of civilization and |
Christianity, and will the millennium |
dawn?
Whatever may be the future. mans
position. to-day is truly one of unparal-
leled grandeur. The night that ushers
in the new year of 1901 will witness the
most magnificent celebration of mod
ern times. The whole world will unite |
in welcoming the new year and birth of
the twentieth century.
An Enigma to Astronomers.
The rings of Saturn have always