Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1889-03-29

Within the last twenty years the build
ing of traEscontlnental railroads and the
opening up of the great west have thrown
open America to the would in a sense IN
Known to our fathers. Unfortunately the
gamblers splendid chance mas gone even
paced with the industrious mans oppor-
tunity. Almost every civilized race is
building ships and crowding them with
frantic eagerDess to accept our open
handed Invi alton. The wild scramble in
the west to get possession of everything
worth having has reacted upon and dis
turbed the east. No such demoralizing
test has ever been Tut in force against
any people. In Europe, business lie,
commerce, the deyeio oment of land are
governed by laws almost as exact as those
of the army. Social and political Europe
Is illustrated in the German estate for
ests," where the tlees are all aligned, and
none is ever cut down without apOthtr
being at once planted. clever English
or German boy when he enters a count
ing room eau tell with almost mathemat-
ical exactness what his income and stand
ing will be in twenty years. All other
pursuits are equally exact. Life RUS in
we'll settled grooves. Few alter their
place of res dence; public opinion is
feared; there is leisure to apply the laws.
Each life revolves along Its expected
orbit, and is exposed to Indignant criti-
cism If it interferes by cratic move
ments with the deiicately balanced end
complicated whole. All this tends to
moral order, the restraint of tenn ptation,
the repression of furious ambition or ex
cess. But with Us at present it is all
moving day" We have been Temporal
riI. f,f, L NJ
bosom1ng her bounty on the west, and
Europe unlading her ignorance and vice,
as we'll as her intelligence and virtue, on
the east. Medea is seen dismembering
her victims and casting them INTO the
caldron. What will emerge? We are ex-
pected to clarity a turbid stream of brute
labor, very much as a "cellarer" shoots
the sediment from each bottle into space,
and lnJeots the rock candy which turns it
later into sparkling champagne. But III
the process the whole economy of Ameri-
can home life is disturbed. A million
lotteries of railroad building wheat
growing, silver mining, cattle raising,
ana settling, with all their attendant liz
dustries and vices, and the countless mi
nor speculations which each encourages.
are calling men from settled paths to
'"AS 'hNiA Sh-'ASSS. aIhIoSt every one
thinks he could easily do better than he
is doing, we're he only in the right place.
Even in our oldest cities half the popula
ton Is on the move. Thus public opin-
ion loses its restraining touch. Men who
have offended it leave their native towns,
and no not dread it elsewhere. The law
has to assert itself among, and often
against, the pref udiues, hostility, and Ig-
nOrance brOuyh hi Il
ent localities. There is danger lest there
be no strong, homog eneous, patriotic, or
religious condemn alton of anything.
Chance and movement reign supreme,
because any good fortune is possible if
one Is only alert aud on the way TO
meet it.
1t seen :, then, a matter for surprise
and gratitude that in this era of tremen-
dous material development and uuexam-
pied migration there should be such q
vast amount of public and private virtue,
and even of exalted religious faith and
life, as one sees In this country. Nor is
strange that the railroads, the manufac-
lures, and the mines, offering such nU-
nlhcent rewards as they do to Intelligent
and gifted young men, should absorb tai
ents which under other circumstances
would edorn the church. Another gene
rct!on V II witness great change in the
Influences and habits which mould Amer
lcs. The land will all have been taken
up, the chances for sudden fortunes les
sened, the immigration shrunken to q
thread like stream" the population be-
come tolerabiy homogeneous, the chan
nels of trade marked and bounded, the
ways of men touched by the Christening
and calming hand of holy ancestral
faith unfelt in the wild i'm patience of hot
youth.-Archdeacon Mackay Smith, in
Harper's Magazine for January.
Orr Defective Jury System.
St. Louis Globe Democrat
The American jury system is again
and again before the great jury of the
American people and it is pronounced
invariably the chief humbug connected
with our institutions. The latest illus
tratiou of the case Is in the trial of ex-
Alderman Cleary, the New York boodler.
Every intelligent man in New York City
has not only full knowledge Of the crime,
bet has formed pronounced opinions on
the same The result il, the jury must
be called from class OF inferior or dis
honest mea. II is quite enough that a
juror can swear that he will undertake
to allow the testimony, and decide accord