The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1890-08-01
How Our Civilization May Decline.

huhu, NiiCu HluSt FeSutI lFOlN Lne ufle-
quail distribution of wealth, is not q thing
of the far future. IL has already be-
gam iR the United States, and is rap
idly going on under our eyes. That our
Legislative bodies are steadily deterior-
ating that men Of the highest ability
and character are compelled to avoid
politics; that voting is done more reck-
lessly, and the power of money is in
creasing; that it is harder to arouse the
people to the necessity of reforms, and
more difficult to carry them out; that
parties are passing into the control Of
oligarchies and relationships; are all evi-
dences of political decline.
There is no mistaking 1.-THE foun-
dations Of society are being sapped be-
fore our eyes, and there are indications
that we are actually turning back again
towards barbarism. Let me illustrate:
One Characteristic of barbarism is a low
regard for the rights person and prop
erty. Now it is a matter of fact that,
in spite Of our laws, any one who has
money enough, and wants to kill an
other, may 20 into any of our great CEN
tres Of population and crafty his desire,
and then surrender himself to Justice,
with the chances as hundred to one
that he will suffer no greater penalty
than a temporary Imprisonment and the
loss Of sum prOpOrtioned partly to his
own wealth and partly to the wealth of
the man he kills. His money will be
paid, not to the family of his victim (;
not to the state but to lawyers who
understand how to secure delays,to find
witnesses and get juries to disagree.
And so, If a man steal enough, he
may be sure that his punishment will
practically amount but to the loss Of
part Of the proceeds of his theft; and
if he steal enough to get off with for
tune, he will be greeted by his acquain-
tance as a viking might have been
greeted after a successful cruise.
All this is matter of common obser- |
vatiOn. Though We may not speak it
openly, the general faith in republican
institutions is narrowing and weaken
ing. And the people at large are be-
coming used to the growing corruption.
The most Ominous political sign in
the United States to-day is the growth
Of sentiment which either doubts the
existence of an honest man in public Of
bee or looks on him as a fool for not
seizing his opportunities. That is to
say,the people themselves are becoming
corrupted.
As corruption becomes chronic; as
public spirit is lost; as traditions of
lonor, virtue, and patriotism are weak
ned; as law is brought into contempt
md reforms become hopeless; then in
he fostering mass will be generated
Tolcanic forces, which shatter and rend
shen seeming accident gives them vent. ,
Strong, unscrupulous men will rise up
md become the expOnents Of blind pop i
liar desires or fierce popular passions,
md dash aside forms that have lost |
heir vitality. The sword will again be |
nightier than the pen, and in caInivals .
f destruction brute force and wild fren- I
y will alternate with the lethergy of {
Ieclining civilization. II
Whence shall come the new barbara
ms? Go through the squalid quarters /
( great cities, and You may see, even {
IOw, their gathering hordesl Inven- a
ion has given us not merely the steam /
ngine and the printing-press, but pc a
roleum, nitro-glycerine and dynamite. c
To hint that our civilization may pos +
IDLY be tending to decline seems like I
he wildness of pessimism. But as sure d
s the turning tide must soon run full d
bb; as sure as the declining sun must a
ring darkness, so sure isit,t that though c
yet increases and invention N
larches on; though new states are be- s.
lg settled, and cities still expand, yet "
Ivilization has begun to wane when, in d
roportion to population, We must build n
lore and more prisons, more and more RI
more and more insane asy-
inns. 1t is not from top to bottom that 81
,cieties die; it is from bottom to top. 81
But there are evidences far more PAL le
lble than any that can be given by CT
atistics, OF tendencies to the ebb of
vilization. There is vague but gen. Il
al feeling Of disappointment: an in OF
eased bitterness among the working W
asses; a widespread feeling of unrest ra
I'd brooding revolution. The phiIosoph- n,
thinker can not look upon that vast d;
lange in religious ideas that is now OF
weeping over the civilized world, with Tn
It feeling that this tremendous fact pr
ay have momentous relations, which bf
Ily the future can develop. For what Iii
going ON is not a change in the form CT
religion, but the negation and des- ga
uction of the ideas from which religion M
rings. Christianity is not simply br
caring itself of superstitions, but In an
c popular mind it is dying attheroot, IA
the old paganisms were dying when
entered the world. And
thing arises to take its place. -
Such stages of thought have here a.
fore always marked periods of transit co
N. What change may come, no NOR af
man can tell, but that some great pc
ange must come, thoughtful men be- all
n to feel. The civilized world is trem- ha
ng on the verge of a great movement. 70
ther it must be a leap upward, which -
II open the way TO advances yet UNI :"
canned of,or 1t must be aplunge down. ou