The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-26

The late Captain Renton was fine type
of what might be called, for lack of a bet
ter definition, outdoor talent; the talent
that is exhibited in daring and doing,
rather than dreaming over what has been
done. This kind of talent, when highly
developed uprightly, energetically. wisely
and pertinaciously applied, makes the
great navigator, who links by discovery
and exploration. hitherto unknown seas
70 the commercial waters Of the world; or
makes the great pioneer who news out
o new civilization from the heart
of the virgin forest and literally
POUNDS a state, not with the sword of a
warrior, but with the axe of a woodman.
Captain Renton, like all men of his type,
whether they help to whiten the sea with
the sails of commerce or wrestle with the
ruggedness of an unbroken and un-
redeemed wilderness, was country born
and bred. He came of the splendid sea-
faring stock of the North Atlantic coast,
whose reputation for extraordinary cour-
age, strength and indomitable resolution
is known and honorably recognized in
every seaport from Halifax to Calcutta;
from Buenos Ayres to Boring sea. This
seafaring stock has given its name to splen-
did children that never followed the sea,
for OF this stock came Nathaniel Haw-
thorne, and Secretary Folger, of President
Arthur's cabinet.
Such men as Captain Renton we have
said are invariably country born and bred.
The early habits and influences of city
life ara not favorable to the assertion Of
independence and individuality of char
acter, or to the practice of indomitable in
dustry and unwearied economy. The city
intellect loses robust vigor in the whirl of
social life; the opportunities tor refined
pleasures are always present; the tempta-
tions to luxurious habits of self-indulg-
enee are numerous; the pressure to make
a worker a machine rather than q man is
immense and intense. Rarely does a clty
born or bred man become o leader In any
walk O: useful and elevated outdoor talent.
Ninety per cent. of the great railroad
men of the country, from presidents and
general managers down to heads of
departments and bureaus, are coun-
try born and bred. The city train
ing stands for the extinction of
individuality; the stunting and sup
preston of versatility; the emasculation
of rugged. boisterous virility of mind and
body. During the war New York and
Brooklyn, with united population of
100000, never sent man to war that
rose to signal distinction compared with
country communities of equal population.
The city bred man has courage; he has
plenty of indoor brains and talent, but he
is cynical, Indifferent, languid and nom
enthusiastic compared with the country
bred man.
From the foundation of the government
to the present time the men who have
ruled America in the world of inspiring
ideas and the world of innoyating revolu-
tionary action that makes for national
progress have nearly all been farm born and
bred. Mental and moral virility, vivacity,
intense and energetic individuality, if they
do not dwindle and die in the cities, are
very seldom born there. Men become ma
chimes, not leaders, organizers, executives,
and ii takes an infusion of the ruddv drop
of manly blood that flows perennially in
the veins of the ambitious and aspiring
countryman to MAKE the life of great
city something more vital and attractive
than the spectacle of great machine, an
sutomaton, whose breath is steam, whose
heart is force pump and whose soul is
electricity. Nothing in system, nothing
In machinery, nothing in the harnessed
powers of earth, air, sea or sky can supply
the function of soul to a civilization, and
that is why the training and at
mosphere and experience of great
cities do not produce SO MANY
men of outdoor talent for daring
and doing substantial things as the
country, where natures kindliness has
not been exhausted and conquered by sur
rounding cynicism; where natures nobil-
ity are suffered 10 become men before thew
are brutality bent and forced TO become ma.
chimes, or rather one of the cogs on a mill
ION merciless wheels. If this argument be
sound, then was Captain Renton fortunate
In coming from seafaring stock; in birth
under hard circumstances which were the
best cradle for the future pioneer and
founder of the great lumber industry OF
the Sound.
or the vast value of men Of constitu-
tonally robust outdoor talent TO new
country there can be but one opinion
among thoughtful minds. Such men are
like breeze sweeping over . calm sea
the sail of every vessel, large and small,
catches something of its breath and mo-
ton. The working world prizes grea,
poet or painter, and yet the working world
could better spare all its pure artists than
Il could one of its great workers. We
could better spare Hawthorne, Emerson,
Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell and Whittier
than we could Washington, Franklin,
Hamilton, Lincoln, and Greeley. Theo-
dore Parker wrote home from Rome 10 his
Boston congregation that Ire thought the
industrial art and energy that creates CON-
Portable and cheap dwellings for the de.
cent and hard-working poor. drains cities
cleans streets, keeps water pure, food sweet
heals the sick, stamps out disease. restores
the lame, enlsrges the domain Of the