Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1892-02-19
How Modern Civilization May Decline,
BY HENRY GEORGE.

BY HENRY GEOKtE.
Thoughtful men are beginning to see its
dangers, without seeing how to escape
them; are beginning to accept the view
of Macaulay and distrust that of Jeffer-
son, 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 exis-
tence of an honest man in public office
or look on him as fool for not seizing
his opportunities. That is to say, the
people themselves are becoming corrupt
ed. Thus in the United States to-day is
republican government running the
course it must inevitably follow under
conditions which cause the unequal dis
trlbution Of wealth.
Where that course leads is clear to
whoever will think. AS corruption be-
comes chronic; as public spirit is lost;
as traditions of honor, virtue, and pat
riotism are weakened; as law is brought
into contempt and reforms become hope
less: then in the fostering mass will be
generated volcanic forces, which shatter
and rend them, seeming accident gives
them vent. Strong, unscruDulous men,
rising up upon occasion, will become the
exponents of blind popular desires or
fierce popular passions, and dash aside
forms that have lost their vitality. The
sword will again be mightier than the
pen, and in carnivals of destruction brute
force and wild frenzy will alternate with
the lethargy of a declining civilization
speak Of the United States only be.
cause the United States is the most ad'
vanced of all the great nations. What
shall we say of Europe, where dams OF
ancient law and custom pen up the
swelling waters and standing armies
weigh down the safety valves, though
year by year the fires grow hotter under
meath? Europe tends to republicanism
under conditions that will not admit o1
true republicanism-under condition.
that substitute for the calm and august
figure of Liberty the petroleuse and thu
guillotine!
Whence shall come the new barbara
ans? Go through the squalid quarter
of great cities, and you may see, ever
now, their gathering hordes How shal
learning perish? Men will cease to read
and books will kindle fires and be turned
into cartridges!
1t is startling to think how slight tn
traces that would be left of our civiliza
tions, did it pass through the throe
which have accompanied the decline o
every previous civilization. Paper will
not last like parchment, nor are our mos
massive buildings and monuments to b
compared in soidity with the rock-hewl
temples and titanic edif1ces of the oil
civilizations. And invention has give
US, not merely the steam engine and tn
printing press, but petroleum., nitro
glycerine, and dynamite.
Yet to hint, to-day, that our civiliza
tion may possibly be tending to decline
seems like the wildness Of pessimism
The special tendencies to which hav
alluded are obvious to thinging men
but with the majority of thinking men
~ with the great masses. the belief il
substantial progress is yet deep an
strong-a Fundamental belief whic
admits not the shadow of doubt.
But any one who will think over tn
matter will see that this must necessaril
be the case where advance gradual
passes into retrogression. For in socia
development, rs in everything else, me
tlon tends to persist in straight lines, an
therefore, where there has been prt
vious advance, it is extremely Difficult
| to recognize decline. even when it ha
fully commenced; there is an almost il
resistble tendency to believe that tn
| forward movement which has bee
advance, and is still going on, is sti
going on, is still advance. The web c
beliefs, customs, laws, institutions, an
habits Of thought, which each com mt
nifty is constantly spinning, and whic
produces in the individual environed b
it all the differences of national charas
ter. is never unraveled. That is to say
in the decline of civilization, commun
ties do not go down by the same path
that they came up. For instance. tn
decline of civilization as manifested i
government would not take us back frol
republicanism to constitutional MOI
archy, and thence to the feudal system
it would take us to imperatorship an
anarchy. AS manifested in religion,
would not take us back into the faiths c
our forerathers, into Professionalism c
Catholicity, but into new forms of SUI
erstition. Of which possibly Mormonisr
and other even crosses ''isms'' may Civ
some vague idea. as manifested. i
| knowledge, it would not take US ,owar
| Bacon, but toward the liter;.ti OF China
And the retrogression Of civilization
following a period Of advance, may b
| so gradual as to attract no attention g