The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-02-24
DAWN OF IMPERIALISM.
Mr.. Lydeil Baker Gives an Audience
Something to Think About.


A large audience greeted Mr.. Lydell
Baker at the court house last evening to
listen to his lecture upon sJulius Cesar;
or the Rise and Fall of Imperialism in
Rome" He commenced promptly at 8
o'clock and concluded at five minutes
past 8 and the universal. verdict is
that it was sixty five minutes of enchant-
ment. After a brief Introduction by Nfr.
B. S. Huntington, in which that gentle
man stated that the lecture was origin
ally written to deliver before the students
of the state university, Mr.. Baker
promptly started in upon his theme,
without preface or directing attention to
himself for single instant. The lecture
can lay no claim to oratory, but only
that in clear cut sentences, with fault
less grammar, admirable selection of
words, delicacy of touch and scholarly
tone, the student can get clearer and
more mprehensive insight into Roman
history in the space of time allotted by
the speaker than in all the text books
ever written. Though Mr.. Baker but
rarely adapts the lessons to be learned
to contemporaneous times, the lecture
in its entirety points a moral from
which there is no escape, as prominent
and powerful as if it had been spoken.
Beginning with the history of the re-
public in the midst of its grandeur,
Immediately after the fall of Hannibal,
when it ruled the three known continents,
he followed it nearly to its close, or to the
dawn of Imperialism under Julius Cesar.
In this interval of time the nation had
been 30 racked and torn by internal dis
sensions, caused by jealousy of generals
and the conflict of classes. that when in
civil war Caesar won the city of Rome
against Pompey, it but wore the livery of
its former greatness and was a hollow
sepulchere. The earlier Romans held
patriotism, virtue and honor above
every other consideration, were masters
over their own passions, and were valor-
GUS. But vice crept insidiously and grad
sually into their habits with conquest
and riches so changed them that the
grandsons of the sires who would have
dismembered themselves upon the altar
of patriotism, lolled in luxurious ease
and we're carried about the city in per-
fumed couches by slaves. Sharper
lines were thus drawn between the aris-
tocracy and the plebeians, resulting in
an abuse of power and the gradual deg
radiation of the masses. At frequent
intervals generals rose up from both
sides, and fierce and bloody were the
conflicts between them, with varying
success. The conquerors could only
satisfy their vengeance and their lust
for blood by Staying thousands of the
conquered, and "the Tiber was choked
with human corpses." The nation was
weakened by its own excesses and
lost every vestige of its power and grand
eur. There were philosophers and
statesmen who foresaw these events,
but were Powerless to forestall them.
Mr.. Bakers lecture cannot but impress
one with thoughts of a like possible fate
to be paralleled two thousand years
later, and at least direct attention. to the
vices in America today, which can lead
in no direction but downward. We call
them small. Cigarettes, tobacco, opium
madening liquor misnamed whialy-is
there anything for US Americans to con-
slider? Perhaps those sturdy Americans
who fit in the Revolution would have
recoiled with. the same horror from
these s'petty'' vices that the Roman
patriot of Scipio's time would have re-