St. Paul daily globe., 1895-11-24
RIVER AT s 4. NJ.
LIFE OR PROPERTYs

Civilization begins when the right
of property becomes secure. Civili-
zation ends when the right of prop
erty becomes more sacred than hui
man life. Between these two ex-
tremes races and nations have risen
and fallen in the long march of his
torical event The wandering nomad
at one end of the scale, with his few
portable possessions and his wild,
rude life, is matched at the other
with the tottering splendor of. the
government in which wealth ac-
cumulates and men decay" The race
and the nation has never yet eX-
listed which made and kept the right
of property and also made and kept
more sacred the well-being of the
individual. Whether that is to be
achieved by any of the peoples who
now stand foremost in the world is
the question that the student of civ
ilization asks, and gets no certain
answer.
There is no question that both ma
terial progress and the arts and sci
ences depend for their advancement
on the existence of a settled state.
The first step out of barbarism is
the establishment of a system of eff
fective laws. These have regard to
the security of life, it is true, but
they soon center themselves more
particularly about the protection of
property rights. Nor can any state
of property. The accumulation of
wealth is a human desire so univer-
sal that it must be reckoned with.
Nor is that all. In the amassing of a
provision for the future lies the pos
sibility of present leisure. Abused
as that may be by the large num-
Der who know not how to use it
wisely, it affords the opportunity for
all that we call culture. AS wealth
increases, so there grows with it
that process of invention and dis
covery by which the conditions of
existence should be made easier. The
change from the tent to the house,
though it be of rudest construction,
is a step toward the higher life of
mind as well as body. 1t is the first
step of an infant civilization. There
fore we do we'll to stand by law and
order, and to hold the absolute Sc
curity of property rights as a part
Of the foundation on which any state
must be built if it is to endure.
1t is not as easily remembered or
as generally accepted that the next
step, and one just as essential to
permanence, is to place, in the same
system of law, the happiness and
well-being of the human unit far
above the sacredness of property. 1t
is here that the great nations of his
tory failed. Wealth brings power;
and no race Of men has yet proved
its ability to withstand that intoxi-
cation. The dynasties of the an
cient world fixed themselves firmly
by Offering TO harassed people rest
from incessant tumult. They ex-
changed disorder for order They
enabled thereby the people to earn
those multiplied fruits which are the
reward of human toll. Soon that be-
came the primary object of all effort.
The individual, the worker, grew to
be a thing of no account Unless
possessed of fortune or influence, he
became the mere newer of wood and
drawer of water. The sacredness Of
human life, by which we mean not
merely security against death by
violence, but all the greater things
that make life beautiful and give
play to the best in human nature.
was forgotten and denied. A british
aristocracy of wealth called into ex-
tstence british mass of workers,
drifting into worse condition than
that from which they had emerged,
And then, the handspring of prog
ress being broken, came dissolution
and chaos.
The law of the world is clearly the
evolution of the Individual What
ever nation and whatever system
disregards that law or deffes it shall
die. 1t is no more surely written in
the moral order that evil shall yield
to good than it is that the purpose
OF life is the building of character;