The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-07-04

Mechanical genius has burst the bonds
by which it had so long been confined,
clamor of newly invented forms. The
gnOmes of labor crowned mountain and
cavern, land and sea in resistless, sooty
multitudes. The night is as the day.
The iron horse flashes through the
land, needless of storm and darkness.
The age of wonders has come. The
mountains are levelled with the plain
in search of the golden grains they
hide. Primeval rocks are crushed into
dust for the sake of the snowy drops
that nestle in their veins. Elec-
tricity lights our streets, our work
shops and even our prison cells.
Education is within the reach of every
man, woman and child. Humane laws
have taken the place of the cruelties of
the past. Sanitory measures and clean
illness are enforced, and reformation
more than punishment is now sought
for the prison inmates. The uttermost
parts of the earth have become as next
door neighbors. Thoughts outspeed
the sunshine, and the silent message
flies faster than the storm it proclaims.
Moments do the work of years, and
the lightning mocks at the laggard
spheres. The great marts of the earth
have become as one. The earth has
become radiant throughout it's whole
extent, each point touching at once
the center and circumference. Nearly
all this great work, the utilization of
steam. electricity, the locomotive, the
steamship, the telegraph, the postal
system etc., are the result of the
inventive genius, energy and wise laws
of the Anglo-Saxon nations.
England and the United States have
been at peace with each other for the
last eighty years, and today the British
Empire is our best customer, taking
nearly fve-eights of our exportable
products. Last year out of our total
exports 1868, ,2O4, ,937, she took $5O8, 1885,
1926 worth. The two countries have
marched together in the van of the
worlds progression in harmony and
peace God grant that they may long
continue to do so. Some spirits have
of late tried to foment dissension be-
tween the two nations, yet trust that
the better sense of the people will pre-
vail to continue the peace unbroken.
England is not decaying, her power
is not on the wane, she still rules the
seas. The lion may be sleeping as in
1882, when Ouida wrote the following
epic:
| "Great England put her arms by,
And stretched her stately limbs to slumber in
The nations seeing then how long she slept
COmmuned together, and in whispers said,
Lo! she is old and tired; let us steal the crown
From off her brow, she will not know
And GOneril and Ryan over seas
MOcking her cried, her time is past, her blood IS
And her rusted sword from out her scabbard
She will draw no more.
And so thus jbng they threw with cruel hand,
The seeds of discOrd and of hatred amidst her
:, sons.
But from the East there came blast too loud,
AS from the West there came taunt too much,
And she awaking raised her head
J And saw around her all her faithless friends
And all her children eering her and crying:
She is old. and meeting out her lands
And parceling her honor.
Then swift as lightning haSheS from yOnder
, clouds,
Her glance of scOrn fell on them.
: And they crouched like wolves, that were over
mastered
England stretches out her hand and touched the
| North,
England arose, and spake and calmly said;
Nay am Mistress STILL"
A war between these two nations,
would be a war of giants and could
only end in ruin and obstruction in
conceivable to both nations. But let
us trust that the two flags of red,
white and blue, the stars and stripes
of the United States, and st. Georges
Cross of England, may ever float side
; by side in the vanguard of the worlds
progress toward higher civilization,
peace, and the well-being of nations,
1 and that universal brotherhood taught
by the Constitution of the United States.
: H.