The record-union., 1896-08-30
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
BY MEMO.
(Copyrighted)

meHlS OF q DuSy career. anu dedicated TO
better understanding of life and its
varied opportunities
There came to my hands during the
Gates. A prolonged inspection of this
beautiful specimen of engraving re-
suited in some considerations that may
not be lacking in value for the young
men who read this paper.
The boy in the engraving, around
whom History tenderly lays her arm,
has ceased from his play. So have you;
your days of inconsequent amusement
are at an end and the problems of life
begin to press upon you. You are now
beckoned onward from irresponsible
childhood toward responsible manhood.
Before the interested eyes of the 1.-THE
youngster panorama of the distant
city of Washington, with its cloud
piercing monument, is stretched out.
For you there is even wider vista, the
broad mileage of a vast continent chal-
lenging conquest, and urging you
through its myriad opportunities to be
something and to do something.
Behind, above and in front of him are
placed the enwreathed names of those
of our countrymen who, in spite of diff
Guilty and strain, have earned by toll
and absolute concentration of purpose
a lasting niche in our Temple of Fame
These same glorious deed-Workers in
every field are for your inspiration too,
from Longfellow the poet, to Emerson,
the philosopher, with all the interven-
ing names of warriors, writer's, invent
ors, statesmen and patriots.
Note further that he is being turned
from amusement to ambition, from play
to repose from Indifference to intensity
by-whom? A woman. Whether the
same grand ennobling influence is by
your side, / know not. If so, then is it
well but more of this anon.
/ feel; know that the droWsy eyes of
some indolent ones will scan these lines
Let me blow trumpet blast into their
sleeping ears. so that the deadened eyes
may light up, even if that light be but
the CLEAN of malevolence toward unat-
tractive truth l would a hundredfold
| rather talk with man who had life
enough to grow angry than with an un-
responsive corpse-like creature that
raised neither the voice of protest nor of
| acquiescence. To the lazy and worthless
one, then, would 1 talk awhile. To you
1 say: The cattle that lie ruminant in
| your barn are better after their kind
| than the young corner loafers of our
| villages and towns and cities. The for
mer have no archives to thrill their
| hearts, no past treasury of noble deeds
to help in the present, no prescience of
the end to which time is leading them;
the latter have all of these, and yet to
listen to the idle talk of many group
| of young men, one might almost doubt
the existence of a history of our race,
| the records of glorious men and women,
| of religion, truth, goodness. purity of
women, and all the things that ought to
set a gulf between us and the patient,
| misunderstanding, duty doing, hopeless
! animals. If a passing girl is discussed,
| the remarks are too often interlarded
with lewd jests which instead of humil-
iating every mothers son, raises that
peculiar hyena laugh, that laugh with
out honest mirth in it-you know the
| laugh, so do l. In such a gang, good
ness in a man is sneered at as hypoc-
risy; truth is labeled as a lie; religion
| is dubbed buffoonery; greatness not
count than the pedigree of pig.
| Are you tied in with such group you
in whom there is the strength and vigor
of youth, you in whom lurk portentous
| powers over the destinies of our race
For the sake of all that makes us the
| head of creation, rub your eyes open,
and let into your brain some faint idea
of the glory of being human creature.
If you can find nothing better to do than
you are now doing, you are a sheep in
your vacuity and tumble bug in your
| tastes.
| What sort of a country would you
have for the exercise of your intermin-
able lack of purpose, if all who pre-
coded you had been content to kick
their heels on empty boxes, to snarl
and squabble over the trlfling things
| that exhaust the knowledge of your
! gang, and to stop the emittings of to-
bacco juice just long enough to permit
| the passage of an equally dirty joke or
story? Where would now be the sub
jugation of a continent by our restless
cosmopolitan Nation? If echo could
repeat the first word of the question
| u,
| 'Where?" Great nations are not built
| of such as you, neither are they sus-
| tained. You are worse than useless:
you are positive detrElent to us. A ma
tion is not like a monument of enduring
stone. 1t is a living thing made up of
| living things. By them it rises to dig
nifty, by them again it is enfeebled and
| torn to pieces. just as in your body.
health is maintained by moving parti-
cles that attack and destroy the evil,
multiplying creatures of disease. OF
are themselves destroyed and your own
death follows Historians in the past
twenty-five years have grown to an un-
derstanding that it is the daily lives
and thoughts of the great common peo-
pie that make history far more effec-
tually than the master strokes of an oc-
casional military hero. You, then, you
| in all your meanness, are a history
maker. Because of your narrowed and
low life, the unwilling contribution YOU
are making to our national history
must also be narrow and low. Oh, fol
the power to reach right into your
heart and stir you from your sloth and
your Indifference.
Next week / will ask you to follow
me further I will tell you of your
power and your opportunities Then
will follow some thoughts regarding the
great ones who have preceded us. And
finally, if this pen may be dipped in
might and in eloquence. the last article
| will attempt to describe the power OF
noble woman in energizing us for good
Thus possibly the new design on our
| silver certificate NAV come to mean