The herald., 1896-03-30

stone Columbian painting OF 'Iho
Gamblers Wife"
The population Of the world is pro-
duced and reproduced on the industrial
plane of the primary pursuits. The tenn
perature and condition of that level are
favorable to the man products as we'll as
to the products of the earth. The family
is firmly established Oh this level. The
child host is born here, nurtured here by
natural mothers, invigorated and per-
fected here for whatever enterprise there
is in the world. Herefrom e1nanate the
human forces that pervade the whole in
dustrial sphere and control it.
| With the very first advance from the
primary industries of mankind the
family begins to weaken and population
to wane. The rate Of reproduction be-
gins to fall off. The offspring is reduced
III number at every stage, and is general
ly weakened with the progress. The
child nest is remanded to the care Of q
Scandinavian servant. The newborn life
becomes precarious and struggling. 1t
survives only in sections. The large
flock, vigorous and ruddy, dwindles to
small flock attentuated and pale. The
normal brain, sufficient for the task i'm
posed upon it and correlated with bodily
strength and temperate action, becomes
, hydrocephalic fungus, capable of prodi-
/ gies in mental arithmetic, music and
artistic caprice, but otherwise superheat-
! ed and overtopping an incapable body.
In the higher industrial circles chill
dren are reduced to a minimum, and in
@l,Db b;f,l,
degree of industrial and commercial
heat, already attained in some pursuits,
! the child becomes impossible! One cam
not we'll see how the wheat pit could re-
produce! In the sublimer forms of gam
bling the combustion Of nerve and brain
! is correlated with the extinction of vir-
tue, and the child could only come by
remote accident or some small survival
of uncorrupted manhood.
1t would seem for these reasons that
the preservation Of all things in America
depends upon the maintenance and well
fare of the primary industries 1t is
amazing that in so plain a matter the
whole drift of the public life should
have been away from the region which
supports it and makes it possible 1t is
not only the industrial world that rests
on the agricultural life and the simpler
industries that are Immediately associ-
, ated with it. The great Ct called the
People, without which 1 suppose the Ma
ton would be nothing, is born out of
the bosom Of nature. Unless nature, the
mother of men, be supported and honor
ed, wo shall all likewise perish. The
vast volume Of American life proceeds
from the earth. 1t could not arise from
any other fountain. 1t grows only where
the grass grows, and the flowers 1t does
not spring from marts and wharfs and
bourses and trade centers and interna-
tional ommerce--though all these are
essential parts of civilization. 1t does
bubble up from the cool and uncorrupted
springs of the country life, simple in its
methods normal in its desires and tenn
perature, fecund in its powers.
The country whose legislation does
not recognize this fact, the art and lit
erature that do not recognize it, the So
cial and industrial system that does not
and will not recognize it, are all alike
doomed to be blasted and blown away
The public press which devotes itself
merely to municipality and capital and
patronizes the mighty people upon
whose strength it feeds is providing for
its own destruction. The statesman who
thinks Of nothing but banking systems
and coast defenses, of nothing but river
appropriations and reapportionments, is
fool. The orator who finds nothing to
extol in that great and sweet smelling
field Of wholesome endeavor in which
moro than 20 per cent formerly 65 per
cent) Of the American people are still
engaged, but who takes for his theme
the triumphs Of invention or the abuses
of the custom honse, is another fool,
who fills himself with the east wind and
utters merely articulate noise. The
economist who is all the time thinking
and talking of the ownership of water
works by cities, the control Of railways
and the benefits Of the weather service
is like the other two in folly.
So long as the industrial world rests
firmly on the primary pursuits, so long
as the primary industries abound, SO
long as population issues in great
streams from the wholesome springs of
the natural life that fourishes i'll the
countryside, and so long as the social
and the civil life are accordant with this
fundamental scheme, we shall flourish.
When these conditions no longer exist,
we shall not only cease to flourish, but
cease to be. Already the draft on the
original industries and On the great life
by which they are supported has become
SO great that those industries and the
people who ply them are strained to
the last measure of their strength. Spec
ulation, vulturelike, circles over them,
alighting here and there to devour and
waste. A tampered currency transfers
the profits Of labor to the bank account
of the shark, and the gambling vampire
hides in every wheat shock from the
Red River of the North to the French
Broad. Devastation can proceed no fur
ther.
Now, messieurs the legislators, you
publicists, you reformers. you thinkers,
yen politicians, you millionaires, you
preachers, you managers Of society, you
rulers of the state, what are you going
to do about it? You will do one of two
things-either stop or go to the wall.