Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-06-01

JOSH BILLINGS FAMILY TREE,
of the sturdy yeomanry of modern
New England consists of better men
and women than those who came over
in the Mayflower. This is not said in
disparagement of the Mayfower peo-
pie. They were good in their day and
generation But the world is growing
more intelligent, and better every way.
OF the Mayflower people it may be said
as it is said of Samson. That terrible
fellow was n butcher of thousands, and
fell because of his association with an
evil woman. But he was the best man
Of his age, and was trying to serve God
according to his limited light Nobody
wants to trace ancestry to Samson.
Why should anyone want to trace an
cestry to the witch burners?
1T seems that when men and women
accumulate wealth and do not have to
earn their daily bread, they assume yir-
tues which they do not possess. Then
they fall victims to the delusons which
bring in their train desire to demun-
strate superior ancestry. Jay Gould
was never such u fool lie was too
busy. Cornelius Vanderbilt never had
time to make a family tree. Abraham
Lincoln never sought TO establish line-
age of lordlings. He was too big a
man to look for bigger in the former
hlncoins. The search of ancestry is
usually carried on by small people, who
thereby acknowledge their own insig-
nificance by seeking a superior an
cestry.
Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Alex
ander, Caesar, Napoleon, Wolsey, Crom-
well, Washington-thosem men sought no
ancestral strength to bolster them up
and add to their laurels. Luther, Cal.
vim, Knox, Wesley, Campbell did not
point with pride" to ancestors who had
done something. They We're too busy
doing and achieving things o engage in
such nonsense. Instead of being proud
of their families they were making their
families proud of them.
The best family tree that / ever saw
was printed many years ago by Josh
Billings. He said that inasmuch as
other people We're having family trees
he had looked up his own, and found
it to consist of a pair of upright wooden
pillars with n cross-tree over them, and
rope dangling down. He said that
out of respect to the lamented deceased
he would not give particulars of their
achievements. He added: This is sur-
kasm."
In comic opera, which was popular
few years ago, there was a ma jor gem
eral who purchased an ancient castle,
and said that he had bought his an
cestors with the property. That also
was sarcasm, and the people who heard
the opera enjoyed it. The fact of the
matter is, that these descendants of the
Mayflower, Colonial Danes, and other
ancestral societies do not need ancestry
so much as they need good hard work.
If the millionaires and money kings
in other cities have time and inclination
for nothing better, for themselves and
the ladies of their families, let them
spend their eXertions in proving su-
perior ancestry. But here in the ma
tional capital, such proceedings are
out of place. The society leaders of
to-day will soon pass away. Their hus-
bands will not remain in congress, nor
in the executive departments. They
will go out of Office, and become claim
agents or lobbyists, just as their pre-
decessors have done. We can endure
an occasional epidemic of American
aristocracy better anywhere else than
in this CITY,
Unless this folly is checked by plain
and vigorous public opinion, we shall
have another race before our grand
children are grown; a race of chumrs
who will form societies of the Daugh-
ters of the Civil War. And many of
them will be descendants of dcsertcrs
and bounty-jumpers suffers or camp
followers, The men who fought be-
tween 1891 and 1868 were not fighting to
establish an ancestry of IDIOTS. They
were fighting to preserve the union.
The men Of the south We're not fighting
to set up an ancestry of iazzaroni They
believed that they were establishing Il
new republic. Their descendants must
not establish an Order of jefferson
Davis; or u Soclety of Robert b. Lee.
Such things look all the more ridicu-
lous when we put them in the future.
They are bad enough In the present.
Let us be done with them,
SMITH D. FRY.