The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1896-11-24
LESSON FOR THE EAST.

paper WOIlu, AG GuS SduS GLmG lie
is one of the most far-seeing and able
editorial writer's of the age. If he
could impress his ideas given below
on the people of the East, he would
perform an act that would be of
greater benefit to the whole country
than anything which has occurred
since the organization of our govern
ment. The greatest danger to our
institutions. lies in the creating of
sectional feeling, and only by some
concessions from every section can
the peace of the great whole be main
tained. Circumstances have natur-
ally concentrated The wealth of the
country, and on the use of that
wealth depends the peace and pros
perity of the whole country. Mr..
Wasterson was asked the question,
and made the reply given below:
s'Do you apprehend the serious
growth of the new sectionalism which,
with the death of the old sectional
ism, seems to be struggling inlo life
in American
sIf human experience goes for any
thing and is even to count for much,
the world ought TO be wiser for the
lessons it has had. / am afraid, how
ever, that wealth and power have not
grown wise enough to scent danger
before it is upon them. The Eastern
section of our country is already in
danger. have an impression that
at does not see this. Yet it might,
with profit to itself and 10 US all,
read chapter out of our own his
tory, and take a hint in time from
the experience of the South. The
institution of African slavery was
thought to confer great benefits upon
its possessors. 1t produced in the
South distinct caste. Recognized
by the constitution, property in man
came to take on a kind of divine
right, and, at last, its supporters went
to war to defend il. Nothing should
have been clearer than that war was
the best way to destroy it. England
had got rid of slavery in her colonies.
Russia had extinguished serfdom.
Brazil was preparing to emancipate
her slaves. Everywhere, except in
the southern states of the American
Union, the world was set against
slavery. To cling with tenacity TO
so untenable, and, as time has since
revealed, to so profitless a system of
labor, to say nothing about morals,
was singularly shortsighted in the
public men of the South; but to take
take the field in its behalf and against
such odds, seems inconceiYable from
the standpoint of national statesman
ship. But the South did it, and
dearly paid the consequences. Let
the East take to itself the lesson of
the South. In its concentration of
the wealth of the country, and in Its
Ostentatious display of its wealth, In
the gradual cultivation of caste, IN
the tendency to hug its vast riches,
and in the finding of means to keep
Its millions at home, let it behold
danger it will do we'll to consider in
the light of both ancient and modern
history, and if it Las any real states
men they cannot put their genius and
resources to better uses than by the
construction of policies which will
bring them alliances and make them
friends-policies wise and broad, jus
tifying in some measure the unlimit-
ed accumulations they have been able
to pile up in such a relatively short
compass of time. Those accretions
not only serve to breed corruption
among themselves, but they unite
against the simple rights of property
all the forces of cupidity and rapiae.
operating on agrarian and Sc ctional
lines. States have been saved before
now by timely forecast. Only pride
and a very foolish pride at that, has
led Spain to defy the laws alike of
God and nature in Cuba. Only
pride, the pr d of wealth and castc.
will keep the East from seeing the
truth that it must make partner of
the rest of the conntry; not only by
generous and expanding policies,
but above all by just policies, harder
perhaps to realize than any other
policies. We can always be .gener
GUS. but it is rot always easy to be
just, wisely just, even TO ourselves
II ! ~ >