The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1896-06-25

| How the tiller of the soil envies these
last-named class But he should not do
so The man who pulverizes the soil may
sweat, but the man who pulverizes the
stock exchange sweats more. The tenn
perature on the farm may be ninety in the
shade, but If you ever get into the pit Of
stock exchange In active operation, you
will instantly realize that the human
temperature there is about 212. The man
of the fields and orchards goes leisurely
but steadily about his affairs and fumes
but little, while the rusher, the pusher
and the plunger, get hum i'd and drip with
the excess Of heat.
But of far greater moment than oil this
is the fact that the population of the
world, that great fact called the people,
owes its existence to the primary pur-
suits.
In all this rush and whirl of business,
the children cannot keep up with the cam
paign. The children are all In the first
camps. They make vocal the fields and
the country side. They grow best where
the grass and flowers grow. Where they
can play on the banks of babbling brooks
and in the woods and fields and orchards,
where the air res unds with natures
music, and is frelghted with the fragrance
Of billion bursting buds. They do not
spring from marts and wharfs, stock eA-
changes and international commerce,
though all these may be essential parts
Of civilization. But they bubble up from
the cool and unoorrupted springs of the
country life, where they are nurtured by
natural mothers, and where we find life
simple In It's methods and normal in its
desires and temperature.
As we approach the so-oalled higher
walks of life the children begin to thin
out. Commerce in its highest sense can
hardly be said to contribute to the race.
Further on. the child becomes even more
rare, and when he does appear it Is by
accident and as an intruder. He is at
once remanded to the care of servant
and IL he does survive, he is apt TO be q
mental prodigy, but attenuated and pale,
overtopping a weak physical constitution
1t is a great truth that must not be lost
sight of that the population of the world
is produced and reproduced on the indus
trial plane of the primary pursuits. 1t
cannot flourish anywhere else.
1t is in the country only that the high
est and best development of muscle and
brain is possible Where youth are free
| from the amusements and dissipation of
city life, and from the feverish and vapid
allurements of society. This is the reason
why nearly all the positions of RESPONSE
bility and trust in the cities are filled by
men and women from the country. This
is the reason why the men who own
Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, Omaha,
and other cities Of recent but marvellous
growth, are the sons OF men, and in many
instances the men themselves, who got
their start begind yoke of oxen break
ing up western prairie without the
country to draw from, the city would soon
lose its vitality and go to decay, and fall !
as Rome fell, 1000 years ago.
So long as the industrial world rests |
firmly on the primary pursuits so long as
population issues in great streams from |
the wholesome springs Of the natural life |
that abounds in the country side, we shall |
continue to flourish. The legislation of |
the country, the art and literature of the |
country, the public press of the country, |
should begin to recognize this fact. The
statesmen and orators and economists
should cease to waste their sweetness on /
banking systems, coast defenses, public |
ownership OF railways and telegraphs, ap-
preparation and reapportionments, and |
try to find something to extol in the
sweet smelling field of human endeavor. |
Already the draft on the original indus
tries and on the great life by which they |
are supported, has become so great, that |
they are strained to the last measure of |
their strength
On the one hand the mercenary specu-
lator Hampers with the standard money |
and credit of the country and transfers |
the profits Of labor to the bank account of |
the shark, and on the other hand coterie |
of alleged statesmen, although they would |
make obligations due themselves payable |
in gold, seek to repudiate one-half of their
own honest debts, and would, with one
blow, destroy one-half the accumulated |
savings of a thrifty people, by debasing !
the currency of the country. And in ad-
dition to all this the gambling vampire
hides 10 eevry wheat shock, from the Red |
river of the North, to the Rio Grande.
You ask, What are you going to do about |
it? Abraham Lincoln owed his great
success in life to the fact that he always
kept in touch with the plain people. And |
the plain people can be depended upon,
in the fullness of time, to right all these
wrongs.
AS long as the descendants of Simon
Essig, or a majority of them, continue in
the paths you now trod, and in which so
many of you have been eminently success
full after almost full century's existence
upon the soil of Stark county, there is
no danger of this great family becoming
extinct or degenerating in any particular.
Men will defend their own homes and
firGsides with valor and chivalry that
is unknown under any other conditions.
That same patriotic Swiss blood that for
centuries has defended the mountain
homes of Switzerland against the savage
onslaughts of all intruders, still courses
through your veins One instance in the
history of switzerland, although it oc-
Cured 500 years ago, spLcts volumes for
the heroic and patriotic blood of your
Swiss ancestry. In 1886, King Leopold of
Austria, conceived the idea that he could
add some lustre to his crown by making
a raid through the mountains Of Switzer-
land and add to his dominions the thrifty
Swiss cantons At the head of an army
of 1000 we'll armed soldiers and knights,
armed with long, bristling spears, he met
an army Of |, 300 Swiss mOuntaineers in
the pass of Sempsch. The Swiss were
farmers and herdsnen, armed with battle
axes, hastily summoned together to defend
treir homes and flresides. They were vol
unteer soldiers, and the volunteer soldier
always fights the best, and thrice Is he
armed who hath his quarrel just" Never
did an army have greater anticipation of
victory than the Austrians upon this oc-
casion. The lines of Leopold formed a
solid phalanx that seemed invincible At
this juncture Arnold Winkelraid, with
the wild cry, "MaKe way for Liberty" I"
threw himself upon the forest of Austrian
spears With extended arms he swept
Twelve shining lances in his grasp. Into
the breach thus made the Swiss threw ,