The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-02-27
The Best Time of All.

When a man hunts for preteXts for
gloom he can usually find them on the
sunniest days. a contributor to City
and State grows disconsolate over the
badness of the world and is half in
clned to pronounce civilization fail
ure. Referring to the Waller case at
Bloomsbury he asks:
How comes it that so atrocIous and
wicked attempt at revenge, such
crime against society, can be made after
generations of progress in civilization,
after eighteen centuries of Christian
teaching, and in the heart of an old and
law-abiding commonwealth? Long be-
fore the beginning of what we are pleased
TO call "the Christian era" there We're
many communities which would have
been shaken from border to border by the
commission of a deed so peculiarly saw
age and inhuman. The blowing up of
boarding shanty of ignorant Hungarian
railway laborers by lot of their ignor
ant fellow-countrymen on the Wilkes
Barre mountain gives rise to comparisons
of nationalities and makes arguments for
restrictive immigration laws What re-
Elections, what comments are invited
when one Pennsylvania lawyer blows up
the house of fellow member of the
same bar?
w avn llt punt llldl II HAS llOl Dttll,
and is not in our judgment likely to he,
proved that the accused lawyer in this
case had anything to do with the blow
ing up of the Waller homestead, it may
be said that crimes such as the one thus
alleged bear a smaller proportion to the
activities of the time than they have
borne at any prior period. SO, also, with
the other which uiupS thic itar
so much pain-the case which he de-
scribes as follows:
Last spring a man from the western
part of the state was elected superintend-
ent of the schools of Shenandoah. in
Schuylkill county, after a fierce contest
between two factions of the school board
on religious and political lines. Smart
ing under their defeat, the minority di-
rectors managed TO have the superin-
tendent indicted in the Pittsburg courts
on a heinous charge, brought by a young
girl pupil where he had formerly
taught. He was convicted. 1t does not
concern us here to question the verdict
for moment, For our purpose it mat
ters not particle whether he was guilty
or not What we want to point to is the
report that members of the Shenandoah
school board, and citizens of that town,
who had travelled 800 miles to attend the
trial, were guilty of celebrating the re-
suit by banquet; glorying in a public
dinner because a fellow citizen had been
convicted of a vile crime! We happen
TO know that the residents of Shenan-
doah do not go about in breech clouts;
nor do they paint their bodies and wear
rings in their noses. But why do they
not?
We wish to say, for the benefit of this
writer and others who are prone to take
bilious view of things, that il is de-
cidedly not time to ask what our much
Vaunted civilization, our magnificent
public school system, our splendid
churches and our glorious, independent
free, and untrammeled press have done
for us."-not, at least, in a spirit OF
criticism or distrush The incidents
which are cited above are simply the
exceptions that by their rarity are
projected prominently into public view
If we were butchering Christians by the
hundred thousands in Pennsylvania, as
was done in Rome at the apex days OF
Roman civilization; or If We were mas
sacreing in great masses those who
disagree with us on matters of sectar-
ian belief, as was done in Paris on the
eve of ST Bartholemew's day. or
again, if we We're burning innocent
women as witches and driving into the
wilderness to starve or to be devoured
hy wild beasts men who differ from