The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-07-31

/ al VA K~ SRAAA
MH Our blessings are
H"ItA AMMhso much more nu-
@WNHAD merous than our
deserts that he is
surprised that anybody should ever
n fault. Having life, and with it a
thousand blessings, it ought to hush
into perpetual silence everything like
criticism of the dealings of God
Wherefore doth a living man com
plain?"
While everything in our national
finances is Frightening, for the last
few years h land has been set to the
tune of Naomi" There has been here
and there a cheerful soloist, but the
grand chorus has been one of lamenta-
ton, accompanied by dirges over pros
trated commerce, silent manufactures,
unemployed mechanism. and all those
disorders described by the two short
words, hard times" The fact is hat
we have been paying for the bloody
luxury of war, more than 80 years ago.
There were great national differences,
and we had not enough Chris
tian character to settle them by arbi-
tration and treaty. and so we ven
into battle, expanding life and treas
ure, and well nigh swapping the ma
AOA6 III AOL ~ III v
east and west have ever since been
paying for those four years indulgence
in barbarism. But the time has come
when this depression ought to end
yea, when it will end-if the people
are willing to do two or three things
by way of financial medicament, for
the people as well as congress must
join in the york of r~ecuperation. The
best political economists tell us hat
there is no good reason for continued
p~rostration. Plenty of money await
ing investment. The national health
with never so strong an arm or SO clear
a brain. Yet we go on groaning,
grooming, groaning, as though God
had put this nation upon Cruel, and al
lowed u but one decent breakfast in
six months. The fact is the habit of
complaining has become chronic in
this country, and after all these years
of whimper and wailing and objurga-
ton, we are under such a momentum
of SWIVEL that we cannot stop.
There are three prescriptions by
which / believe hat our individual
and national finances may be cured of
their present depression. The first is
cheerful conversation and behavior. /
have noticed that the people who are
most vociferous against the day in
which we live are those h are in
comfortable circumstances. l have
made inquiry of those persons who are
violent in their jeremiads against
these times, and l have asked them:
Now, after all, are you not making a
living?n After some hesitation and
coughing and clearing their throat
three or four times, they say, STAN
meringly: Yes" So that with a
great multitude of people it is not a
question of getting a livelihood, but
they are unhappy and dissatisfied
because they cannot make as much
money as they would like to make.
Much of that responsibility / put
upon men in comfortable circum-
stances, who. by an everlasting growl-
ing, keep public confidence depressed
and new enterprises from starting out
and new houses from being built.
You knew very we'll that one despond-
emit man can talk 80 men into despond-
ency, while one cheerful physician can
wake up into exhilaration a whole
asylum of hypochondriacs- 1t is no
kindness to the poor or the unem-
ployed for you,to join in this deplora-
ton. If you have moi the wit and the
common sense to think of something
cheerful to say, hen keep silent.
There is no man that al be independ-
emit of depressed conversation. The
medical journals are ever illustrating
it. 1 was reading of five men who re-
solved hat they would make an ex-
pertinent and see what they could do
in the way of depressing a stout,
healthy man, and they resolved
to meet him at different points
in his journey; and as he stepped
out from his house in the morning
In robust health, one OF the five
met him and said: why, you
look very sick to-day. What is the
matterP" He said: ~ am in excellent
there is nothing the matter"
But passing down the street he began
to examine his symptoms, and the sec
ond of the five men met him and said:
''Whv, how bad you look" We'll"
replied, IT don't feel very wellp
After awhile the third man met him,
and the fourth nan met him, and the
fifth man came up and said: why.
vou look as if you had had the typhoid
for six weeks. What is the mat
with your" And the man against
whom the stratagem had been laid 4
home and died. And If you meet 1
= LuAl Will OC1 CbdaA tdAh bOa AoA
times and bankruptcy and dreadful !
that are TO come, you break {
his courage. {
Some people are so oVerborne with &
d-olorousness of the times that they l
say we shall have communistie put I
in this country such as they had ]
IN France. / do not believe it. The 1
parallel Ices not rum. They ave no I
sabbath, no Bible, no God in France. I
We have all these defenses of our !
people, and public opinion !
s sueh that if the people in this CONN., !
Try attempt a c~ut-throat expedition, l
will land in Sing Sing. or from I
he gallows go up on tight rope. / dc }
not believe the people of this country y
will ever commit outrages and riot and y
murder for the sake of getting bread. :
But all this l~ugubrosity of o u and I
ace keeps people down. Now, | will :.
a contract. If the people Of the .
United States for one week will talk =
:heerfuly, / will open all the manu- q
aetOries. l will give employment to :
III the ~unoccupied men and women: / y
will make a lively market for youF |.
-eal estate that is eating yon up with :
/ will stop the Long pro- y
on the way to the poor =
louse and the p~enitentiary. and =
will spread plentiful table =
rom Maine to California and from Z
to Sandy Hook. and the whole
and shall carol and thundeF with ma g
ional jubilee. But says some e II y
will take hat contract; but we can't ]
fleet the whole nation" My hearers 7
nd readers, representing as you do all II
all trades, and all occupa- +
ions, if you should resolve never again o
o utter a dolorous word about the c.
money markets, but by name and by n
dice and by wit and ~caricature, and A
.boye all by faith in God, to try to a
cater this R~ational gloom, do you 1
lot believe b influence would be in Il
tantaneOus and w~ide-spreadP The eff b
ect would be felt around the world, Il
'or Gods sake. and for the sake of "
he poor and for the sake of the en- ~
quit growing. Depend upon Il
if you men in comfortable circum- a.