New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1897-04-21
Ideas of Others.

the fallaCy OIL looking or loImci uays. as
better than those we live in. The writer
says:
at IS now the fashion to place the
golden age OF England in times when
farmers and shop-keepers breakfasted on
loaves, the very sight of which would
raise a riot in modern workhouse, and
when men died faster in the purest
country air than they now die in the
residential lanes of our towns, and
when men died faster in the lanes of our
towns than they now die on the coast of
Guiana. We, too, shall in our turn be
outstripped, and in our turn be envied.
1t may be, in the twentieth century, the
mode to assert that the increase of
wealth and the progress of science have
benefited the few at the expense of the
many, and to talk of the rel ign of Queen
Victoria as the time when England was
truly ''Merry England" when all classes
we're bound together by brotherly SYM
pathy, when the rich did not grind the
faces of the poor and when the poor did
not envy the splendor of the rich"
Commenting on the above Dr. Crane
of Chicago said in public. address the
other day:
"There is a trait of discomfort in hu-
man nature that makes us always dissat-
1sied with the present and leads us to
undervalue the privileges and blessings
which we enjoy and which have been
won for us by the exertions of our an
cestors. A man is queer animal. The
more you give him the more he wants.
Take boot-black, ragged and squalid,
half-fed part of the time, and 1ll-fed the
rest of the time, and try to satisfy him.
Ask him what he wants. A dinner?
Give it to him and he wants regular din
ners. Supply these and then he'll want,
successfully, as each new benefit pals,
new clothes, money, more money, most
money; pleasure, intoxication; power,
social and political; the rule Of ward,
city, a state, nation, a world, a uni
verse; and then, like certain successful
young man Of old, he'll weep because
there are no more universes. You
thought at first little food would fill
his vacancy. You knew not the bound
less capacity of man. He could hold
continents, oceans, stars.
"This same disposition induces us to
dwell unduly on bad thing. Men are
by nature pessimlstic. Any orator whose
theme is that the world is going to the
devil, toboggan, fashion is sure of hear
ing. Any political party that is 'fer-
ninst things will never want adhereuts.
Any social or economical theory that
magnifies the faults of existing institu-
buttons will he to certain degree pop
ular. Infdelity will thrive as long as
religion is prosperous. This permanent
trait in man can always be depended
upon periodically to smash political par
tics, churches, systems of education and
all other public organizations, because
they are too successful, if for no other
reason.
"Of late we see much doubtful head
shaking as to all things American and
modern. Negroes complain because
they have to ride in Jim crow cars,
and are excluded from equal privileges
in the south, forgetting that it has been
but generation ago that they were sold
like cattle. Workiugmen agitate against
their wrongs, and see before them only
increasing oppression. Reformers be-
wall the corruption of politics, and won
der how soon this republic will fall-it
is only question of time. The employ
ment of children in stores is taken to
mean that III a. short while all homes
will be depcpulated. Prize fights are
instanced as ali illustration of the blood
thirsty tendencies of the age. The city
slulns, the hard lot of the farmer, the
increase OF cities, the failure of justice in
courts, the growth of large fortunes, the
intolerance of religious bigots, are all
seen as CHASTITY fngerboards pointing to
an open pit located somewhere in the
twentieth century. Indeed, a brilliant
writer undertakes to show that civiliza.
ton itself is a curse, and he appears tc
find plenty Of proof to sustain ms posi-
tion.''
The London Times is beginning to Sc.
England as others see her. It says.
England today is what Carthage wa