The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-07-21

anniversary of that revolution, in 18S9
edited by one who spent the summers
Of Is years in going over every step OF
the journey of 100 years before in order
to report on what difference there
might be between the "fittest'' who sur
vived in the eighteenth century and
those of the nineteenth. The country
has been turned into a garden; the
| slaves Of 100 years ago are happy; we'll
| fed farmers owning themselves and the
| fruits of their work. Filthy villages
| have become splendid cities without a
beggar. In some districts, so great is
the change that the nineteenth century
traveller describes it as "Utopian."
There is redistribution OF well-being
without parallel in any part Ca Eu-
rope"
Where in Maine and Anjou, Young
found the peasants living in cave
dwellings followed out of the rocks.
there are now farmhouses, handsome
enough for villas. Where Young found
the widow, described by Carlyle, gath
ering nettles in the rain for dinner for
her children, of which the MARQUIS
takes his third and calls it trent J"
there is now land overfowing with
milk and honey, where the poorest
eat asparagus, green peas and straw
berries every day when in season."
Where the aged women of 28 poured
out her woes to Young, his successor of
i! To-Day Is entertained by rich farmeress
who wears fashionable toilette on Sun
days; gives her children the best of edu-
cations and when her daughters marry
has dowries of thousands of dollars for
them To what is this startling trans
formation due? We answer in the same
words that Young employed: ITO gov
ernment." The fittest that survived in
| 1859 were SO different from the fittest Of
1889, because the environment had been
| maze dlherent. new social selection
mad been brought into operation. There
mad begun to be a people, and the peo-
| pie had begun to will and create.
In India the greatest famine of the
this century is now eating up the in
| haDitants. The loss of life is estimated
| at 100000. India has the soil and
| climate for every known product. The
| people are frugal, hardworking, peace
full Why are they being thus slaugh-
| tered?
Sir William Wedderburn, of the Brit
| lsh parliament, who has spent his life
| as member of the government of India
has explained why, in the house of
commons and in the press The gov
ernment Of the country has reduced the
masses to chronic destitution, a precari-'
| GUS existence on the verge of starvation.
The failure of the last harvest was not
| the cause of the famine. "It was only
the push which sent the people down
! into the abyss" When Sir William be-
| gan his service in india a generation
| ago, every rayat, however poor, had
an underground store of millet put
| away, enough to keep his family for a
| year or two British government has
| swept these stores away by taxation as
| penny by penny and dollar by dollar
the American government is sweeping
| the stores of our masses into the hands
| OF the millionaires. "We," says Sir
| William, have drained the rayat of
capital and made him the slave of the
village money lender
Side by side with these starving vic
tins of British rule, almost within
sight of them, lives the prosperous pop-
ulation OF the "well-governed native
| states" where, under Hindoo princes,
the inhabitants, unblessed by tax Of
! $40 on every dollars worth of salt to
| pay for an established church, bishops
| and lord governors, bid defiance to fam
| ines even If crops are short
Relieve want and you diminish
| crime" the Chicago chief of police says
| in his report for 1896. There was the
report shows, "a great reduction in the
number of crimes committed while re-
| lief was being given, thus clearly indi-
eating that great many crimes and
| misdemeanors were simply the result Uf
the desperate condition of the poor.
There seemed to them no alternative
other than to steal or starve''
Within comparatively few years the
continent of Europe has been over
spread with a network of Raffeisen
and Schultze-Delitsch and other CO.
operative banks working among the
poor. There are thousands of them ard
their deposits and loans amount to
| thousands Of millions of dollars They
! are the most successful, the safest and
best banks in the world. Their social
! and moral results are marvel.
Under the magic inspiration of the
! chance to get fresh start in the vorId
the idle man becomes industrious, the
spendthrift thrifty; the drunkari re-
forms, the haunter of taverns forsakes
the inn; the illiterate, though grand
father, learns to write.''
Priests confess that the cooperative
bank has done more to evangelize the
people than all their ministrations.
"Paupers struggle off the parish list
| 1oho