The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1897-11-18

to its progress.
When we look into our own lives and
see so many trivial acts, or single
spoken word exert such an enormous
influence upon future affairs, not only
to our immediate self but reaching out
in ever widening circles to other lives
and through them to future genera
tions, we more readily comprehend the
power of simple ideas acting through
the ages on human affairs. Remove
the electric light from your cell, take
the idea out of society and picture the
result. Remove steam power out of
our social life, kill the idea and pic
ture the result. Remove the sewing
machine, the cotton gin, the printing
press, and then what? Suppose that
Edison or Morse, or Bell, or Gray, or
Galvani did not conceive their ideas or
bequeath them to others, and then
what? Why without Galvani and Du
Fay, without Muschenbreck or Gray,
there had not been Morse or Bell or
Edison or Tesla, or Marconi. With
out Gutenberg there had been no
Hoe; without Watt or Stephenson there
had been no Fulton. Had not Whit.
ney invented the ginning machine,
raising the value of slaves, the L. S.
civil war might never have been
fought. Had Gettysburg been lost;
had some one man failed to do his
duty; had the wrong word been spoken,
the history of that war might have
been told under different government
and changed conditions. Had Sara
toga been won by Burgoyne; had
Morris failed to raise the money he did;
had Franklin failed in his negotiations
with France, think you the United
States would be what they are? Had
King George been less overbearing;
had no unjust tax been imposed upon
his American colonies; had not the
right of representation been denied a
subject people, Saratoga had not been
fought, and the history of England
would have been more voluminOus.
Had no mistakes been made at Wat
erloo the social life Of Europe would
have had different setting; Napoleon
had then been hailed a liberator, and
not despot. Had the spanish Ar
mada" effected its purpose in 1888, the
glorious reign of Elizabeth would have
sunk into oblivion behind the intol-
Grant clouds that rested about the
despotic Philip of Spain; and that era
of culture and refinement would have
fallen low under the intolerance that
enslaved mind and body.
The Levantine wars, ending in the
fall of COnstantinople, 1853, turned the
minds Of students and scholars to that
ever enriching fount of literature, that
birthplace of true art which has for
two score centuries been recognized in
Greece, and the finest achievement OF
the Periclean age, "The golden age" of
Athens, the Parthenon, that had, for
eighteen centuries, withstood time and
the elements, then fell by the hands of
the fanatical Turk.
The battle of Hastings, 1866, the i'm
petus gained by new blood and new
ideas from the norman Conquest" !"
made possible the liberty loving and
commercial nation of England.
The defeat of the Saracens by Mar
tel at Tours, 1872, saved Europe from
Mohammedenism, left Christianity to
continue its leavening process. The
defeat of Attila in Gaul, 451, prevented
the establishment upon Roman ruins
of barbaric empire; Metauras 2O7 B.
c. made possible the Roman Empire.
Marathon 400 B. G. secured for man
hoOd,' says historian, "the intellec.
tual treasures of Athens, the growth
of free institutions, the liberal enlight.
enment of the western world and the
gradual ascendency for many ages of
the great principles of European civil.
ZatiOn.'
Each and every step we have traced
backward, from Edison to Archimedes
from Gettysburg is Marathon, are
foundation stones of existing social
life. Taking away any one of these