The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-11-26
ELM PARK AND PENN
AVENUE BAPTISTS
concluded from Page 81


attack and subjugate? VIII IL be wiser
to give our present territory more intense
culture or force forth for wider fields to
till? Can we cut out the material for u
platform big and strong enough for Great
Britain, Canada and the United States
to stand upon as the place of peace of
the nations which represent the religion
of the King of Peace? Arbitration must
be established or that Ephraim will not
vcX Judah. We be brethren. Shall we
lengthen the handle of our axe so as to
interfere In the affairs of foreign nations
and be involved in the disturbances that
make such disaster abroad? We have
had a helm long enough to mind our
own business. Are we to become med
dlers, all over the world hateful and hat
ed? Was 1t mistaken policy to attend
to home matters and let other people
manage their concerns? God forbid that
we should be so cowardly that we are
afraid to let our axe fall on any prison
pen where American citizens have been
cruelty detained. our instrument of
building Is to be a weapon that will
protect the men who are loyal to our
flag everywhere under the sun. Not that
we are to become a warrior spelling for
a battle. If that force will be used in
work legitimate in our borders it will
add to our wealth and not to our woes,
as conflict always does. | suggest that
all who want something with which to
tussle can find enough to exhaust their
energy If they will study the two metal
piles of the county, the yellow and white,
and settle what ratio of the two shall
be made into coin. If they do not rest
In 16 to !, let them determine on a
healthy metal basis for our monetary
system. If they have any strength left
after cutting at the coin question, they
can try the greenback subject, and If
their axe is not dull then il must be
of fha ca1f l,u,r II MT 4
in this rapid way, fill pages with prob
lens that are before US. Plenty of chop
ping to do before our national house
and its furniture are finished beyond the
call for more skill. Boys with hatchets
may think they can do the proper cut
ting, while wise men with axes think
the Infinite must guide them.
WHAT CARLYLE SAID.
Carlyle and other royalists have de-
clared the necessity of the hereditary
factor in government if there is to be
any fixity in affairs, and that the his
tory of democracies shows that they can
not exist without the appearance of a
dictator. We have not had that exhibit,
yet we need safe guards built around our
chief authorities and only an axe guided
of God can prepare the timbers for these
projections. We have built the school
houses and called it common saying our
people must be educated. We have made
the edifice high and spread it wide. Is
II too high and too much distributed? If
the axe is to touch the public school. will
1t be to cut off a story or add more? In
that same place a question waits set
tlement. What shall the state do for
moral ideas. The Pope on the Tiber says
his faithful children shall not be taught
in schools where the Bible is not. for
they are Goddess, and not where it is
read, as our translation is a sectarian
book The axe will need Divine handling
to cut that subject so as to be true to
God and true to the entire people.
Then this axe has been building cities
so fast and so large that we must ask
II this is best. Shall ii go on at that
work when they are % per cent. less
healthy than the rural regions. Disease
and death waste the national income.
These cente of population are the sinks
into which lie worst gather, and where
they do their worst. The rot begins
there and the nation shares in their
rate. Nineveh was Assyria Paris is
France, New York is the United States
AS go our cities sc country. All re-
forms are halting now by the retard in
our great cities.
We cut a door so wide that we are
like later Noah's Ark. all the earth is
entering in. We have received descend
ents of Shem, Ham and Japheth and it
looks as if the plank we put out for
humanity had become the gangway for
some animals. The incoming are often
as quarrelsome, nearly as ignorant as
brutes. Yet we put crowns on them and
make them rulers.
THE FOREIGN ELEMENTS.
Some of the foreign elements throng
together and perpetuate their original
customs and motives and insist our pub
lie schools shall teach their offspring
the tongues of the parents. The hom-
ogenity necessary is delayed We al
ready have the conflict of races Whites
with blacks; rich with poor; nationalized
| with foreigners; red men with white
| robbers. Something more we must do
We have cut out coarse forms and called
| them citizens. We put a ticket in their
hands whether they have sense in their
heads or not. We never can get them
| back into the original blocks as so much
| rough wood We must polish them and
make them fit to be what we have named
4 lem. The serious divinely directed
| sense of this country is not too much
| ability to handle this great question.
which emigration and emancipation have
| forced upon us. Our axe has split a
mass of crude humanity into undivided
| pieces. labelling them as voters, giving
| each the same weight In settling great
| matters as Daniel Webster had at the
| polls! We may sympathize with the
| Southern people once owners in object
| ing to the domination of their former
| slaves. The threat openly made to dis
| franchise the blacks is a serious omen.
If uneducated, who left them so? IL
| they are to be cut off from the ballot
| box will they be counted i'm the basis of
| representation? The problem comes to
| us in our incompetent white crowds i'm
| the cities without the American spirit,
| above all things the fitness for the right
use of the elective privilege. How can
i we take that pile of material and hew il
| into best shape for place in our ma
| tional structure, blacks and foreignerso
| Have we fixed proper term, five years
| I'm which they may outgrow their form
| er opinions and conditions, and grow
| into a competency to guide our state
| affairs? Men who have lived under mon
| arches are used to being managed and
| may be good material for manipulate
| ing partisans. Can such in their state
| in few years absorb enough of Ameri-
| can ideas and instincts to fit them for
| polling power? John Witherspoon, of
| revolutionary fame, came to the Col
ones when 46 years old and yet "be-
| came an American the moment he land
| ed on our shores" Few are so soon
| transformed. Most timber needs long sea-
| soning before the axe can carve good
| Americans out of II, Ut might be well
| to insist that the raw material shall be
seasoned longer before used than that)
| We shall cut out a one and put it before
| that five and require foreigners to wait
| fifteen years before they equal native
born in the franchise right. At least
| we should see that they do not vote be-
| fore the salt spray that flow on their
| hair when they came over the sea, is
dried They should tarry until they know
| what this republic represents, what 1t
| cost and is worth, and especially until
| they will so value their vote that IT
| would seem sacrilege to sell it. After
| OBTAINING the arrived a longer term be-
| fore they are made American kings IL