The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-08-27
Concern ing Hard Times.
(Thomas B. Reed in the ILLUSTRATED
American.

are not our ways, and this we could east.
ly know even If it were not Scripture.
With all our knowledge and growth In
civilization we are SO unconscious OF our
own impulses and so ignorant of our own
movements that the temperatures OF
well-known phenomena awaken the same
surprise and provoke the same misunder-
standing as the first appearance.
1t is true that the life of man is SO
short, and the cycles of the Almighty SO
long, that in the lifetime of one man
there are but few repetitions of certain
never to .be-forgotten series of events.
Not only is the life of man short, but 1t
is divided into youth, manhood and old
age. The sensations of each are different,
and it is hard for either manhood or old
age to recognize as the same the very
things which happened in youth and
which are repeated but twice again in a
long life, and not at all in the thirty
years which, on the average, are allotted
to mankind.
| Nothing has been more thoroughly we'll
understood by those who have studied the
past even in the superficial way In which
we all study it than that there is regu-
lar succession of prosperity and adversely,
of adversely and prosperity, which varies
in causes and appearances, but which il
| substantially the same century after CEN
tury.
| We will not press too strongly the seven
fat and seven lean kline which came up
out of the sea in the dream of Pharaoh,
but you may depend upon it that that
dream had its origin in actual events,
and that the alienation Of good times and
hard times antedates the pyramids.
But whether that be SO or not, the COM
pick nature of modern society, the weld
ing together in matters OF trade of the
whole world from China to Peru and
from far Cathay to the Polar zones, has
made the periodicity of this alienation
| more marked, more clearly defined, wider
spread and more nearly universal. Has
| 1t ever occurred to you to think that the
wisdom of the laws which govern the
| universe can even in this case be justified
| to human reason and sense, and that hard
times themselves help work out the saliva
| ton of the human race?
look at this aspect of our situation, and
derive as much comfort as possible from
our past disasters. While the disaster
was upon MS it was not the time to point
out the blessing. I suppose that even the
saints who are made perfect through suff-
ering do not quite appreciate the process
until it is over. When grief has changed
into peace, and the enduring result has
made the sorrows undergone merely a
fading memory instead of a grinding pres
emit torture, only then do even the saints
realize that sainthood can come in no
other way.
Every time we enter upon period of
prosperity we think, notwithstanding
4 the fact that all history is against us,
that this time we shall escape the oncom-
| ing of adversely, that civilization has at
last reached point where health will be
permanent and disease banished forever.
| But this will never be. Underneath all
the seeming causes of the alienation,
underneath questions of currency, tariff,
balance OF trade, war, crops, prices, and
all other causes, there lies the great NOV
| ing cause ever present and never to be
banisbed, the human nature of the
human race. We creatures cannot endure
| monotony. We must have change and
we do have it.
| Nor Is, it a waste of time, the human
race being what it is, to lie fallow for
| y
feeling of confidence prolonged, unbroken
over even single century, am persuad-
ed that all the wealth of the world would
| be dissipated and we should be as naked
as Adam and Eve came into the world
Just notice how severe is the punish
ment of a nation which merely overstays
its time of prosperity. We have in the
1 ings in the direction of wealth special
temptations, and we stay prosperous, in
our minds at least longer than other
nations; and the result is that we suffer
more severely than they. We are also the
last to recuperate.
After all why should 1t not be SOP ar
We make hay abundantly when our sun
is shining and the barns are full Why
should we be careful about hay? Let the
cattle trample on it and be bedded in It,
We have plenty. Why should we econo-
mize? That takes brains and, above all,
worry. That means sleepless night, and
toilsome days. Why should we who revel
in abundance CLEAN also the fields like
the poori In such times we all become
lavish and expect pennies to take care OF
them selves
We go on from one folly to another.
/ We spend capital and persuade ourselves
that we are only spending income. II
is easy not only to mortgage our future
but to deceive ourselves and to say that
| eAio 40 oiliy oclupoIdry, Ouiy ACCu1aS q
passing emergency. BY our extravagant
ways we honeycomb what we have. By
and by confidence gets broken up and the
clock strikes for settlement. The property
is all there, but who owns 1t?
Nowadays such settlement is world
settlement and a thousand million people
make it very complicated business
How we do it we can never quite tell
But it gets done, and when it gets done
the world gradually resumes business an6
the cycle again commences. This period
OF settlement is standstill except for the
necessaries of life and of the period ii
which it occurs
BY necessaries of life is meant not mere
ly those things without which life coula
not exist, but those things also which
have by the advance, of civilization be-
come such part of our lives that we will
not relinqnish them without struggle
Of course many of these necessaries Of life
depend for their continued production
upon the amount of sacrifice we have tx
make to obtain them and the mainte
nance of their production depends upon
bringing them within the restricted pur
chasing power of the consumer
A necessary of life as thus defined may
q = eIs -