The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-11-24
DECAYING SPAIN.

have one by one cut themselves off
from the rule of Madrid, still remain
Spanish. Their language, religion,
laws, traditions, custom, all are Of
Spanish origin, and these endure un-
der any change of flag, as English
institutions are preserved by us.
Except where a new population has
overwhelmed the Spanish, as in CAL
ifornia, the empire that once was
SPANS still bears the original char
acter. They are Spanish first, and
to the last. Though Mexico threw
off the Spanish yoke, that country is
still Spanish in sentiment, and SYM
pathized with Spain in the recent war.
This is the current of history, and
should be remembered by colonizing
powers. 1t will be slow process to
Americanize our new possessions. It
took quarter of a century to Amer
lean California, and New Mexico is
still denied Statehood because the
Mexican-Spanish element stand in
the light of progress and civilization.
A century Of English rule has but
slightly anglicized and civilized the
French in Quebec; and we shall no
doubt have an equally hard task in
Americanizing Cuba and Porto Rico.
The Philippines, with their $4,000, 900
mongrels, speaking about five hun
dred dialects, cannot be civilized
within the next century. At best,
they were not half-civilized when the
curse of Spanish rule fell upon them.
Then, they relapsed into their present
degraded condition. Whatever Spain
touched has refrigerated, aud the
sooner that bigoted nation is dis
membered, the better it will be for
the world and for civilization.
Protests against the turgid YER
bosity Of Grating politicians is heard,
as it is, more or less, during every
political campaign; but the critics
seem to cast about in vain for the
reason why our political speakers
so wofally lack the simplicity that
is so strong, and utter, from year to
year, the same old platitudes in the
same old stilted language on all oc.
casions, appropriate or otherwise.
The reason is that they have all
"gone through" the same school
readers, and have had to speak the
same 'pieces," most of which were
composed and uttered by the orig
inal speakers when great and mo-
mentous issues were impending
issues of class such as the politi.
cal parrots of the last quarter of the
nineteenth century are never, and
never will be, called upon to deaI
with. Added to this, they are
taught, as school-pupils, to prefer
long words and orotund phrases tc
terseness, directness and force, and
learn to pay a great deal more at.
tention to rounding off a sentence
than to making the sense and mean
ing of it clear. Some people blame
the newspapers for leading in thu
chorus Of bosh, but that is unjust
They simply join in it, because the
writer's have passed through the
same school as the political speak
ers, and so do not know any better
There is no hostility against cor
porations, but there is wide alarm
at the outrages of corporations ani
the spirit of grasping power which
many of them have assumed. A
corporation has come to be a mash
for all manner of financial and in
dustrial crimes. 1t represents til,
natufal selfishness of human nature
1t has neither a conscience nor :
soul, and no fear of hell-fre in thu
next world. Hence its recklessnes.
in assuming functions which it wa: