The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1898-05-01
REED IS AN OPTIM|5T
Sees Nothing But Coed in Ma
tionaI Development.

'D1tc C"o'- ~~- 49,
tionaI Development.
A FEW PERSONS SUFFER
The speaker OF the House Discusses
Affairs for The Times RenGers-in
Has the Race "a Whole De-
generated.
il is equally easy to take an optimistic
or a pessmistic view of life. You can
find all things going well or you can find
all things going i'll. 1t depends entirely
upon whether you look at months or
centuries. If you take a bird's-eye view
of the world at any time you can have
as melancholy a view of human life as
you please and if you confine yourself to
this instantaneous view the future of the
world will seem to be absolutely hope
less. In religion, if anybody has found
out the truth ii is very certain that every
body has not; for the widest differences
exist upon the most important points,
and that too among the most intelligent
Of our race In the meantime there seems
To be a growing lack of interest in the
whole subject. a subject which used once
to concern the world so intensely that
fire and fagot were the mild instrument
talities used to secure uniformity. In
politics, while in theory ali govern, in
practice only few seem TO control.
The most intelligent and the wealthiest,
those whom we should think the subject
Of good government most closely concern
ed, are those who spent the least time in
the furtherance of good government.
They seem TO spend most of their time eX-
perimenting to devise systems which will
never be successfully Neutrality-suspicious.
for governing men without the interven-
ton of men; labor-saying inventions
which will be automatic, self-sustaining,
a sort of perpetual motion, which will
eliminate human interest and selfishness
Just as the old original perpetual motion
tried to eliminate the attraction of gravi-
tation and friction. Meantime the world
continues TO belong to those who take an
interest in it, and if the intelligent will
not the unintelligent will. Some time ago
the people rose in their might and re-
fused, or thought they had refused to
permit offices TO be used as brides, and
yet we seem TO have substituted money
in hand for office in prospect; and gov
eminent by corruption of another kind
goes on, with a faint suspicion also that
we have not kept our offices entirely free
from the oid-fashioned political sale and
barter. Men go into Office pledged TO
serve the whole people, bat privily under
bond and mortgage TO distribute offices
predestned TO the few. Mercantile mo-
rality has not reached perfection.
Directors and presidents Of corporations
sell their own stock, depressing IL by
their example to buy it back again at a
cheaper rate marry weak corporation
they do own 10 a strong one they do not
own, so that virtue may e. out OF the
one into the other, to profit those who
should have acted on honor as trustees.
Then there have come upon us the hor-
rors of strikes the liability of the stop
ping of great works in the moment of
greatest stress; the liability of stoppage
of all transportation, putting as it were
half a nation into quarantine at various
distances from home and destination.
| The labOr-saving inventions which dis
charge Workmen an dforce large num-
bers Of people TO change their trade and
seek in new directions new lines of en-
deavor are attendants of increasing CIV
iliZatiCn. All this means much suffering
and distress until new places open to re-
ceive the people discharged. The great
department stores, where you can buy
everything under one roof are making
life almost impossible for the little folk
| Of small capital and no power of eXpan-
sion. This lowers the rent of stores, and
| some Of the safest investments in our
| large cities. investments made by the
| most far-sighted men and deemed by
| them beyond touch OF time have lost a
| quarter or half their value by this I'M
| expected change in the method of doing
| business.
| Business is continually changing its
| forms. always for the general good and
| always to the injury of some. When the
| centrifugal process of treating the prod
uct of sugar cane was invented, who
| could have thought that Maine and the
| Carolinas were involved? Yet centrifu-
| gal sugars were dry and could be sent in
| bags which cost almost nothing, instead
of the costly cooperage which used tc
| hold the soft brown sugars. So there per
| ished many hundreds of little coope,
| shops which had eked out the scanty sus,
| tenance of the Maine and Caroline farm.
! ers. and there was no remedy. But il
would be useless to enumerate all the
| sand there is in all of our shoes W,
! know il is an imperfect world. Indeed We
| know that many of our actions on which
| We now pride ourselves, and many more
| We tolerate, win have the condemnation
of future ages But we need not borrow
! From the future any sorrow; and ",
nave no occasion 10 trouble ourselve!
about its not doing what il does no
know, for the world of the present know!
| better than it does Wnan we look a
the race for days and months only, | re
| peat, we may well be sorrowful for w,
| come short even of our own knowledge
| and much short of the future But wheI
We look a the centuries, there are sign
and proofs which make optimism the onl
sound faith. 1t is true that this faitl
does not bring special happiness to tn,
individual, but to the race at large
A world constantly growing better ma
not give one single iota of amelioratio
to many individuals; for any one of u
may be caught in the refiuent wave of tn
rising tide, and one destruction may b
needed for the good of the whole. II
true that in religion there is no certaint
that faiths will ever be more alike Man
of them cannot be brought to the har
test OF facts. But while this is still $
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