The record-union., 1898-10-05
PRESEhT-DAY THOUGHTS.
BY G.. Grosvenor DAVE.

the diseases that arise from 1t. No
matter whose dead and honored hands
dug it, it's Instructions must be re-
moved until only a harmless stream
flows through. But this is no talk about
hygiene, The ditch represents certain
social conditions, and a number of Eu
ropean Powers figure as doctors who
deal with the sick, but shrink from the
impure source.
short time since the Empress of
Austria, one time a pleasure-loving,
fox-hunting woman, but later with
enough of sorrow in her life to make
her seem one with u.s. suddenly went
out in the darkness of assassination.
we all shuddered at the tragedy, not
solely because she was an empress, but
because she was also a benevolent wo-
man Further than that, our hearts
dumbly protested when we learned that
the murderer had neither been wronged
by her nor any one near her.
x
Luchessi, insane with social hatred,
simply struck at her because she rep
resented to him a system OF civilization
that gives nothing to one and every
tom of poison in the social ditch Out
OF what slime then was this evil hand
thrust forth to kill? AS heedlessly as
animals his parents gave him being.
and as heartlessly as only the human
animal can do his mother flung him out
to live or to die Unfortunately he lived,
and an institution robbed him until ten
of every semblance of home. Thrust
at
himself, money and it's power became
to his infant soul one god above all,
worshipful for ever. Then came a
young manhood Of unskilled labor, with
frequent starvation pinches. Then the
army, where without parentage to boast
of there was nothing for him but the
drudgery of exasperating discipline.
Then valet, actually in contact with
wealth though unable to rise and take
Of its pleasures. Gradually his souls
protests against fate soured him utter
ly, his intellect became a slave instead
of master, and at one fell stroke the
unknown evil of the ditch which So
ciety must cleanse sooner or later, be-
| came a power. His name will be re-
membered as long as that of the strick-
en- and afflicted woman whom he hur-
ried to the tomb Of the Hapsburgs.
The European Powers are aroused
and number of poor, misguided crea-
lures like him will probably be put out
of harms way in the next few weeks.
These learned governmental pundits
find it easy to kill and thus cure pa
tients, but they are neither wise nor
progressive enough to try prevention.
We may call Luchessi a fool; because
one or a dozen murdered monarchs
would make no change in social con-
| ditiOns except that the way would be
harder for the poor and dOwntrodden.
He and his like are wrong in expecting
society to quiver and shrink and dis
solve because of a hundred murders. It
will go man hunting relentlessly. But
! If he is a fool, what shall be said Of
| rulers that hope to cure anarchy by
Killing anarchists? They are only COM
| batting symptoms and still neglecting
| the ditch Of social wrongs that first
began to be dug back in the dark ages,
when lords knew little and serfs knew
| less. Unhesitatingly we can declare
Luchessi's method to have been wrong.
But it is a wrong that grew out of a
wrong; and If 1t be fair to condemn
him, it is right to condemn the condi
tions that made him brute.
Should all the sympathy be given to
the royal mourners? You can answer
No" without by a hairs breadth be-
coming mawkish in your sentiment
And the more you have known of de-
feat in your plannings, of industry re-
warded by id4eness because of condi-
| tions over which you have no control
of the steady dangling before your eyes
of the one skeletoni in your life that So
ciety refuses to forget, so much more
will your sympathies be divided be-
tween the Empress and the bastard
! SO longi as privileges are inherited in
| stead of won by merit; so long as the
beauty and joy and helpfulness of our
| later civilization are denied to one and
/ given to another for no reason except
| birth; so long as perfectly proper hui
| man aspirations to, eat and live and be
| decent are crushed out beneath social
| tyranny that arrogates the power Of
| God and says to the rising desires Of
| the human heart, Thus far and no
farther" just SO long will Europe have
| to deal with the anarchistic miasma
| that rises for blind slaughter; for, to
the misguided, government will seem
to mean that the interests of the many
are subordinated to the advantage of
| the few.
| SO long as illegitimates endure life
! long smirching at the hands of mud
| f1inging purlsts whose thoughts at least
are conceived in iniquity; SO long as
| the children Of the poor receive educa-
| ton that only shows the hardness Of
| their lot and still leaves them unfit to
grapple with it; so long as men can be
dragged from labor that pays to the
misery and inutiltty Of enforced army
service, conscious all the time that
their blood and their Drawn are simply
being used to bolster UP the ambitions
| of lordly chancelings on top; just SO
| long will there be anarchistic spirit;
for custom and law will seem to some
| poor souls simply devised to make life
uncomfortable and any change enjoyable
even though it lead to the grave.
| Such an episode stretches over the
social barriers of thousand years, and
proclaims in tones, insfstent and SOL
| emn, that the lowliest can reach up to
the highest to do damage. And its les
| SON is that the highest in raising the
| lowhest to better, more wholesome con-
ditions, raise themselves also and rem
| der life sweeter and safer for ALL Fur
| ther than this: the lesson is not for
Europe alone, but for America also,
and not for our neighbors alone but for
|