The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-05-25
Problems Certain
TO Follow The War
From the Atlantic Monthly.


1P HE problems that seem likely to
follow the war are graver than
those that have led up to It; and If
III it be too late to ask whether we
entered into ii Without sufficient
delibcratiOn, II is not too soon to make
sure of every step that we now take. The
inspiring unanimity of the people in fol-
lowing their leaders proves to De as earn
est and strong as il ever was under any
form of government: and this popular nc-
quicsCcnCe i'm war puts a lew response
bility on those leaders, and may put our
institutions and our people themselves TO
II new test. A change in our national pol
icy may change our very character; and
we are now playing with the great forces
that may shape the future Of the world
almost before we know it. Yesterday We
were going about the prosaic tasks OF
peace, content with our own problems of
administration and finance, nation to
clves-"commercials," as our enc
mics call us in derision. Today we are
face to face with the sort of problems
that have grown up in the management
of world empires, and the policies OF
other nations are of intimate concern to
us. Shall we still be content with peace
full industry, or does there yet lurk in
US the adventurous spirit of our Anglo
Saxon forefathcrs? And have we come to
awaiting us at hCme, we shall be tempt
ed to seek them abroad?
O.
The race from which we are sprung Is
a race that for a thousand years has
done the adventurous and outdoor tasks
of the world The English have been
explorer, colonizers, Conquerors of CONT
ncntS, founders of states. We ourselves,
every generation since we came TO Amer
lea, have had great practical enterprises
to engage us-the fighting with Indians,
the clearing of forests, the war for indie
pcndCnCe, the construction of govern
mcnt the extension of our territory, the
pushing backward of the frontier, the de-
vclOpment of an FL Dorado (Which the
Spaniards owned, but never found), the
long internal conflict about slavery, a
great civil war, the building of railroads,
and the compact uniiication of a conti-
mental domain. These have been as great
enterprises and as exciting, coming in
rapid succession, as any race of men has
ever had to engage it-as great enter
prises for the play of the love of adven-
ture in the blood as our kinsmen over the
sea have had in the extension and the
management of their world-empire. The
old outdoor spirit of the Anglo-SaXon
has till lately found wider scope in our
own history than we are apt to remem-
Der.
But now a generation has come to man.
hood that has had no part in any great
adventure. In politics we have had ditl-
cult and important tasks, indeed, but they
have not been eXciting-the reform OF the
civil service and of the system of cur
rency and the Improvement of municipal
government. These are chiefly adminis-
trative. In n sense they are not new nor
positive tasks. but the correction OF past
errors. In some communities politics has
fallen into the hands of petty brigands,
and in others into those of second-rate
men, partly because it has offered little
constructive work to do. Its duties have
been routine, regulative duties; it's prizes,
only a commonplace distinction to honest
men, and the vulgar spoil of office TO dis
honest ones. The deCEne in the character
of our public life has been a natural re-
suit Of the lack of large constructive Op-
portunities. The best equipped men of
this generation have abstained from it,
and sought careers by criticism of the
public servants who owe their power to
the practical inactivity of the very men
who crtiCisc them. In literature as well
we have well-nigh lost the art of con-
structive writing, for we work too much
on indoor problems, and content ourselves
with adventures in criticism, II is note
worthy that the three books which have
found most readers, and had perhaps the
widest influence on the masses of this
generation, are books of UtOpian social
programmes (mingled with very different
proportions of TRUTH, by whose fantas-
tic philosophy, thanks to the dullness of
the times, men have tried seriously to
shape our national cOnduct-Progress and
Poverty, Looking Backward, and CONS
Financial School Apostolic fervoT, ro-
mantle dreaming, and blatant misinfOr-
nation have each CaptiVated the idle
minded masses, because their imagina-
tions We're not duly exercised in their
routine toll. 1t has been "A time of So
cial reforms, of the emancipation" OF
women, of national organizations of chill
dTen, of societies for the prevention of
minor vices and for the encouragement
of minor virtues, of the study of genealO-
gy, of the rise of morbid fiction, of jour
nails for "ladios," of literature for babies,
of melodrama on the stage because we
have had melodrama in life also--of crit-
csm and reform rather than Of thought
and action.
These things all denote a lack of ad-
venturuus opportunities, an indoor life
such as we have never before had q
chance to enjoy, and there are many in
diCations that life of quiet may have
become irksOme, and may not yet be nat
ural to us. Greater facts than these de-
note period also of peace and such we'll
being as men OF our race never before
enioyed-sanitary improvements, the null
tiplication and the development of uni
YerSticS, the establishment Of hospitals,
and the application of benevolence TO the
whole circle of human life-such a growth
Of good will as we had come to think had
surely made war impossible Is this
dream true? Or is it true that with
thousand years of adventure behind us
we are unable to endure a life of occupa-
tiOns that do not feed the imagination?
After all, it is temperament that tells,
and not schemes of national policy,
whether laid down in farewell addresses
or in Utopian books. No national char
acter was ever shaped by formula or by
philosophy; for greater forces than these
lie behind 1.-THE forces of inheritance and
of events. Are we, by virtue of our sur
Toundngs and institutions, become a diff
ferent people from our ancestors or are
we yet the same race of Anglo-SaXons,
whose restless energy i'm colonization, IN
conquest, in trade in 1.-THE spread of CIV
ilization" has carried their speech into
every part of the world, and planted their
habits everywhere?
0NE MONTH OE WAR