The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-01-25
The Diseases of France.

II IL accounts agree that France is
\ in bad way, morally, socially,
! politically. Something Is going
TO happen-a revolution Of some kind.
Possibly foreign war might purify the
atmosphere sufficiently TO let France
recover from the complication of dis
eases from which she is suffering. The
Partisan correspondents Of the Ameri-
can and English newspapers draw
shocking pictures of the France of to-
day. Her social condition is more un-
wholesome than at any time since 1888
not excepting the commune period of
1871. One correspondent, evidently
follower of Max Nordeau, graphically
describes the situation:
THE dry rot permeates all of France.
1t is easiest to describe the disease as
anti-Semitism. as that is what one sees
on the surface. Papers like the Libre,
the Parole, the Patrie and the Petit
Journal, have been for years preaching
destruction to the Jews until they have
filled the weak and balanced brains
of their hundreds of thousands of
readers with the most savage ideas.
But In reality anti-Semitism is a symp-
tom and not the disease itself. The
true malady is degeneracy. The French
are no longer able to keep up with the
rest of the world under the tremendous
strain of the pace at which temporary
civilization moves. They have broken
down by the wayside. Their adults can
not adopt themselves to the new con-
ditions. Their youth are pitifully below
the standard of any past generation of
Frenchmen we know about From
every standpoint numerically, finan-
cially, mentally and spiritually, they
perceive themselves dropping further
and further behind their rivals. No
body any longer treats French opinion
with intellectual respect. Even Russia
having borrowed more of their money
than they could spare, laughs in their
faces and makes open overtures to their
enemy. 1t is the disordered, Informed
and more or less vehement rage at the
vague perception of these things which
is the matter with the French masses.
1t needs no prophet to see that they
will be much worse before they are
better.
Another four months says the cor
respondent, would bring the end of
everything. As it is. anything may
happen. But the most evil
sign of all is the way the army. or
rather knot of its generals at the top,
who typify the army. is becoming the
storm center of disturbance. These
generals have committed a series of
deliberate crimes TO maintain their
position; emboldened by each success
sive one by the discovery that the
populaee liked what they were doing,
they have completely cowed the civic
side of the government into accepting
a completely in these crimes" The
announcement of the minister of the
colonies that he had cabled orders to
put Captain Dreyfus in irons is dem
onstration of the extent to which every
consideration of humanity has been
subordinated to the false sentiment
about 1.-THE army" says the correspond
ent. when honest men are impelled to
protest against this verdict, vengeance
is wreaked upon the wretched man on
Devils Island, in the shape of added
tortures, and the Paris crowd imagines
with rapture his augmented misery"
The world awaits the outcome of the
situation not without anxiety. 1t is
possible that the end of this century,
like the end OF the last, will witness a
tremendous social upheaval in France.
The conditions are similar in very few
respects; but there is the same fiery
recklessness and impetuosity. the same
impotence of restraint, the same
passion to rend and tear. the same
madness: and probably it would take
very little to develop the same lust for
blood.