The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1898-09-17
A GENTLE RsyOLuTlONlsr.

In a recent letter from Washington,
Champ Clark, thee Missouri congress
man, says: 1sti-''
OF all The COUNTLESS sons of Adam I
think a gentler Spirit never lived to
bless his kind than oliver Goldsmith. A
kinder heart never beat in human boz
som. Indeed, hi, exceeding kindness
was his financial ruin His was not
only theoretical kindness: it was ex-
tremely practital-,so practical that his
indiscrlminate Charity kept him in pow
erty and in debt So long as he lived, not
withstanding the large Sums he earned
with his pen Greater men there have
been, but a better loved one never. His
name still remains and will forever re-
main as synonym for gentleness, be-
nevolence, loving Kindness. The man
who would represent Goldsmith to be
revolutionist or an enemy of mankind
would write himself down an ass
In 176S or 1869 he wrote 1.-The Desert
ed Village" which has become classic
native village of Lishoy, in Ireland, and
the ruin which had come upon 1t by
reason of the concentration of the own
ership of all the land in the neighbor-
hood into the hands Of one man.
In this poem occurs the quotation so
familiar to the ears of men:
Ill fares the land. to fastening ills a prey.
Where wealth accunulates and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade:
a breath can make them. as a breath has made
But bold peasantry their country's pride.
When once destroyed can be supplied.
With prophetic eye the poet looked
forward to the present time, when. un-
der the benign influences of Mckinley
ism. Dingleyism and the single gold
standard, New England farmers would
be starved out. and abandoned farms
would abound on every hand in what
was once thriving agricultural region.
Fle drew this picture. which, after the
lapse Of 1870 years, is true to nature, to
A time there was. l:ngland's griefs began.
When every rood of ground maintained it's man.
For him light Labor spread her wholesome store.
Just gave what life required. hut gave no
His best companions, innocence and health
And his hest riches. Ignorance of wealth.
But times altered. Trades unfeeling train
l's,lrp the land and disrussess the swain
Along the lawn. where scattered hamlets rose.
Unwicldy wealth and cunbrous porlp rcpose.
And every want to luxury allied.
AM, every rang that folly pays to pride
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room.
Those hcalthful sports that graced the peaceful
Lived in each nook and frightened all the green.
These. far departing. seek IL kinder shore.
And rural mrth and manners no more.
Even in the fertile agricultural sec
lions of the West, even in the Mississip-
pi valley the richest large body of farm
ing land in theSworld. the substitution
of the tenant farmer for the owner OF
the soil goes on apate, to the detriment
of the state.
The last censts developed the saddest
fact that I ever read-that nearly one
half of American householders do not
own their homes. Almost half the IA
theirs and mothers, husbands and wives
of the land are houseless and homeless
in country which less than 400 years
ago WIS d IOWilNS WlluefueSS, WHICH
800 years ago was still virgin soil
When I was ailittie child, my father
used to put me to sleep at night by sing
ing TO me a song entitled Uncle Sam
is Rich Enough to Give Us All Farm"
He was then. but our dear uncle is
busted" now as to land because unwise
and reckless congresses granted to cor
| porations enough land to make half a
dozen states as big as Missouri Con-
| ditions in this country have grown
worse rather than better since 1890, the
date of the last census. That much can
be stated, hope, without laying myself
open to the charge of pessimism or
anarchy. If practically SO per cent of
our householders were renters in 1890,
and times have grown worse since then,