The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-09-27
Who are the manageable girls going


to marry? This generation cannot
Judge the future by che past, for the
past does not interest them. The
present is their chief concern. Only
the old people who married half CEN
tury ago can appreciate che contrast
between now and then and the change
for the worse IS alarming. The mar
rage relation has lost much Of its se-
:r,iiousness, its solemnity, its dignity,
and consequently separations and di-
yorces have increased far more rapidly
than populate. q. During the past
twenty years population has increased
go per cent, while divorces have in
creased 157 per cent. What record
Of broken vows and conjugal misery.
Or. Landrum, the eminent Baptist
preacher Of Atlanta, said in recent
sermon, ssOur homes are in peril. The
foundations Of society are threatened.
Marriage is too often mockery. Di-
yorces are rapidly multiplying in our
courts and domestic depravity grows
apace.'
But legal divorces are but q small
proportion Of the number OF separa-
! tions, and q still smaller proportion
Of unhappy married people who suffer
and endure their conjugal misery
rather than mortify their children or
exotic a public scandal. A notable
lady of our town declared recently
that she knew Of but two happily
married couples in our whole commu-
nifty. Only two who are as loving
and devoted as when they stood at the
marriage altar. We all know many
who if not as happy as when first mar
sriied, are a. loving and kind to each
other, and their happiness is only
marrcd by the anxieties incident to
married life.
ST. Paul said, aThe love OF money
Is the root Of all evil, : and Ben.
Franklin said, 'sThe lack Of it is the
cause OF allmisery." Neither Of these
assertions are altogether true, but
they approximate the truth. | was
eliminating about the greed and self
sishness Of mankind, for I have been
reading about these trusts so much Of
late that like the City Of Shushan, |
have become perplexed and don't know
what is going to.be the end Of it. In
the Saturday Review Of September I'd
and sth, which is ladies' journal Of
great excellence. published in Atlanta,
there are two articles on trusts, writ
ton by Dr. Alfred Z. Seddon, an Eng
lishman, I believe, but now q citizen
Of Atlanta, which for cogsnt and
classic thought excites both admira-
tion and alarm. After setting forth
the many evils that will follow these
great combinations Of capital, he asks,
aWhat is pushing on this mighty
movement this great iceberg that is
going counter to powerful currents and
billows? Popular denunciation, the
press, the enactments Of Congress and
legislatures are like so many waves
spending their impotent wrath in vain
upon the monster. Trusts will con-
tinue to move on. They will grow in
power and will in time corral all the
wealth, the transportion. the produce
Of our mines and fields. They will
enlist in their service a vast army OF
toilers, whose dependence on them
will be soul crushing and absolute,
and they will bar out another army of
would-be toilers, who will have no
visible means Of support-and then
what? Towhat goal are We fastening?
Congress might as we'll try to prevent
the sun from setting on the west, or
to stop the down rushing, OF Niagara,
as to attenp. by Law to arrest this
universal trend Of modern commerce
towards trust"
Then DR.. Seddon writes Of the new
factor in American society-the factor
Of poverty, and says that its presence
and its power is not yet realized. He
quotes from the address Of welcome by
the Chicago Federation Of Labor to
the trades assembly: eve bid you
welcome in the names Of hundred
monopolists and fifty thousand tramps.
Here mammon holds her carnival in
palaces, while mothers are heart
broken and children are starving and
men look in vain for work. We wei
come you in the name Of hundred
thousand idle men and tonight we
will show you hundreds Of strong men
lying on the rough stones in the cor
ridors of this very building-ro home,