The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-01-09

Itertainment. We like. story for its
own sweet sake. We want to be car
ried away at times out of the prosaic,
monotonous toll and grind of life into
some enchanted land where joy with
out a cloud and love without alloy
abound on every side. We want 10
make pilgrimages into that beautiful
fairy world that the imagination
creates. We do not want the novelist
to 1horalize us too much This only
we insist on, he must not teach or sug-
aest things immoral He must not lead
us to the mouths of moral sewers. We
want to walk on the clean, clear mount
ain nights and breathe the purest,
sweetest moral atmosphere. Books like
"Trilby" may be fascinating, but they
leave a bad taste in the mouth and we
turn from them with something akin
to disgust. Though the popular novel,
Quo Vadis," was written with a moral
purpose, vet after you have put it down
you feel that there has filtered into your
mind sort of sewer faint that is not
morally heaDthful. How different it is
when you sit Beside the Bonnie Brier
Bush.' The moral atmosphere is as
sweet as apple blossoms in May. You
carry away with you thoughts and de-
sires as pure as the crystal dome of
Paradise. There are novelists who un-
der the plea of realism transgress
the canons of morality and decency.
Tennyson inveighs against these with
righteous vigor in 'Locksley HALF:
Authors, atheist, essayist, novelist,
rhymester play, your part,
l of of Vxyifb
the living hues of art;
Rip your brothers vices open, strip your
own foul passions bare,
Down with reticence, down with revar-
ence, forward, naked, let them stare.
Feed the budding rose of boyhood with
the drainage of your sewer,
Send the drain into the fountain, lest the
| stream should issue pure.
Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the
Toughs of Zolaism,
Forward, forward aye, and backward,
downward too. into the abysm.
In the frieze of the entrance hall of
Chicago's magnificent Public Library is
an Egyptian motto which translated
reads: Il will make thee to love liter
allure, thy mother, I will make its
beauties pass before thee
| There are a number of graves, some
on this side and some on the other
side the sea, that preach to US earnest
sermons on the great social and indus
| trial problems that confront us and
demand solution. Sir George Smyth
Baden Powell, writer on political
economy, died in November last David
Ames Wells of our own country died
about the same time. Mr.. Wells was
one of our ablest writer's on questions
| or finance and taxation. He served
| the Republic under Lincoln In 1874
he was elected by the French Academy
| to fill the place made vacant by the
death of John Stuart Mill. He was an
able advocate of free trade He was
a lifelong student of industrial prob
lens. Another writer on industrial and
social problems, though of different
order, was Edward Bellamy. His book
Looking Backward had a most phe-
nomen3l success in drawing the atten-
ton of high and low to social condi-
tons. Men may try to disparage it by
calling it the work of imagination.
The same, I suppose, may be said of
Plato's Republic and More's ssUto-
pia," and Augustine's Getty of God"
Dante's Divine Comedy" Millions
Paradise Lost and Tennyson's sIdylls
of the Kings" are works of the mag
ination. But have they not served to
hold up before the world higher ideals
of life and duty? We need the political
economist with his facts and figures,
and we need the novelist and the poet
and the orator with their imagination
to outline and picture before us more
| golden future a more rational condi-
ton of life than at present prevails
among us. The man who is satisfied
with the existing conditions of things
has a low estimate of the possibilities
Of human existence. There is surely
something better for mankind than we
| have yet attained. AS a nation we
have made enormous strides in wealth.
getting during the last quarter century
But it is question whether the people
as a whole have shared in these gains.
More and more do we see that the
wealth of the nation is centering in the
hands of the few Almost every week
we read of the formation of some new
trust or combine. The tendency of all
| these combines is to centralize wealth
in the hands of a few. Writers and
students of social problems are a unit
in the conviction that this nation is
in danger of a plutocracy. It is a
fact that Legislatures and even our
courts of justice are unduly and I'M
righteously influenced by large ac-
/
constituencies corporations. In multi
tude of cases the many have been i'm
poverished that the few might be
enriched There is a social discomfort
| throughout the land that statesmen
and lovers of the Republic cannot af
ford to ignore One of the wisest ut
terances I have listened to in many a
day was the grafton given last Wash
ington's Birthday by ex-President Har-
rison on THE Responsibilities Of
Wealth" He showed in clearest, sober
est language how wealth was Sinking
responsibilities and putting burdens on
the poor. We make no foolish war on
wealth. In the socialists dream of a
dull monotonous level of human society
I take no part. 1t is favorite saying,
| that all men are equal, and that one
man is as good as another man. AS a
matter of fact all men are not equal
| The Almighty has not created all men
equal. They are not equal physically.
| The man who is five feet high and
weighs ITO pounds is not equal phys
| ically to a man who is six feet high
and weighs 200 pounds. Men are not
equal intellectually. Shakespeare's
brain was richer and more creative a
thousand times over than the brain of
ordinary men. Every man has a mouth,
but every man cannot speak with the
eloquence of Webster. Every man has
hand, but every man cannot paint
as Raphael or carve as PhidiaS. Every
woman has a voice, but every woman
cannot sing as Jenny Lind. The fact
| is, God has made some men to lead and
some men to follow We need Cap