The record-union., 1899-07-02
PRESENT DAY THOUGHTS.
BY G. Grosvenor DAVE.

The Fourth and France.-The time
of the year now approaches when the
jsmall boy with fireworks will celebrate
the Declaration of Independence -
measuring the success of the present
occasion and the greatness of the past
event by the noise he succeeds in maxi
ing We who are grown up know very
we'll that blazonry of bunting and the
noise of cannon are not any sure signs
of patriotism; but we cannot deny
these things to the young, nor can we
question their value in keeping alive
interest in the past; for the young
need objective lessons-they need, as it
We're, to have a picture before them in
order to understand a lesson
/ We older ones, in hundreds Of
places, will listen to oratory, some
good, some bad. We shall doubtless find
I our speakers taking new texts, sug-
gested by the remarkable events in our
own history during the past year; and
! if the result of the celebration is to
make each of us feel that it is an inn
portant thing to be an American, and
that our future as a nation carries with
|
gathering ourselves together will be
good.
| Let US, however, while we rejoice
over the national life that is ours give
more than few thoughts to dis
tracted France, now rent asunder by
warning factions and momentarily in
doubt as to what it's future form OF
government shall be. We can well af-
ford sympathy, for France is knit to
us by many close ties of mutual SER
vice, and we may we'll indulge in anX-
iety, for the men of France in past
times have voiced many noble human
aspi1 ations.
Beyond all question, the Government
of France is largely failure, for
there is neither to the citizen of France
nor to the onlooker from abroad any
promise Of permanency about the Gov
eminent as it is now constituted. Sue
cessful administration of business at
fairs, education, the arts and sciences
of human life-all those things that
make a nation great-depend for their
power upon the stability of govern
ment. No great forward steps are
! likely in any direction, when a man
goes to rest at night uncertain as to
whether he will wake up in the present
century or open his eyes upon repeh-
| ton of the bloodshed Of a hundred
years ago.
extreme danger in men trying to run
government for personal glory and ad-
vantage or merely for the defeat of an
| hn ar@l fn
management of affairs occupy in the
truest sense positions of trust = to
| which trust they are utterly false
when they think more of personal
pleasure, personal profit and personal
triumph than they do of national well
fare Frances mark of popularity
during the past five years of continu-
| Gus turmoil has been the absence OF
any great, broad line of policy for ma
tional affairs. The officials of the army
| have tried to score points against the
civilian power The Socialists have
had designs upon both. The laboring
men have chung to the army and mis-
trusted the civilian power, and each
and all of these have clattered and
scrambled, fought and torn at each 9TH
err, like. lot of captured crabs in a
float, heldless of the fact that unless
they escaped they would all utterly per-
ish.
These sweeping assertions are per-
| fectly safe ones to make, even though
there exist in France at the present
time a certain number Of unselish,
noble men who would give up their
lives rather than see human hopes as
expressed by popular government
dashed to the ground. The unselfish
ones are not numerous enough nor dc
they occupy places of power sufficient
to color the policy of France in the
present day. During the Dark Ages
good men existed and shone like points
of light in an inky setting, but they
simply were known to be light with
out having any power to impart it
Thus in all ages and in all countries
our only way of judging is by finding
the prevailing tendency. lola, the au-
thor; Picquart, the military martyr;
Gohier, the daring journalist, are men
whose character and unselfishness and
courage might make any nation proud
But their voices and their pleadings are
like the faint twitterings of birds in
the midst of bowling gale, and only
too late will their prophesying be
found true
Unless a volcanic change takes place
the middle of the next century will see
France reduced in the presence of its
stronger neighbors to a condition as
weak and as helpless as that Of
Spain; for just as it's politics are heed
less and it's politicians self-seekers, sc
in it's social life there is lack of fell
lowship between the different classes
In it's moral life as we'll there is ex-
hibited the painful spectacle of a ma
ton morally mad-snatching with
eager hand at the corrupting pleasures
of the present, quite regardless of the
usurous demands that Nature will
make upon the future in payment fol
the present. The sacred power of wO-
men in uplifting man is forgotten till
she is regarded merely as a pleasure
giver. The great power of ideals is
swept aside because ideals take toe
long to work out, and if worked out
would only give pleasure to a future
generation. Glorious dreamings as to
things that are yet to be--the dreamer
Of dreams is the truest citizen are
surrendered in favor of the waking
nightmare of material grossness. Faith
in the unseen is dead. The restraining
influences of tradition are forgotten
and in one mad Dance of Death q
volatile people is gliding along to Z
destruction that is awful because it is
needless, and that is equally awful be-
cause it is based upon an abnormal
devotion to selfshness in every. form.