Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1901-01-11
WHAT THE OUTLOOK OF THE NEW CENTURY?
No Free Thought in American Colleges.
Many Changes to Come.

which we quote the following:
There were times, to be sure, when
political and religious fanatcism fettered all
| development, sought to extinguish science and
burned the scientists at the very stake. We
are certainly past that stage. Yet, to-day,
Tolstoi is communicated by Rome. was,
before him, and so were Catholics and Protest
ants, Darwin, Huxley, Renan and most of the
harbinse t to-morrow's truth. Why, hAave
it direct from eminent American professors that
in most Of the universities of the United States
they would not dare express their real convic-
tions on religious, political or economical ques-
tions, because their designations would surely
be demanded at once. 1t is the same thing p
England and Germany; and in France, Jean
Jaures, one OF the geniuses of the age, was re-
Gently refused chair in the College de France
toSlecture upon Socialism Your own admira-
Bile Henry George, if I rensmber well, died a
pauper after having been jeered at his whole
life long; and the lofty German apostle, L;eb;
knecht, was an exile for years, bounded out of
Germany as Victor Hugo had been out of
France. Yet, with what contempt we regard
that historical council that compelled Calico
to kheel and say that the earth did not move!
But, on the other hand, for such devastating
forces of retpgradsion as Bismarck, ClSmber-
lain and General Mercier, Tie wofld seems at
loss to find adequate honors and aduation; even
their most severe judges feel bound to temper
their. censure with admiring reserve.
';- It IS useless to delude ourselves. You may
tinker all you please, there will be no'true civ
ilzaton until the present social system is rad
jcally modified.
!, ,Eook in this country; honestly examine
yours; then search thorough all the others. In
justice and suffering everywhere; hdeors can
GERS gnawihg darkly at the very vtals of
society. All, il an angfy revolt does not this
very day convulse the world, it is because most
people 90 about like horses with blnkers on
both sides of the head-capable of seeing
nothing but what is Immediately under their
noses. ~.
Civilization indeed How ludicrous all this
mutual praise and self coneraWlation
Don't you, even now, through the jnglings
of vonr Christmas, hear the noans of the
different tribes, more feverishly than ever, get
ting ready for other onslaughts?. Have we yet
fou d better way to settle our quarres than
by wholesale slaughter of men?
ivilized? Not yet! Have you read Toll
stoi's books or mine, or those of hundred
other earnest explorers of modern society?
Have. not the strikes that constantly take place,
in your country as else where, taught you any
thing? Can any one deny that at this very
moment, by far the largest fraction of so-called
humanity is g1oanng under abuse and obsolete
laws; that the whole strength of governments
army, police and courts--s always ready TO
back the unrighteous exactions of small priv
'ileged class? a1
Have you not learned that there are, every
day, thousands-not hundreds, thousands!--of
men and women who die Of want, of cold, Of
disease unattended to, and that, too, frequently
after these miserables have given twenty,
thirty, fifty years Of their labor to the making
OF all that we enjoy?
Can you forget that children--little children
Ayecious as yours-are, this minute, suffering
famine and absorbing the germs of all vices?
Can you forget that in every hospital, prison,
factory, tenement, there are crimes that cry for
vengeance to Heaven?
,Ah, the sadness of it all! To think that
throughout the length,of the century just fin.
ished, great men have vanly cried these things
have pondered during long years of abnegatior
over these problems, and vainly pointed the
remedies. But they were mstrusted, misrep
rssented and Knocked by childish crowds, proud
of their nunberst