The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1901-03-29
The President.

by appearances, weigh Is or 20 pounds
more than he did at his first Inaugural
ton and is in perfect fettle, yet it is
known by all who have opportunities
for judging that the presidential posi-
ton is what Mr.. Mantalini would
have denominate6 "a demnition horrid
grind" 1t made Grover Cleveland bag
gard and hollow eyed, and, whatever
else may be said Of him, Grover is not
a delicate or feeble person. He is
strong and big as an OK, but all the
same 60 days worry in the spring of
1898 brought great black rings under
his eyes, and he had to 60 fishing. As
Mr.. Mckinley stood in the rain speak
ing to the people he was the picture Of
health and manly grace-a matter for
congratulation all around.
Mr.. Mckinley is by nature an opti-
mist. Surely he can claim to have
written the most optimistic sentence
ever penned, "Our institutions will
not deteriorate by extension, and our
sense of justice will not abate under
tropic suns in distant seas"
humbly and fervently pray Al
mighty God that the presidential
prophecy may be fulfilled, but IL it
is we will have broken and reversed
all historic precedents. The pathway
Of man for 5000 years is crammed
with wrecks Of nations which did ex-
actly what we are doing spraddled
out all over creation, took into the
body polite hostile and alien peoples
and endeavored to assimilate them.
All those nations are dead. Let us
hope that we may escape this sad fate,
though we are following In their foot
steps. 1t may be that we are immune
to all the evils which wrought their de-
struction, but beg to state that we
have no evidence of that fact. Au con-
traire, as the French would, say, all the
facts go to show that we are only hui
man. Indeed Uncle" Shelby NJ. Gull
lom once confessed in a fine burst Of
confidence that even United States sen
ators are human.
.tence which have quoted Mr.. Nc
Kinley speaks of unlimited expansion
No pent up Utica confines our powers
The whole, the boundless continent is ours.
Not only the continent is ours, but
the graceful presidential orator Sc
renely informs us that "our institutions
will not deteriorate by extension"-ex-
tension anywhere, extension every
where. What rosy spectacles our chief
magistrate must wear! What warrant
has he for such sweeping statement
in the face of the sober but unpalatable
facts of history? Yet l hope he is
correct, for we are now entered upon
a policy Of all devouring extension.
We are committed to the doctrine, I'M
heard of till now, that we can't trade
proftably with a man unless we own
him.
Does History Lies
Our presidential optimist says, "Our
sense of justice will not abate under
tropic suns in distant seas" If it
does not, all history is lie. Alexander
must certainly have been gentle and
tender father to the Asiatics when he
conquered, Roman proconsuls never
plundered vassal peoples, and England
has been kind, nursing mother to the
East Indians and the Beers!
| undertake to say that no more skill
full or tactful rhetorician ever stood
before an audience than Mr.. Mckinley.
The sentence which l have quoted is
universal in application, positive in as
sertion, gorgeous in the policy fore
shadowed. 1t appeals to American
pride, to our inherent, ineradicable lust
of land. to the old buccaneer spirit Of
Sir Francis Drake, which is not dead
within US, and to our overweening ego
tism. The Greeks went to the deuce
on the road mapped out by the presi-
dent. But the president would have US
believe that we are superior to the
Greeks and therefore can do with per-
feet impunity what caused the down.
fall Of Greece. The Romans degener-
ated and were made the slaves of bar
barians for following the plan advo-
Gated by the president of universal ex-
tension. Rome became the Niobe Of
nations by adopting the Mckinley
theory. But that matters not to us,
for we are superior to them. We are
a peculiar people. They were job lot
of dagoes. They had such scrub poets
as Virgil and Horace, such inferior
orators as Cicero. Mark Antony and
Cato, such obscure scribblers as Taci-
tus, such one horse generals as Julius
Caesar. Pompey, Scipio Afrlcanus and
Belisarius, such statesmen as Octavius
Cesar, Justinian and Trajan; they had
such patriots as Brutus and the Anto-
mines, but we have General Shafter
and Rear Admiral Sampson and can
therefore afford to despise the Romans
and all their works!