The Holt County sentinel., 1902-06-27
Great and Little PEOPLES.

The end of the Boer war is the
triumph of the idea of empire, the sig
nal for the suppression of the small
state. The war was as truly waged for
this as the Civil War was waged for the
idea of union. The South African war
was not fought for the obtaining of gold
and diamond mines, in spite of Lord
Miners reputed remark that If you
saw Boer sitting on a heap of gold,
wouldn't you 60 and take it from him:"
1t was not fought for the sake of en-
franchising the Uitlander, however fond
Iy he may have believed himself this
person of Importance. The war was un-
dertaken because there vas a rent in the
garment of empire, and to mend the rag
ged edges of that rent Britain could not
hesitate to risk quarter billion Of men,
anda billion and quarter in pounds
sterling.
The little people must 60. The Little
Peoples have been going since Rome as
simulated Palestine and Palmyra, since
she made Helvetia and Aquitania merely
a part, not a locality, OF the great TO-
man empire. They went when Charlie.
magne conquered, when Napoleon con-
quered, when Louis Nj. attached Bur
gundy, when Philip devoured the Meth
erlands. They went when Frederick ab
sorb-d Silesia and when Wilhelm at.
,ached Schleswig. Holstein. They went
when Russia and Germany divided Po-
land; they are gong IN Finlard: they
are being encroached upon in Scandina-
via. They went in Ireland, in Arcadia,
in the Transvaal. They will disappear
in Cuba, in the Philippines. 1t is the
fate of the little to be depress d by the
great. This is the age Of greatnes, ter
ritorially. Holland may hold out against
German covetousness and the Balkans
may remain the buffer states between
Slav and Teuton, but it will be at the
will of the great, not because of their
impotence.
Yet it is the Little Peoples that have
done the great work of the world, that
have pI oduced the geuui>es. The con-
traction of energy. The close rivalry
of individuals among the Little People
brings out the great individual. Brain
or Drawn, it is the same as Athens aud
Sparta witness Palestine was a country
of peculiar people, and stamped her peO-
pie inescapably. The Poles, scattered
over two continents, remain as distinct
at though Warsaw were still their CAPT
tai. The Fms are wonderful people,
and Switzerland is wonderful country.
England. itself, is nation of Little PEG
pie, the United Kingdom, made up of
four little peoples. Its isolation by
means of its insurlarity has been its
physical making. We remember that
the greatest military and the greatest
financial genius the world has seen,
came from islands Napoleon from Cor
sica, Hamilton from Nevis. Belief in
Little People is not fanciful. They have
been proven at every turn Of fortunes
wheel.
And now they are not to be- British
success in South Africa means the
strengthening of British boundaries every
where. on the Afghan frontier Abbvs.
sinian, even the Alaskan. When Greek
meets, Greek in the future. it will not
be as Athens against Sparta, but as
Russia against Britain, against the
United Statos. The chess men of the
world have become giants. Can the
Great Peoples produce the genuises to
move them? There is lad upon them a
greater task than that of acquiring t-r-
ritory. 4 big country tends to produce
mental mediocrity. II is the small coun-
tries that have produced great men.
History will scan critically the men who
are to direct these massive states. 1t is
not at all certain that such men can be