Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-01-03

spoils. Selfishness will rule the day.
The love of country will not exist,
but will be forgotten in the strife
for party and spoils. No longer will
there exist nation of patriots striv-
ing for national honor and greatness,
and even the tombs of the departed
great will lose their sanctity. Truth
will no longer possess value; mercy
and honor will be unknown; ears will
be deaf to the cry of shame; no word
of praise or noble act will exist to
mark upon a monument; wrong aud
destruction will stalk abroad and no
mercy will be shown to tears and
prayers, and greed will disrobe the
Goddess of Liberty.
This is the exquisite synoptic of the
events of the distant future. The
Quintessence of elegant misery; for
lorn situation.
To give all causes for the coming
disaster would occupy too much
space; but l viii give the reader a
faint idea of the future. This repub
lie will become the pauper's refuge
and the office-holder's paradise. There
will be Il credit Mobiler in every state,
county and city. We will have 10000
New York Tweeds, and $4,000 John
Kellys; with greater and lesser kind.
numbering many millions to devastate
and blight the land. This vast body
will act in perfect harmony, as they
will be united by the cohesive power
of public plumber. The press will be-
come venal and espouse the cause of
wrong. Right and justice will be
but mOckery. An empty presidential
chair will be prayed for. Then will
an American Cromwell rise to defy
and overthrow imbecility, wrong, and
robbery. Beyond this my vision does
not, cannot penetrate.
The past to many is yelled OBJ
security, but man should not pass his
life as does the brute that lives but
to batten on the moor, and knows not
the changes of the moon. God and
nature designed and bid man to adj
vance and become something more.
I must drop a vast number of adj
ventures and occurrences fearing that
| they would lack interest at this dis
tant day, and some would consume
large space. In one, L would have to
say / had dashed myself to the stays
of a mid-ocean, tempest-tossed ship
whilst leyiathan waves swept swept
her deck from bow to stern. and phos-
phoretic light flashed from the rag
| ing pillows, and heavens thunder
bolts carried away the bowsprit and
dismantled the yard arms; l have
faced the iron hail of artillery, and
met a bayOnet's charge without a
shudder, through which l changed the
supposed destiny of a nation.
l would have to tell you that with
hatless head and water-soaked cloth
| ing, chung to frail raft of spars and
witnessed many of my unfortunate
companions swept into eternity, and
my long and hard earnings all swal-
lowed up by an sea. Then long days
and nights of distress and horror to
follow through hunger and thirst
and the burning rays of the sun.
Many things have changed in my day
and since James Madison was presi-
dent. Steam now weighs the anchor,
mans the helm and sights the gun;
| but l must not consume space and
time in further resurrecting occur
rences from beneath the dust of ages,
but must present mere preface of
the past and of my day.
L could name many sensational oc-
currences of the long past, in one of
which sensatiOnaltragedyt took place,
occurrences almost beyond belief. in
terspersed with comedy, in which
would have to couple two centuries
and extend into two hemispheres and
embrace three generations, and in
which l would have to take junior
part in the tragic cast, during the
early years of the past century.
Sensation would follow sensation in
a manner to bewilder the imagination,
and it would eclipse any fiction ever
penned by man. \ plain recital would
sink the grandest imagination of the
renowned Dickens into insignificance.
Angels of light and fiends of darkness
would constantly appear and tears
of JOY would closely follow those of
sorrow.
1t would embrace love and law,
powder and diplomacy, revenge and
untimely graves and craftsmanship
and diplomacy. not of man, but of re-
fined women of historic nctc, and the
deadly battle of the Amazons.
AMBROSE c. FULTON.
(The End.)