Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1904-01-27
RICHMOND PALLADIUM WEDNESDAY 81

j
sand been present, how many would
have dissented? And il they had dis
sented? They would have been over
whelmed in an uproar of disapproyal
1t was nine years ago that this senti-
ment was uttered. and among a thou
sand men there would be fewer to dis
sent from it today than there would
lave been then-a very significant ten
dency of things.
Revolutionary Thinking.
These are but a few among numer
GUS instances to remind us that here is
exactly the kind of thinking that a
hundred years ago in France caused
many man of good intentions to lose
his head, first in the general tumult
and afterward by the guillotine; exact
VOTED against absolutism under Louis
XVI, only to fall under the absolutism,
first of Mirabeau, then of Robespierre
and then of Napoleon; exactly the
kind of thinking that in its hatred of
royalty beheaded a king, and then in
almost the same breath voted moe
than a thousand to one to place a
military despot upon an imperial
throne.
Still more Here are books by the
hundred and leaflets and pamphlets
and papers by the thousand sent all
over the land disseminating the opin-
/ ion and the feeling that justice is to
| be had in our courts only by purchase;
this and similar opinions. Are they
read? Yes, and more. They are fed
! upon and brooded upon and passed on
/ to the neighbor; fed upon and brooded
upon by the earnest and sincere man
as well as by the agitator and the sui
] len malcontent.
Men of good intentions? Yes, many
of them, but we are to bear in mind
that good intentions are not an insur-
ance policy against evil consequences.
/ Good intentions, as rule, are back of
/ the manufacture of nitro-glycerin, but
/ its sensitiveness and destructive pow
| er are none the less for that reason.
/ 1t exDlodes just as readily from the
careless touch of good intentions as
from the conclusion of calculating dew
| iltry, and the destruction is just as
widespread and just as complete. A
hundred years ago rivers of blood ran
In the streets of Paris and elsewhere
! tributed to this red flood more than
good intentions; good intentions ex
/ pressed in isms apparently, but that
nevertheless led to anarchy and the
Reign of Terror. And the nitro-glyc-
erin in this case is the way men are
/ feeling and thinking.
! Silent Forces at Work.
This suggests the silent forces at
work: forces subtle bat potent; forces
as insidious as malaria and as silent
j in their activity as thought itself, for
/ Just as certainly and as silently as the
4 twilight of evening steals upon the
MONDAY to turn it into night, just so
i do these pernicious beliefs steal into
the thoughts of men to darken them
7 and as certainly as these things creep
4 into the thoughts of men just that GER
! tainly do they steal away the minds
i and hearts from Uncle Sam.
Not strikes. not riots, not lynchings,
not any particular outbreak or any
particular series Of outbreaks that at
1 tracts general attention; not anarch-
1 ism or socialism or democratism or
any other particular ism, not any of
I these but more; these are but mani
| festations of the condition of mind in
which they are conceived and out of
which they are born, but the nantes
| tations are no more the condition
! itself than the leaves and the other
drift upon the surface of the stream
are the current itself.
There is a process of nature called
eIectrolysis, sort of chemical decom-
/ position that is said to be eating its
way into the steellaid foundations of
/ the maiestice buildings that stand in
our large cities as monuments to nine
teenth and twentieth century enter
prise If this is true, and nothing is
done to circVmvent it, then one day
these proud structures will crumb1e
/ into ruin and when they go they will
take many human being with them.
But no man sees electrolysis doing it's
deadly work At the foundations of
this republic lack of faith in our insti-
buttons and want of respect for them
is the electrolysis that is at work this
day. To what extent no man knows,
but we do know that it is there; we
do know that it is ceaselessly at work,
and we do know that its insidiousness
is more to be feared than the mailed
warriors of all the world.
The Test Of Vitality.
So here in Marion is typical Amer
lean city; in these particulars a min
iature America; more, a miniature
Christendom. Take a map of Europe
and mark where unrest of a similar
sort is most significantly manifest.
The map will soon be covered with
spots, with this qualification-if you
take another map and mark where
intelligence is supposed to be most