Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1905-07-05
TERMS:
WHAT WE CELEBRATED.

/ HeltS celebrated the Fourth in the us
uai American way. but how many gave
a thought to what they We're really
that we have American life all about
us until we become so accustomed TO
other kind of n country, or that there Is
any other kind today, and he suggests
| travel abroad for every young man In
| the United States. to make him Il real
American citizen, predicting That every
such citizen will return living, think
inf Fourth of July.
And it is true. Amid the explosions
of dynamite cap and cannon cracker.
thru the whirl of the merry go round,
and during the hawking of the street
vendors and carnival BARRIERS, great
multitudes celebrated but few of us
thought of making comparison with
the same multitudes IN Russia, for in
stance. There Millet's picture of "'rhe
Man With the Hoe stands for the
Russian nation as truly as does the
goddess of plenty represent life In the
United States. While we read from the
Declaration of Independence "all men
are created equal, that they are en-
lowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of hap
piness." and see In these words the
whole panorama of American life. the
full expression of American citizen
ship we must turn for word photo
graph of the Russian life, to Edward
Markham's poem, which reads In
violent contrast:
Bowed by the weight Of centuries he
leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground.
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the
World.
Who made him dead to rapture and
despair,
A thing that grieves not and that
never hopes,
OK?
Who loosened and let down this brutal
jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back
this brow?
in this brain?
Thru this dread shape the suffering
ages look:
Times tragedy is in that aching stoop:
Thru this dread shape humanity be-
trayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the judges of the
World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O, masters, lords and rulers in all
lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing, distorted and
soul quenched!
How will you ever straighten UP this
Touch it again with Immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the
light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream:
Make right the immemoral infamies,
PerfidiDus wrongs, immedicable woes?
While in the United States the coun-
try folk live in luxury, freedom and in
telligence the peasants of Russia are
dying by the thousands from starva-
ton, too ignorant to till the soil With
out exhausting it's fertility, and taxed
to such poverty that they have neither
horses, tools nor machinery. save the
wooden hoe Of Millets picture, with
which to do farm work. When they
seek food and factory work in the cities
they get drunk on vodka and are shot
down by the Cossacks for rioting.
American citizens, rejoicing in full
stomachs, glorious crop prospects
schools for everybody, good clothes and
spending money, a government so free
that every man can prosper if he will
and system of public education that
will teach his children to prosper If
he will not, should remember what he
is celebrating on the Fourth of July.
If he hasn't Travelled abroad, to return
a living, thinking Fourth of July" let
him turn to the newspapers, maya
zines and current literature of the day
for picture of citizenship in Russia.
which he may use as background up
on which to view the glorious light of
American life, its institutions, govern
ment and citizenship.
HONEST, YET A THIEF.
Another bank has come to grief by