The Washington times., 1905-04-16
Is It Retribution7

Universal peace and happiness, ae-
eerding to the record of the ages, is
an iridescent dream and will con-
tinue SO until the millennium winds up
the affairs of all men, good and bad.
So it must be agreed that neither to-
day, nor tomorrow. nor yet the next
day will see the rule of law without
its blot of crime or the reign of peace
, without its shadow of discord.
There is balance-wheel, however,
to adjust our temporal affairs, gov
ernor" to keep hnmanity's great ma
chine from running wild There must
humdrum affairs of life as we'll as in
the affairs of state, In personal rela-
tions as well as government doings
1t is the sign of a present more direct
and evident punishment than the
voice Of theology promises in another
world. 1t comes with a directness
which makes the sinner quail, and
which has for the man of clean living
certain strange note of comfort,
albeit tinged with pity for an unfor-
tunate fellOw-man. 1t is retribution.
Whatever argument may be offered
more in detail, no other explanation
SO general can be suggested of the
pitiable circumstances to which has
come ex-Mayor Mcgowan, of Trenton,
! n. j. Fifteen years ago ne was the
! official head of one of the great
municipalities of the East, and was
pointed to as type of citizenship, of
! financiering, of budding statesman
! ship. In fact he was looked upon, in
the following years, as the probable
nominee of his party for governor
That was ten years ago, and be built
magnificent home which should
signify his prominence in the com
munity and be the sign of the future
greatness which everyone believed in
store for him.
! felt that he could defy all human
ideas of propriety, as well as divine
| law, and still continue on his prosper
/ ing way He tried it and today finds
| himself a charity patient in public
hospital-physically incapacitated by
an accident; mentally harassed by
business failures, morally an outcast
through public condemnation of the
acts of his private life. His fortune
of a million and half dollars, made
in business, has been swept away, his
friends refuse to condone his open
contempt of common and divine law,
he finds tprecarious living with wife
/ No. 2, while his lawful wife, whom he
scorned and deserted through the
subterfuge of an Oklahoma divorce
which was afterward judiciaily term
ed invalid, lives with her children in
sorrow and obscurity.
For a man who had reached such a
! high place in the estimation of his
fellows. his downfall is all the more
/ noteworthy. The degenerate child of
the criminal may rise sufficiently
! above his place in life to mourn the
curse under which he was born and
gladly accept the helping hand of
more fortunate fellow-beings In his
effort to struggle upward. But the
man Of standing who sacrifices all
! through wanton defiance of law, goes
on his way with wide open eyes and
can claim no immunity from the just
deserts which are surely in store for
him. One may recall scriptural
fragment: Il myself have seen the
ungodly in great prosperity and -four
ishing like a green bay tree but i'm
mediately there reyerts to the mind
the other parable of the chaff, which
; the wind scattereth away from the
foco nf tho earth -