The Democrat-sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1906-1935, 1907-01-17

passed into history The date will b
marked by celebrations and exercise
honorng Robert Fulton's memorable
steamboat voyage on the Hudson rive
from New York to Albany Probabl!
no future hundred year cycles ent
will find In Fulton's achievement any
thing like the public interest attaching
to 1t Mt the close Of its first century
Steam is not to go for long time t,
come, but as n factor In the civilization
of the future 1t seems destined to droI
TO mt least second place in its owl
sphere. Electricity may not supplan
it at all points, but will do superior
things.
This year OF 1906 has demonstrated
in peculiar manner how much the
world Is indebted to steam in bringing
together people from the very anti
podes.
We say carelessly that electricity
places news from the other side of the
world on our breakfast table every
morning. But how little we would un-
derstand about what the czar's people
the Japs and the Hindoos and Chinese
are doing had not steam carried our
people among them and brought their
] representatives to our shores. Steam
carried the white man to the sea end
of the bloody lane which penetrates
darkest Ethiopia, and now when the
Kongo Zululand or Rhodesia we know
at a glance all it amounts to. Steam
plus steel nrrlor and guns has made
this country world power, but we are
not all imperalists and have human
sentiment enough to care how our
fellow beings fare day by day beyond
has built bridge of boats from our
doors to the doors of all nations under
the canopy. There is no unknown
world any more. How could there be
when man can actually circle the
earth in forty days, cutting the time
allowance In Jules Verne's imaginary
stunt In two?
AT the beginning of 1906 the thoughts
of the free people of America were
upon the Russian democrats. who were
struggling against oppression. A great
war had brought Russia's social and
political problems into the foreground.
Soon the center of interest shifted to
Morocco, again to Turkey, then to Bel
GUMS possessions in the Kongo Free
State. Wires bring the news. but it is
the intercommunication that has reach
ed its highest development in the age
of steam which makes the news worth
anything.
The powers Of steam have opened up
ttaly as winter resort for cultured
Americans, and when we at home We're
reading telegraphic reports of the up
heaval at Vesuvius some of our coun-
trymen were lodging ash showers and
scorching their feet in hot lava in order
to see the volcano working as natives
see it. Wires told the cities of the
middle west and the east that San
Francisco was near starving. and she
would have perished through famine
had not steam been on duty to carry
swift relief.
Steam development will not halt in
the face of the achievements by aero
motors and electric motors. People
demand still closer communication and
plan to secure it by the aid of steam.
The pan-American congress, meeting
in Brazil, brought to light the fact
that this great South American repub-
lie Is twice as far from our markets as
from European markets, because there
Is no direct carrying trade between the
two countries. New steamship and
steam railway lines are projected to
put an end to that state of things. But
care to be closer to the nations south
of us, and we now count ON steam to
bring lis near together. BY the aid of
the wires President Roosevelt kept his
hand on the executive key at Washing
ton while he was looking over the
work Oh the canal, but it is not likely
that he would have gone to Panama at
all but for the fact that steamship
lay handy with a record of six days
between the capital and the isthmus.
Looking over the earth today. the
eye of man finds his fellow every
where striving TO annlhilate distances
that separate communities. Steam Ia
the agent and promoter of this prog
ress. 1t has made the world very
small and created the need OF having
1t still smaller. Fulton deserves me-
mortal shafts and bridges and eulogles,
and the present era is the time to do
him honor.
Says recent Cuban dispatch: "rhree
japanese who arrived here on Thurs
day are being watched, They go about
in an automobile, They visited Ma
tanzas on Sunday. Apparently nothing
is known about them During the re-
public many Europeans are said to
have photographed the fortresses OF
Havana without any interference by
the officials" If the Japs are foolish