The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-12-28
THE OLD AND THE NEW YEAR.

Old Year has gone Welcome the New All
nations of the globe, enlightened or uncivil-
lied, noting the annual revolution of the earth
around the sun, divide time into years marked
by the procession and return Of the seasons.
This beginning with all, doubtless, is time
for retrospect and prophecy, an occasion for
balancing books and of turning over fresh
leaves, of adjusting the compass and trimming
sail for new courses.
The year that has just passed blessed us with
Astounding harvests; commerce and mining, |
manufactures and transportion expanded be-
yond the ability of capital to manage; nolabor
was unemployed, its rewards being fabulous
contrasted with wage earnings in other lands. |
Then there was halt period of depression, |
assessor of distrust. Recovery progresses grad
ualIy though encoursgngly. and those of dis
corning eye see ahead great encouragement for
our people in every department of human
enterprise.
The plan is commemorate of taking latitude
and longitude and finding out once in the year
where we are not only as regards ourselves but
in relation to others whose orbits touch and
intersect ours. Not financially only, but
morally, mentally as well. A maxim of The
physical universe, just as true in morals and in
the operations of the intellect, is that there is
no standing still there must be either advance
or retrogression. Our American people, as
whole, it may be predicted with justice and
sanity, are continually moving forward, losing
nothing by comparison with other nations.
Made up. as our population is, of contributions
from all other lands, the resultant product is
showing wholesome qualities and not dreaded
evils which might have been anticipated of the
welding of characteristics so diverse, not to say
divergent Every white nation under the sun
gives to this great conglomerate countless in
gradients to transmute into new race, full of
alertness and activity, equal to all emergencies,
awake to all the responsibilities of American
citizenship. The Celt, the Latin, the Saxon,
the Slav become mixed in new world with
resultant type promising greater powers as the
progress of each year is marked in industrial
development, intellectual broadening, the wider
scope of philanthropic effort, enlarged and no
bier civic aspirations. Under favoring condi.
tions, the benefcent influence of our institu-
tons, the pure metal is preserved and the dross
is discarded. Fear prevails on some sides. and
not without foundation that the flood of I'M
desirable immigration may hamper this result;
that we cannot assimiIate and Americanize the
elements seemingly so discordant, so unmixa-
BILE, under the processes of thought and tho
habits of action of our people. But there can
be no more doubt Of the early closing of the
doors against the criminal, the vicious, the
pauper, the generally unfit classes, than that
we shall gain homogeneity lending tonic
effect to our progress, and, in the future as in
the past, inspiring other peoples in the march
to true greatness, broader triumphs of genius
in science and the arts, and in all the achieve
ments of peace.
1t becomes every man and woman to take
part in this onward sweep. Ours is "a govern
ment of the people, by the people, for the peo
ple." None without voice, none without in
fuence. No mother with son but can pro-
mote the great destinies of our land. No man
so obscure but may aid with the freeman's
weapon, the ballot, to keep our land the fairest,
the best, the happiest, the richest on earth.
Probity, education, patriotism, public spirit,
all, are elements of national grandeur and
power, and each citizen may do his part, mod
estly perhaps, silently but effectually, if he re-
solves to be always on the side of law and JUS
tice peace, order. righteousness.
The New Year is an appropriate time to deter
mine afresh to be, not only better men and
women, but better citizens. The grandest era
of advancement and achievement is opening
to our country, as so soon as the passing finan-
cial troubles are over, as they soon will be, the
unreasonable crops of wheat and corn and
cotton already harvested and fastening to the
markets of the world, the treasures of the earth
whose development employs millions of men,
every artery of production and commerce filled
with the rushing blood of energizing activity,
all promise reign of infinite prosperity never
experienced before.
May every reader of THE UNION help bring
on this day and share in this good fortune.
A SINGULAR thing occurred in Judge Keedy's
court in Hagerstown on Saturday last A
young man named Hest was tried before a
jury upon the charge of stealing ham from
restaurant. Two men swore positively that
they saw him steal the ham and yet the jury,
after being out all night, came into court and
announced that it was unable to agree. TWAS
learned that they stood eight for acquttal and
four for conviction. In discharging the jury
Judge Keedy said: II congratulate the people
of Washington county that the case you have
been considering is the last case for the con-
sideration of jury at this term of court,
not the first, for if it had been the first would
have felt that it would be loss of time and
needless expense to the county to try any of
the criminal cases at this term. The court
recognizes that there are cases when jurors,
upon fair, impartial and unbiased considera-
ton of the evidence, may honestly and con-
scientiously disagree, but it does not seem to
me that the facts in this case present any such
difficulty as to make ii impossible or even
difficult for IL men, combining themselves to
the evidence, to reach a verdict"
THERE is talk now in Colorado of sending
Mr.. Bryan's daughter, Mrs. Ruth Bryan
Leavitt, to the Democratic National Conven-
ton as a delegate from that State in order that
she may place her father in nomination for the
Presidency. A dispatch says Friends of
Mrs. Leavitt desire that she shall have the
distinction of being the first woman TO have
speaking part in national convention halls.
They are active in campaign to elect her as
one of the Colorado delegates, that she may be
officially recognized. If she is not elected she
is to be allowed proxy. Colorado, being a
suffrage State will send one and possibly two
women to the convention. Mrs. Leavitt has
gone to Europe with her mother
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT has already completed
plans for his next vacation. He will go to
Texas to play hide and seek with the bears.
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
MINISCENCES-NOW AND THEN.
SIXTH DISTRICT, December 23d, 1907.
Messrs. Editors Before this reaches the read
ers of THE UNION Christmas will have been here
and the sweet cakes will have been cut and
passed around, with eggs, or no eggs, since the