The daily sentinel., 1907-10-03

West. using the term to deLote tina
great group of rich and powerful
States which literally forms th'
heart of the country 1t is region
whose people are distinctiyely Amer
lean in all thoughts, in all their way.
of looking at life; and in the pas
and its present alike 1t is typical ol
our country. The oldest men present
can still remember the pioneer days
the days of the white-tilted OK wagon
of the emigrant. and of the log cabin
in which that emigrant first lived
when he settled to his task as a pio-
neer farmer They were rough days
days Of hard work. and the people
who did that work seen themselves
uncouth and forbidding to visitors
who could not look below the sur
face. 1t Is curious and amusing to
think that even as genuine a lover of
his kind, a man normally so free
from national prejudices as Charles
Dickens, should have selected the re-
gion where we are now standing as
the seat of his forlorn Eden" in Mar
tin Chuzzlewlt. The country he so
bitterly assailed is now one of the
most fertile and producing portions
of ole of the most fertile and pro-
ductive agricultural territories in all
the world, and the dwellers in this
territory represent a higher average
of comfort. intelligence, and sturdy
capacity for self-government than the
people in any tract of like extent in
any other continent. The land teens
with beauty and fertility, and but a
score of years after Dickens wrote
il was shown to be a nursery and
breeding ground for heroes, of sold
iers and statesmen of the highest
rank. while the rugged worth of the
rank and file of the citizenship rem
dered possible the deeds of the Nigh
ty men who led in council and inbat-
tie. This was the region that brought
forth mighty Abraham Lincoln, the
incarnation of all that is best III dem
ocratic- life and from the loins of the
same people, living only little
farther south, sprang another of our
president. Andrew jackson,
odd Hickory man who made
like most strong men, but
A man of iron will and incorruptible
fearless, upright, devoted
to the welfare of his countrymen.
bone of our bone ard flesh of our
flesh, a typical American II ever there
was one.
l commend careful reading of
Martin Chuzzlewit to the pessimists
of today, to the men who, instead of
fighting hard to do away with abuses
while at the same time losing no jot
Of their buoyant hopefulness for the
insist that all our people.
socially and industrially. in their pri-
vate lives no less than politicians,
men, and business men,
are at lower ebb than ever before.
II ever any one of you feel a little
downcast over the peculiarly gloomy
view of the present taken by some
well meaning pessimist of today. you
will find 1t real comfort to read
Martin Chuzzlewit. to see what a
well meaning pessimist of the past
thought of our people sixty-five years
ago; and then think of the extraor-
dinary achievement. the extraordin-
airy gain, morally no less than ma
terially, of those siNty-five years.
Dickens can be read by us now with
profit; Elijah Pogram. Hannibal
jefferson Brick and Scadder
have their representatives today.
plenty of them; and wise thing for us
to do Is to recognize that these are
still types of evil in politics journal