The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1909-08-27
The Decay of Nations.


The most striking lesson of history
is read in the rise of nations from
obscurity to prominence until they
dominate all others. Then come
decay, decline and retirement into
the obscurity from which they had
emerged, while some other nation
when it can chance to find leader
rises to power and takes the place of
those that had gone before.
History commences in Asia with
the rise of the Babylonish Empire,
which dominated the earth for
time. Then it gave way to the
Persian, the Greek and the roman
powers. which followed in success
sion Cyrus. the Persian, conquered
Babylon. Alexander. the Grecian,
overran great part of Asia and
| Africa and established his capital
at Babylon. Romulus, an Italian
| brigand, at the head of a gang of
outlaws that had their stronghold
among the hills on the bank Of the
River Tiber. founded Rome, which
became the capital of a republic
which subsequently was trans
formed into an empire and
which subsisted for a thousand
years and held political. military
and intellectual mastery over the
then known world.
The power of nation is in the
physical and moral character of its
men. Brave. virile and actuated
by noble principles and lofty as
pirations they go forth conquering
and to conquer, and no inferior
race can stand against them. But
in time their bravest and best are
killed off in wars and adventurous
enterprises. and decay sets in to
which every such once dominat
people sooner or later succumbs.
| Dr.. Edward Willard Watson, a
prominent medical authority in
Philadelphia, writes: America
in its Civil War lost on both sides
probably two millions of men in
the pride of life, men who were of
the stamp who count not the cost. ="
Adventurous, brave. especially in
the volunteers of the earlier years.
these the bud and flower of the
race, were most thoroughly de-
stroyed. The canny, the cautious,
the cowardly, the conservative, the
humdrum remained, and to-day we
have an excess of them and their
children, who form trusts and ex-
plot kerosene and steel. Thus does
war avenge itself on nations, and
thus does man bar his own way to
the heights he might otherwise at
tain.
The American Republic is to-day
the greatest nation on earth, with
a destiny before it that will place
it in power and world control far
above any of the Nominations that
have gone before it, and yet it can
but feel the loss of so many of its
bravest and most virile young men.
Nevertheless, it is by such losses
that nations decay and hurry to
their fall.
Gibbon, whose story of the de-
cline and fall of the words greatest
empire, is monumental work
of history says: The decline
of Rome was the natural and
inevitable effect of immoderate
greatness. Prosperity ripened the
principle of decay; the causes of
destruction multiplied with the ex-
tent of conquest. and as soon as
time or accident had removed the
artificial supports, the stupendous
fabric yielded to the pressure of it's
own weight. The story of its ruin
is simple and obvious, and instead
of inquiring why the Roman EN-
pire was destroyed, we should
rather be surprised that it had
subsisted so long,"
Rome had plundered all the
nations of the earth and had
brought this wealth and all the
mOnstrous and unnatural vices of
the Asiatics to the great capital,
so that the rich and indolent wasted
it in luxurious indulgences, while
the wealthy demagogues and agita-
tors employed their means in buy
| ing up with free shows and free
food the favor of the idle populace.
According to Gibbon, swarms of
dirty and ragged plebians, without
shoes and without a mantle
loitered away whole days in the
street or forum, to hear news and
10 hold disputes, who dissipated in
extravagant gaming the miserable
pittance of their wives and children.
and spent the hours of the night
in obscure taverns and brothels. in
the indulgence of gross and vulguar
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