River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-06-09

their fighting for them on land; and on
sea. where they did theirAown shghtings
i ana Fought very we'll. they refused In
time OF peace to make ready neets SO Ell
| nclent as either to insure the Dutch
i against the peace being broken or else
| to give them the victory when war
1 came To be opulent and iunarmed Is to
secure ease In the present at the almost
certain cost of disaster In the future
| IL is therefore easy to see why Holland
lost when she did her position among the
powers; but it is far more difficult to ex-
| plain why at the same time there should
| nave come at least a partial loss or posi-
| ton In the world of art and letters Some
spark OF divine fire burned itself out in
| the national soul. AS the line or great
| statesmen. of great warriors, by land and
sea, came to an end. so the line of the
| great Dutch painters ended. The loss OF
| pre-emlnence in the schools followed the
loss OF pre-enlinence in camp and in
| council chamber.
In the little republic of Holland, as in
the great empire of Rome, it was not
| death which came, but transformation.
Both Holland and Italy teach US that
races that fall may rise again.
Danger of Race Suicide.
| There are questions which we of the
great civilized nations are ever tempted to
| ask of the future. Is our time of growth
|
| soon to come under the rule of that great
law of death, which is itself but part of the
| great law of life? None cante1l. Forces
| that we can see and other forces that are
| hidden or that can but dimly be appre-
| hended are at work all around us, both
for good and for evil. The growth in lux
| ury, in love Of ease, in taste for vapid
and frivolous excitement, is both evident
| and unhealthy The most ominouS sign
is the diminution in the birth-rate, in the
| rate of natural increase, now to larger
or lesser degree shared by most of the
| civilized nations Of central and western
| Europe, OF America and Australia; dim
| mutton so great that if it continues for the
next century at the rate which has OBJ
tanned for the last Is years. all the more
| highly civilized people will be stationary
or else have begun to go backward in
| population, while many of them Will have
| already gone very far backward.
There is much that should give US con-
Germ for the future. But there is much
also which should give us hope No man
is more apt to be mistaken than the
| prophet of evil. believe with all my
heart that a great future remains for u.s.;
| but whether it does or does not, our
duty is not altered. However the bat
tie may go. the soldier worthy of the
] name will with utmost vtgor do his al
| loted task, and bear himself as valiant
ly in defeat as in victory. Come what
Will, we belong to peoples who have not
| yielded to the craven fear of being great.
Tn the ages that have gone by, the
| great nations, the nations that have ex-
panded and that have played mighty
part in the world. have in the end
grown old and weakened and vanished;
but so have the nations whose only
| thought was to avoid all danger, all eff
fort, who would risk nothing. and who
| therefore gained nothing. In the end the
| same fate may overwhelm all alike; but
the memory of the one type perishes with
| it while the other leg yes it's mark deep
on the history of all the future of man
| kind
In the first part Of this lecture I drew
certain analogies between what had oc-
| CURED to forms Of animal life through
| the procession of the ages on this planet,
| and what has occurred and is occurring
to the great artificial civilizations which
| have gradually spread over the world S
surface during the thousands of years
that have elapsed since cities Of temples
and palaces first rose beside the Nile and
the Euphrates, and the harhors of
Minoan Crete bristled with the masts Of
the Aegean craft But of course the
| parallel is true only in the toughest
and most general way. Moreover, even
i between the civilizations Of today and
| the civilizations of ancient times there
are differences SO profound that we must
| be cautious in drawing any conclusions
for the present based on what has hap
| pened in the past. While freely admit
ting all Of our follies and weaknesses Of
today, it is yet mere perversity to refuse
| to realize the incredible advance that
has been made In ethical standards. I do
| not believe that there is the slightest nee
essary connection between any weaken
ing of virile force and this advance in
the moral standard, this growth Of the
sense Of obligation to ones neighbor and
Of reluctance to do that neighbor wrong.
| We need have scant patience with that
! silly cynicism which insists that kindli-
| ness of character only accompanies
| weakness Of character. On the contrary,
just as in private life many of the men
Of strongest character are the very men
of Hottest and most exalted morality, SO
I believe that in national life as the ages
go by we shall find that the permanent
national types will more and more tend
| towards those in which, while the intel
lect stands HIGH character stands higher;
in which rugged strength and courage,
rugged capacity to resist wrongful ag-
gression by others, will go hand in hand
with a lofty scorn Of doing wrong to 9TH
ers. This is the type Of Timoleon, of
A Hampden, Of Washington and Lincoln.
Problems of Modern Nations.
Every modern civilized nation has many
and terrible problems to solve within it's
own borders. problems that arise not
merely from juxtaposition of poverty and
riches, but especially from the self-con-
seriousness of both poverty and riches.
Each nation must deal with these mat
tiers in its own fashion, and yet the spirit
in which the problem is approached must
ever be fundamentally the same. 1t
must be a spirit of broad humanity; of
brotherly kindness; of acceptance of re-
sponsibility, one for each and each for
all; and at the same time a spirit as re-
mote as the poles from every form of
weakness and sentimentality. AS in war
to pardon the coward is to do cruel
wrong to the brave man whose life his
cowardice jeopardizes, so in civil affairs
1t is revclting to every principle of
Justice to give to the lazy, the vicious, or
even the feeble and dull-witted, reward
which is really the robbery Of what
Drawer, wiser, ADLER men have earned.
The only effective way to help any man
is to help him to help himself; and the
worst lesson to teach him is that he can
be permanently helped at the expense of
some one else. True liberty shows itself
to best advantage in protecting the rights
Of others, and especially Of minorities.
Privilege should not be tolerated because
1t is to the advantage Of a minority, nor
vet because it is to the advantage of a
majority. No doctrinaire theories of
vested rights or freedom of contract can
stand in the way of our cutting out
abuses from the body polite. Just lit
tie can we afford to follow the doctrin-
aires of an impossible-and incidentally
Of highly undesirable-sociai revolution
which, in destroying individual rights
Gncluding property rights and the FAM
lily, would destroy the two chief agents in
the advance of mankind. and the two
chief reasons why either the advance or
the preservation Of mankind Is worth