The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-12

incident to their public careers will
bar them from public life. Speaking
generally, wealth may very greatly in
fluence modern political life, but it
is not acquired in political life. The
colonial administrators, German or
American, French or English. of this
generation lead careers which, as COM
pared with the careers of other men
of like ability, show too little rather
than too much regard for money max
ing; and literally a world scandal
would be caused by conduct which a
Roman proconsul would have regarded
as moderate. and which would not
have been especially uncommon even
in the administration of England a
century and a half ago. On the whole,
the great statesmen of the last few
generations have been either men of
moderate means, or, if men of wealth,
men whose wealth was diminished
rather than increased by their public
services.
Lack of Analogy.
I have dwelt on these points merely
because it is well to emphatic in the
most emphatic fashion the fact that in
many respects there is a complete lack of
analogy between the civilization of today
and the only other civilization in any way
comparable to it, that of the ancient
Graeco-Roman lands. There are of
course, many points in which the analogy
Is close, and in some of these points the
resemblances are as ominous as they are
striking. But most striking of all is the
fact that in point of physical extent, of
IRENE velocity of movement, the present
civilization can be compared to nothing
that has ever gone before. 1t is now
literally a world movement, and the
movement is growing ever more rapid
considerable Influence exerted at one
point is certain to be felt with greater
or less effect at almost every other point.
Every path of activity open to the hu-
man intellect is followed with an eager
ness and success never hitherto dreamed
of. We have established complete liberty
pIete liberty for mental activity All free
and daring souls have before them a we'll
kind. ''----'--'7 -'---'e -- 0--'-e'''0i u any
Hitherto every civilization that has
comparatively few activities; that is, it's
field of endeavor has been limited in kind
as well as in locality. There have. of
course, been great movements, but they
were of practically only one form of
activity; and although usually this set in
motion other kinds of activities, such was
movements have been the pre-eminent
examples Of this type. But they are not
gols and the PhOenicians. at almost oppo-
site poles of cultivation, have represented
movements in which one element military
or commercial, so overshadowed all other
elements that the movement died out
chiefly because it was one-sided. The
extraordinary outburSt of activity among
the Mongols Of the thirteenth century was
almost purely military movement, with
out even any great administrative side;
80 g 1-as {J,a-sfora y1-aII 49, 1,1-aI-~ -
movement of destruction. The individual
prowess and hardwood OF the Mongols,
and the perfection of their military organ
ization, rendered their armies incompara-
bly, superior to those of any European. or
They conquered from the Yellow Sea to
the Persian Gulf and the Adriatic; they
seized the Imperial throne of China; they
slew the Caliph in Bagdad; they founded
dynasties in India. The fanaticism of
Christianity and the fanaticism of Moham-
them The vaIor of the bravest fighting
men in Europe was impotent to check
them. They tranpled Russia into bloody
rnire beneath the hoofs of their horses;
they drew red burrows of destruction
across Poland and Hungary; they over
Europe that dared encounter them. Yet
they had no root of permanence; their
work was mere evil while it lasted, and it
did not last long; and when they vanished
they left hardly trace behind them.
Phoenician Civilization.
So the extraordinary Phoenician civil
ization was almost purely a mercantile,
a business civilization, and though ii left
this impress was faint indeed com pared
TO that left, for instance, by the Greeks
the Greek civilization itself fell, because
this many-sided development became too
pense Of character, al the expense of the
fundamental qualities which fit men to
govern both themselves and others. When
the Greek lost the fighting edge, and his
statesmen grew corrupt, while the people
became a faction-torn and pleasure-loving
rabble, then the doom of Greece was at
hand, and not all their cultivation, their
intellectual brilliancy, their artistic de-
velopment, their adroitnesS in speculative
science, could save the Hellenic peoples
as they bowed before the sword of the
iron Roman.
What is the lesson to US today? Are
we to go the way Of the older civi1iza-
lions? The immense increase in the area
OF civilized activity today, so that il IS
nearly coterminous with the worlds sur
face; the immense increase in the multi
tudinous variety of its activities; the i'm
mense increase in the velocity of the
world mOvement-are all these to mean
merely that the crash will be all the more
complete and terrible when 1t comes? We
cannot be certain that the answer will be
in the negative; but of this we can be
certain that we shall not go down in
ruin unless we deserve and earn our end.
| There is no necessity for US to fall; we
can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if
only we have the wit and the courage
and the honesty
Personally, 1 do not believe that our
civilization will fall. think that on the
whole we have grown better and not
worse 1 think that the whole
the future holds more for us than even
the great past has held. But, assuredly,