The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1910-06-07
ROOSEVELT
OXFORD SPEECH
Continued from Page One.)


every one. The minute that the
spirit which finds it's healthy develop
ment in local self government, and IS
the antidote to the dangers of an ex-
IRENE Capitalization, develops into
mere particularism, into inability to
combine effectively for achievement
of common end, then it is hopeless
to expect great results. Poland ana
certain Republics of the Western He
misphere are the standard examples
of failure of this kind; and the Unit
ed States would have ranked with
them, and it's name would have be-
come a byword of derision, if the
forces of union had not triumphed IN
the Civil War. So the growth of soft
luxury after it has reached a certain
point becomes a national danger pa
tent to all. Again it needs but lit
tie of the vision of a seer to foretell
what must happen in any community
if the average woman ceases to be-
come the mother of a family of
healthy children, if the average man
loses the will and the power to work
up to old age and to fight whenever
the need arises. If the nomely, COM
monplace virtues die out, if strength
of character vanishes IN graceful self
indulgence, if the virile qualities
atrophy, then the nation has lost
what no material prosperity can Off
set.
But there are plenty OF other phe-
nomena wholly or partially inexpli
cable. 1t is easy to see why Rome
trended downward when great slave
titled farms spread over what had
once been countryside of peasant
proprietors, when greed and luxury
and sensuality ate like acids into the
fiber. of the upper classes, while the
mass of the citizens grew to depend
not upon their own exertions, but
upon the state, for their pleasures
and their livelihood. But this does
not explain why the forward move
ment stopped at different times, so
far as different matters were concern
ed; at one time as regards literature,
at another time as regards architec-
ture, at another time as regards city
building. There is nothing mystic
rious about Romes dissolution at the
time of the barbarian invasions; apart
from the impoverishment and depo-
pulation of the Empire, it's fall woul
be quite sufficiently explained by the
mere fact that the average citizen
had lost the fighting edge-an essen
tial even under despotism, and
therefore far more essential in free,
self-governing communities such as
those of the English speaking peoples
of today. The mystery is rather that
out of the chaos and corruption of
Roman society during the last days
of the Oligarchic republic there should
have sprung an Empire able to hold
things with reasonable steadiness for
three or four centuries. But why, for
instance, should the higher kinds of
literary productiveness have ceased
about the beginning of the second
century, whereas the following cen
turtles witnessed a great outbreak of
energy in the shape or city building
in the provinces, not only in western
/ Europe, but in Africa? We cannot
even guess why the springs of one
kind of energy dried up while there
was yet no cessation of another kin,
Take another and smaller instance,
that Of Holland. For a period cover
ing a little more than the seventeenth
century, Holland, like some of the
Italian city states at an earlier period
stood on the dangerous height of
greatness beside nations so vastly her
superior in territory and population
as to make it inevitable that soone
Or later she must fall from the glo-
rious and perilous eminence to which
she had been raised by her own indo-
mitable soul. Her fall came; it
could not have been indefinitely post
poned; but it came far quicker than
it needed to come, because of short
comings on her part to which both
Great Britain and the United States
would be wise to pay heed. Her
government was singularly ineffec-
tive, the decentralization being such
as often to permit the separatist, the
particularist, spirit of the provinces
to rob the central authority of all eff
cheney. This was bad enough. But
the fatal weakness was that so COM
mon in rich, peace-loving societies,