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

around Warsaw, Kief, Novgorod, and
Moscow, as the wild savages of the
steppes and the marshy forests struggled
haltingly and stumblingly upward to
become builders Of cities and to form
stable governments. The Kingdoms OF
Charlemagne and Alfred were new"
compared with the empire on the Bos-
phorus; they were also in every way diff
ferent; their lines Of ancestral descent had
nothing in common with those OF the
polyglot realm which paid tribute to the
Caesars Of ByZantium; their social prob
lens and aftertirne history were totally
different. This is not true of those new"
nations which spring direct from old ma
tons. Brazil, the Argentine, the United
States, are all new nations. compared
with the nations of Europe; but with
whatever changes in detail. their civjliza-
ton is nevertheless of the general Euro
pean type, as shown in Portugal, SPAIN
and England. The differences between
these new" American and these "old
European nations are not as great as those
which separate the new" nations one
from another and the 'old" nations one
from another. There are In each case
very real differences between the new and
the old nation-differenc, both for good
and for evil; but in each case there Is
the same ancestral history to reckon WITH
the same type of civilization, with its at
tendant benefits and shortcomings; and
dlleT the pioneer Stages are pdSSSu, IilC
problems to be solved, in spite of superb
cial differences, are in their essence the
same; they are those that confront all
civilized peoples, not those that confront
peoples struggling from barbarism into
civilization.
So, when we speak Of the death" Of
a tribe, nation or a civilization, the term
may be used for either one or two totally
different processes; the analogy with
what occurs in biological history being
complete. Certain tribes Of savages, the
Tasmanians. for instance, and various lit
tie clans of American Indians, have within
the last century or two completely died
out; all Of the individuals have persisted.
leaving no descendants, and the blood has
disappeared Certain other tribes of
Indians have as tribes disappeared or
are now disappearing; but their blood
remains being absorbed into the veins OF
the white intruders, or Of the black men
introduced by these white intruders; so
that in reality they are merely being
transformed into something absolutely
different from what they were.
A like wide diversity in fact may be
covered in the statement that civil1za-
ton has ''died OUT
Phenomena That Puzzle.
In dealing, not with groups of human
beings in simple and primitive relations,
but with highly complex, highly special
lied, civilized, or semi-civilized societies,
there is need Of great caution in drawing
analogies with what has occurred in the
development of the animal world. Yet
even in these cases 1t is curious to SEE
how some Of the phenomena in the
growth and disappearance of these COM
pick, artificial groups Of human beings
resemble what has happened in myriads
of instances in the history Of life on this
planet.
Why do great artificial empires, whose
citizens are knit by a bond of speech and
culture much more than by a bond Of
blood, show periods of extraordinary
growth, and again Of sudden or lingering
decay? In some cases we can answer
readily enough: in other cases we can
not as yet even guess what the proper
answer should be- If in any such case
the centrifugal forces overcome the CEN
tripetal, the nation will Of course fly to
pieces, and the reason for it's failure to
become a dominant force is patent to
every one. The minute that the spirit
which finds its healthy development in
local self government, and in the antidote
to the dangers of an extreme centraliza-
ton, develops into mere particularism,
into inability to combine effectively for
achievement OF common end, then 1t Is
hopeless to expect great results. Poland
and certain republics of the western
hemisphere are the standard examples Of
failure OF THIS k1nQs ana the united states
would have ranked with them, and it's
name would have become 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
certain point becomes national danger
patent to ALL Again, 1t needs but little Of
the vision Of a seer to foretell what must
happen in any community If the average
woman ceases to become 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 homely commonplace
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
offset.
But there are plenty of other phenom-
ena wholly or partially inexplicable. It is
easy to see why Rome trended downward
when great slave-tilled farms spread over
what had once been a countryside of
peasant proprietors, when greed and lux
ury 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 very liveli-
hood. But this does not explain why the
forward movement stopped at different
times, SO far as different matters were
concerned; at one time as regards litera-
ture, at another time as regards architec-
ture, at another time as regards city
building. We cannot even guess why the
springs of one kind of energy dried up
while there was yet no cessation Of an
other kind
Holland as an Example.
Take another and smaller instance that
of Holland For a period covering a
little more than the seventeenth century,
Holland, like some of the Italian city
states at an earlier period, stood on the
dangerous heights of greatness beside ma
tons so vastly her superior in territory
and population as to make 1t inevitable
that sooner or later she must fall from the
glorious and perilous eminence to which
she had been raised by her own indomita-
BILE soul. Her fall came; 1t could not
have been indefinitely postponed; but 1t
came far quicker than 1t needed to come,
because of shortcomings on her part to
which both Great Britain and the United
States would be wise to pay heed Her
government was singularly ineffective, the
decentralization being such as often to
| permit the separatist, the particularist,
| spirit of the provinces to rob the central
| authority of all efficiency This was bad
enough. But the fatal weakness was that
so common in rich. peace-loving societies.
where men hate to think Of war as posi-
BILE, and try to Justify their own reluctance
| to face it either by Understanding moral
| platitudes or else by a philosophy of
| short-sighted materialism. The Dutch
| were very wealthy. They grew to be-
! leve that they could hire others to do