The Forrest City times., 1910-06-10
ROMANES LECTURE GIVEN
 BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Event Postponed by Kings Death Attracts a Large Audience at Oxford Curzon
 Introduces the Distinguished American.

around Warsaw, Kief. Noveorod and
 MOSCOW, as the wild sayaees of the sleppes and the marshy forests struggled l haIunsly and stumblngly upward to 1 become builders of cities and 10 form | stable governments The kinedorns ~ l Charlemagne and Alfred were "naD, ., l compared with the empire on the Ros l phorus' they were also in every way diff
 ferent, their lines of ancestral descent had 1 hothlng In common with those of the
 poiyglot realm which paid tribute to the caesars of Byzantium; their social prob 1 Iems and aftertime history were totally l olHerent. This Is not true of those new | nations which spring direct from old na- l lions Brazil. the Argentine the United 1 States, are all new" nations compared
 with the nations of Europe; but with
 whatever changes In detail their civibza-
 ton is nevertheless Of the general Euro l 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 l which separate the new" nations one l rom another and the old" nations one rom another There are in each case very real differences between the new and the old differences 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 it's at tendant benefits and shortcomings: and alter the pioneer stages are passed, the problems to be solved in spite of superfi- clal 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.
 Sc. Hhen We speak of the death" of tribe. nation or a civilization. the term may be used for either one or two totally d3Herent processes, the analogy with what occurs in biological history being complete. Certain tribes of savages. the Iasmanians. for instance. and various lft- lie clans of American Indians-have within the last century or two completely died out; All of the individuals have perished. leaFlng 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. of the black men introduced by these white intruders; so that in reality they are merely being transformed into something absolutely ditferentl from what they were.
 A like wide diversity in fact may be covered In the statement that a civliza- 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 ized. civilized, or sem-civlized societies there is need of great caution in drawing analoeies with what has occurred in the development of the animal world. Yet even In these cases 1t is curious to sef how some of the phenomena in the growth and disappearance of these com plex. 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 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 its failure to become a dominant force Is patent to every one. The minute that the spirit
 which finds its healthy development in l local self government and in the antidote to the dangers of an extreme centraliza- l ton, develops Into mere particularism. | into inability to combine effectively for l achievement of a common end. then it is 1 hopeless to expect great results Poland and certain republics of the western
 hemisphere are the standard examples of | failure of this kind: and the United States l would have ranked with them. and it's
 name would have become byword of l derision. if the forces of union had not 1 triumphed in the civil war. So the growth of soft luxury after 1t has reached
 a certain point becomes q national danger
 patent to all. Again. 1t needs but little of 1 the vision of seer to foretel what must i happen in any community if the average i 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 l need arises If the homely commonplace l 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 ineNplcable. IL is l easy to see why Rome trended downward i when great slave titled farms spread over l what had once been a countryside of l peasant proprletors when greed and lux ury and sensuality ate like acids into the i fiber of the upper classes, while the mass
 of the citizens grew to depend, not upon i their own eNertions, but upon the state,
 for their pleasures and their very fiveif-
 hood But this does not explain why the i forward movement stopped at different 1 times so far as different matters were 1 concerned; at one time as regards litera- ] ture al another time as regards architec- ! ture at another time regards city ! building We cannot even guess why the ] springs of one kind of energy dried up i while there was yet no cessation of an- | other kind.
 Holland as an Example.
 Take another and smaller instance that l of Holland For a period covering a
 little more than the seventeenth century. 1 Holland. like some Of the Italian city
 states al an earlier period. stood on the
 dangerous heights Of greatness beside rla- ! lions so vastly her superior in territory
 and population as to make il inevitable
 that sooner or later she must fall from the
 glorious and periIous eminenee to which
 she had been raised by her own indomita-
 hle soul Her fall came il could not
 have been indefinitely postponed but i,