Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1910-06-09

| and E,no1,s 'ilo"h IN Portugal Spain
~ u England. The differences hatp,aa.,
r,iese new American ana 49, W., zen l,
U.hioi pean nations are not as great as tboss
| f separate the new nations 49,
f,ol n another and the "old" nations o,, ,s
,1 ' ehother. There are IN each 49,
~ ieai differences between the row ~
n,,a otu acknowledgements both for gond
tba III aoi evil; but in each case there is
| the 60. encestral history to reckon with
| tendant spe OF civilization, with its at
| oft DEMENT'S and shortcomings. ana
alter the pioneer stages arc nntss, a.,u'
r;a, s;ia 10 be solved, in spite of sunerfi-
| CO., o'itSrehces, are in their essence the
| a;,.,,:' .hey are those that confront oil
| naor,11- peoples not those that confront
n nt..,L, struggling from barbarism into
49,, "neh we speak Of the death" of
- ioe' nation or civilization, the term
ii era oe USED for either one or two totally
what processes; the analogy with
cow, IN biological history being
ipe'e' certain tribes of sayages tho
Idsilanlans. for instance and vario,,s ~
~ e cams OF American Indians have with,
'dsl century or two completely died
~ an or the individuals have rrr;sbed
uaNihs no descendants and the blood has
disappeared. Certain other trihas -
anuians nave as tribes disappeared or
~, now disappearing; but their blood
tba ,,.la:t pelhg absorbed into the veins of
int,a ",ite intruders, or of the black men
49, oced by these white intruders. so
.ilat IN reality they are merely he;ne,
a;esl<he into something absolutely
o-iieleht from what they were.
IKE wide diversity in fact NAV ha
tovereu IN the statement that ciyiliza-
ton has died OUT
Phenomena That Du,1Ia
IN dealing, not with groups Of hnr.n
beings in simple and primitive relatinns
put with highly complex, highly snecia1,
i' clvillzed, or semi-civilized societies.
there is need of great caution in dra win q
ahaioGles with what has occurred in the
ueNelopment of the animal world. Vet
even IN these cases it is curious to see
no" some of the phenomena in the
s,o"lh and disappearance of these com
pleA' artificial groups of human beings
elnnie what has happened in myriads
planet. " Ills
why do great artificial empires, whose
cltlzens are knit by bond of speech and
culture much more than by a bond Of
piooo' snow periods of extraordinary
growth, and again of sudden or lingering
decay! In some cases we can answer
readliy enough; in other cases we cam
~ as YET even guess what the proper
answer should be. If in any such case
me centrifugal forces overcome the CEN
trlpetal, the nation will of course fv to
pieces and the reason for it's failure to
become a dominant force is patent to
every one. The minute that the shirt
Wmch finds its healthy DEVELOPMENT in
local self-government, and In the antidote
TO the dangers Of an extreme centraliza
uon, develops into mere particularism.
into inability to combine effectively for
achievement of common end, then If is
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
would have ranked with them, and its
name would have become a byword of
derlsion, 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
patent to all. Again, it needs but little of
the vision of seer to foretel what must
happen in any community if the average
woman ceases to become the mother of a
family of healthy children, if the avera ge
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 gracefl self-indulgence, If the
virlle 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. 1t is
easy to see why Rome trended downward
when great slave-tiled 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
# {o,1 ,,tft
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 ARCHITECT
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 it
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
being such as often to
permit the separatst, 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 high-sounding moral
platitudes or else by philosophy of
short-sighted materialism. The Dutch
were very wealthy They grew to be-
lieve that they could hire others to do
their fighting for them on land: and on
sea, where they did their own fighting,
and fought very well, they refused in
time of peace to make ready fleets so eff
ficient as either to insure the Dutch
against the peace being broken or else
to give them the victory when war
came To be opulent and unarmed is to
secure ease in the present at the almost
certain cost of disaster in the future.
1t is therefore easy to see why Holland
lost when she did her position among the