The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1910-05-20

,,-on laos and later on In an age
d, uithout coal--and will have to my 70
invent or develop new sources Tor the
production OF heat and use OF energy.
Rnt as regards many another natural
rosource. scientific civilization teaches
ms how to preserve it through use.
a plea for Conservation.
.sThe best use OF field and forest will
leave them decade by decade. century
by century, more fruitful; and we have
hardly begun to use the indestructible
mower that comes from harnessed wa
ter.
"The advances in the realm Of pure
intellect have been of equal note. Old
men among us have seen in their own
generation the rise of the first rational
science of the evolution of life. The
advances Of the past century or two
have been over more ground than was
covered during the entire history OF
the human race. The play of new
forces is as evident in the moral and
spiritual world as in the world of the
mind and the body.
"In this movement there are, the
signs of much that BODIES ill. The ma
chinery is so highly geared, the tension
and strain are SO great, that there 1s
cause to dread the ruin that would
come from a great accident, a break
down. and also from the mere wearing
out of the machine itself. Compared
with the Greco Roman civilization, our
only possible standard of comparison,
many of the forces and tendencies
which were at work then are at work
now. These forces and tendencies pre-
coded the downfall OF the older civili-
cation.
"Yet the differences between the
present and older civilization are
many. and some of them are quite as
striking as the similarities. The single
fact that the old civilization was based
on slavery shows the chasm that sep
arates the two. There is a further and
very significant difference.
Zone of the prime dangers of civil
lization has always been its tendency
to cause the loss of the virile fighting
virtues, the fighting edge. When men
get too comfortable, and lead too lux
urious lives, there is always danger
lest the softness eat like an acid into
their manliness of fiber. Now / will
not assert that in modern civilized so
ciety these tendencies have been who'll
ly overcome; but there has been a
much more successful effort to over
come them than was the case in the
early civilizations. This is curiously
shown by the military history Of the
Greco-R Roman period as compared with
the history Of the last tour or five cen
turtles here in Europe and among ma
tons of European descent.
in the Grecian and Roman military
history the change was steadily from
a citizen army to an army of mercen-
aries.
"Now, the exact reverse has been
the case with us in modern times. A
few centuries ago the mercenary SOL
der was the principal figure in most
armies, and in great numbers of cases
the mercenary soldier was an alien.
Gradually this has all changed, until
now practically every army is citi-
zen army and the mercenary has al
most disappeared, while the army ex-
lists on vaster scale than ever before
in history. Our own civil war was,
even more than the revolutionary war,
true citizens fight, and the armies
of Grant and Lee were as emphatically
citizen armies as Athenian, Theban or
Spartan armies in the great age of
Greece. Inevitably there was corrup-
ton here and there in the civil war,
but the leaders and, the great majority,
of fighting men wholly disregarded and
were wholly influenced by pecpniary
considerations. The fighting spirit of
the people was shown to better advant-
age than ever before.
Washington and Lincoln Compared to
Caesar.
Another striking contrast between
the modern and classic civilization is
found in the relations of wealth and
politics. In classic times politics be-
came a recognized means of accumu-
lating great wealth. Caesar spent an
enormous fortune and recouped him
self by the money he made out of his
STRIKING SENTENCES FROM Roos
One Of the prime dangers Of civil
cause the loss Of the fighting edge"