The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1911-06-15
DON'T BE A GOOD OLD DAYS
MAN.

tCopyrisnt, 1911, by re Sunday
American-Journal-E Examiner
One of the great men of to-day,
when asked recently in Chicago
why he did not write the story
life, said:
Il am little bit weary of doing
that. AS soon as man begins
talking about what he has done, in
stead of what he is going to do, it
is a pretty safe guess that he has
accomplished all he ever will
The old live in the past. They
have right to, for it is their past;
they made it, and if they can get
enjoyment from thinking of it they
are surely entitled to it.
But among the people of the
present we find many of those who
continuall[ find fault with things
as they are. comparing them to their
disadvantage with things as they
used to be, and wondering why the
age does not turn backward, as
Time was advised to in the song,
and travel to the old days, the
good old days of long ago.
Happily the ruling spirit of this
universe did not ordain that any
such retrogression was to be.
whether they like it or not, men
must travel upward instead of
downward. They have no more to
say as to the direction of their
progress than the cattle who are
driven through a pasture gate.
1t is only those who do not see
and think clearly, who, looking
through the haze at the past, think
because the past is softened by time
that it is more beautiful than the
present. and so come to believe that
progress Is in the wrong direction.
Lord Tennyson wrote very beau
tful poems OF the days of King
Arthur, when noble knights rode
forth in the smart clothes the black
smiths had made for them, and
fought in the name of their fair
ladies.
But lord Tennyson, who lived in
day when it was possible to get
not water for bath, who ate
wholesome food instead of coarse
bread and underdone meat, who
wore comfortable clothes, and
whose personal safety was guarded
by policemen, would have been the
laSL TO turn to time when Sir
Launcelot was killing and manning
his brethren i'll arms merely to
make sport for an indolent queen.
Let us look back at the good old
days of our own country. 1t may
be that their hardships made
strong, stern men; but there are
few men living to-day who would
care to be made either strong or
stern in that school.
The New England pioneers from
the Pilgram fathers down lived in
almost continual fear of their lives
fear that once or twice became so
terrible that they banded them
selves together and destroyed whole
tribes of Indians in order that their
safety might be preserved.
Women were welded and brought
forth children, it is true but moth
ers and babies, lacking intelligent
care. died like flies and only renew
ed immigration from the mother
country kept the white race in ex-
istence on this continent.
When little Dutch village stood
on the island now almost
completely hidden by the great
modern buildings of New York the
good old days were there. but little
else that actually endured was fit
for material either for romance or
poetry.
When children fell Ill, ponderous
Dutch doctors came, gave them
enormous doses of harmful medi-
cines. bied them and went solemn
iy away to tell the undertaken a.
new case was waiting him.
In cases of epidemic the boards
of the medical gentlemen spread
the infection as fast as it did the
flies that buzzed and swarmed in
the open sewers. Whole neighbor-
hoods were stricken, and the bur-
piers stolfdly smoked their reeking
pipes, regarding their affliction as
visitation of Providence.
A journey from the battery Har-
lem in those days was not to be un-
dertaken without deep thought and
much courage. West of the Hud-
son river stretched a wilderness
that only the hardy explorer and
the brave Indian trader dared pene-