Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-29

Shortly before the Roman mob. urged
on by the plutocrats in the Roman SEN
ate, beat to death the two brothers known
as the Gracchi. the elder of these. Tibe-
RUS Gracious, threw down the gauntlet
to privilege thus:
The wild beasts of Italy have their
caves into which To retire. but the men
who spill their blood in her cause have
nothing left but air and light. Without
houses, without any settled habitation.
they wander from place TO place with
their wives and children. and their gen
erals do but mock them when at the
heads of their armies they expect these
men 10 fight for their sepulchers and
domestic gods: for among such a mum
Der there is perhaps not Roman who
has an altar that belonged to his ances-
tors or a sepulcher in which their ashes
rest. The private soldiers fight and die
to advance the wealth and luxury of the
great, and they are called masters of the
world. while they have not a foot of land
in their possession
Thus far back i'm the history of the
world the evil of the monopoly of land
impressed itself upon great minds. Two
thousand years before Christ the Gracch
hirelings of the monopolists. Henr,
George in our own day saw il, too, and
died fighting it.
Cornelia. who was proud to he known
as the mother of the Gracchi." was
above all things, a noble Roman matron
Her nature would hardly appeal to oul
more modern women. who hold, and
rightly, that there is something more fol
womankind than mere household devo
ton. All she stood for. all that she did
he cd, Inn of hnr fxtn -
become great figures in Rome. Had she
lived century or so earlier she would
have made of them great soldiers. AS i
was. she bred them to the higher pro
fesson of statecraft. 1t is quite tru'
that for the moment they failed. but few
figures in Roman history have done NOR,
for real democracy than the Gracchi, and
it was their mother who made them al
they were.
Cornelia was born in the second cen
fury B.C.-the year is not known pre-
cisely She was the daughter of SciIi'
Africanus, whose latter name carried
with it the glory of his triumph ovel
Hannibal in the second Carthaginian war
Her husband, Tiberius Gracious. sprant
from the plebeian class; she herself wa
of the patrician order. Perhaps 1t wa
because of this mixed parentage that thu
two sons-the Gracchi, as they came Il
be known I'm history-had the MANNER
of the patricians, while sympathizing il
all affairs with the downtrodden plebe
ians Cornelia's husband died in thu
midst of their most happy marital life
Even so. there had been born to then
thirteen children, of whom three onl,
survived-the two boys. Caius and II
berius, and one girl.
All mothers expect Their sons TO o.
great figures in whatever walk OF III
they may tread. OF the bakers boz
quite as much is expected in his line al
of the crown prince. Corneha peheVe'
from the very outset that her two SON
were destined to the highest place In tn
Roman empire. So complete was ne
conviction that she declared that in his
tory she would be known as the mothe
of the Gracchi'' rather than as the oausIi
Tor of Scinio Africanus Her belief wa
well founded, and in the excavations
the Roman Forum. nearly 2,Go year
after her death, there was found Dat