Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-01-20
What You and l Que to France.
European Culture Started and Perfected In France-Napoieon
Messenger Boy of Political Equality, and Revolution Was
Beginning of Brotherhood.

, mission when she wrote: ''Erom Napo-
leon We can learn much. 1t would be
! blasphemy to say: God be with him.
but he is n tool in the hand of the Al
| mighty with which to bury what is old
and lifeless."
And not only did he bury serfdOm over
large areas of Europe. but also. again
over large areas of Europe, he established
another common Senge result OF the rev.
olution-the absolute equality of all per-
sons in their personal rights and in their
! commercial rights before the law. No
! feudal or other privileges for anybody.
No feudal or other disabilities for any
body.
Therefore. i'm the same decree in which
he abolished serfdom. the king of Prus-
STA permitted the peasant and the burgher
to buy noble and and permitted the noble
to enter trade.
That was the French revolution in it's
results. Within a generation. almost
within a decade, France passed from
feudal restitution to independent small
farm and small business thrift and
energy. And it CAV 81 large measure OF
these blessings to neighboring peoples.
y very bread and butter. almost sor-
did outcome.
| Yet it was precisely the outcome Or
ganized from the beginning. as you can
see by reading amy of the apostles OF
reason who preceded and melted the rev.
olution.
But French reason gave the world.
through the French revolution. one other
thing-the idea of "fraternity." 1t was
not, and still isn't, a practicable idea. But
it is one that can be reached only
through religion or else. as in France.
through reason. 1t is not a natural idea.
an instructive idea. Human beings. un-
less artif1cially instructed, do not regard
themselves as brothers. 1t was the
French who. first among nations. and
last among nations. i'm a whole movement
of thought. developed the conception OF
universal human brotherhood.
Source Of Human Brotherhood.
DO we owe them nothing for that?
Let us grant that reason let loose is
more extreme than instinct and more un-
reliable. Let us grant that the farthest
filings of reason can not always be fol-
lowed up i'm practice. Yet in the midst
of constitutional democracy and of OPP
~portunistic socialism, i'm the midst of min-
imum wages and municipal lodging
houses and the seven-and-three quarters
hour worlkday and special-low railway
rates = for : Observation-Disclosures
wives
-and-children-in the midst of all this de-
tail. and i'm the presence of a socialist
party which brings it's immediate little
reforms farther and farther coward the
front and puts it's revolution farther and
farther oward the back in it's public pro-
nouncements-in such an age, ant for
several ages to come. shall We not lool
back. with a painful sense of how far we
have dropped from even an interest In
human brotherhood. to the outright bold
ness of Robcspierre:
"It is only the superiority of foodstuffs
that should become articles of
What is necessary belongs to ALL"
/ dom care whether it can be done
tomorrow morning or not. amy more than
! care whether blessed are the meek"
can be done tomorrow morning or not,
] know it can't. But. except in the fifth
chapter of st. Matthew's gospel. there
can not be found a set of sayings that
will so stretch the heart of the world
on the rack of self questioning, now and
henceforth, as the essays and speeches OF
the relentlessly reasoning men OF the
French revolution.