Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1915-01-13

most people who have made their Ia.
Dor contribution produce neither new
beauty nor new wisdom, but are simply
busy about those pleasant activities
and enjoyments that reassure them
that they are alive. They help. it may
be, by reception and reverberation.
and they hinder nothing.
Now all this phase of gigantic change
In the contours and appearances Of hui
man life which is going on about US,
q change as rapid and as wonderful as
the swift ripening Of adolescence to
years, Is correlated with moral and
mental changes at least as unprece-
denied. 1t is not as If old things were
going out of life and new things CON-
ing in. it is rather that the altered cir.
cumstances of men are making an ap
peal to elements In his nature that
have hitherto been suppressed. and
checking tendencies that have hither
to been overstimulated and over
developed. He has not 50 much
grown and altered his essential being
as turned new aspects to the light.
Such turnings round into a new atti
tude the world has seen on less ex.
tensive scale before. The Highlanders
Of the seventeenth century, for ex-
ample, were cruel and bloodthirsty
robbers; in the nineteenth their de-
scendants were conspicuously trusty
and honorable men. There was not a
people in western Europe in the early
twentieth century that seemed capa-
BILE Of hideous massacres and none that
had not been guilty Of them within the
previous two centuries. The free.
frank, kindly, gentle life of the pros.
porous classes in any European coun-
try before the years Of the last wars
was in different world of thought and
feeling from that of the dingy, suspi-
cious, secretive and uncharitable exist
ence Of the respectable poor, or the
constant personal violence. the squalor
and naive passions Of the lowest
stratum. Yet there were no real Diff
ferences Of blood and inherent quality
between these worlds; their differences
were all in circumstances, suggestion
and habits Of mind. And. turning to
more individual instances, the con-
stantantly observed difference between
one portion of life and another conse-
quent upon religious conversion were
a standing example of the versatile
possibilities Of human nature.
The catastrophe Of the atomic bombs
which shook men out of cities and
businesses and economic relations
shook them also out of their old estab-
lished habits Of thought and out Of
the lightly held beliefs and prejudices
that came down to them from the
past. To borrow word from the old
fashioned chemists, men were made
nascent. They were released from old
ties. For good or evil they were ready
for new associations. The council car
ried them forward for good. Perhaps If
his bombs had reached their destina-
ton King Ferdinand Charles might
have carried them back to an endless
have been harder one than the coun.
cips. The moral shock Of the atomic
bombs had been profound one. and
for awhile the cunning side of the hu-
man animal was 0verpowered by it's
sincere realization Of the vital neces-
sity for reconstruction. The litigious
and trading spirits covered together,
scared at their own consequences Men
thought twice before they sought
mean advantages in the face Of the
unusual eagerness to realize new aspi
rations. and when at last the weeds
revived again and "claims'' began to
sprout, they sprouted upon the stony
soil Of law courts reformed, of laws
that pointed to the future instead of
the past and under the blazing sun
shine of transforming world. A new
literature, new Interpretation of his
tory were springing into existence, a
new teaching was already in the
schools, new faith in the hearts of
the young. The worthy man who
fOrestalled the building Of a research
city for the English upon the Sussex
downs by buying up series of estates
was dispossessed and laughed out of
court when he made his demand for
some preposterous compensation. The
owner of the discredited Dass patents
makes his last appearance upon the
scroll of history as the insolvent pro.
| prietor Of paper called the Cry For
Justice, in which he duns the world
for f1OOOOO,OOO. That was the fngenu.
GUS Dass' idea of justice, that he ought
to be paid about E5,OOO,O0O annually
because he had annexed the selvage OF
one Of Holsters discoveries. Dass
came at last to believe quite firmly in
his right, and he died victim to con
| spiracy mania in a private hospital al
| Nice. Both of these men would prob
ably have ended their days enormously
wealthy, and of course ennobled, ir
the England of the opening twentieth
century, and it Is just this novelty OF
their fates that marks the quality Of
the new age.
CHAPTER XVI.
| karenin, the Russian.
1THE new government early dis
| covered the need of universal
RI Tn -.