The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1916-04-22
Hostility to Change
~ Or. FRANK CRANE
Copyright. 1915. by Frank Crane)

Il y
The most dangerous thing in the
world for growing organism is to
stand still.
The human race is growing or
ganism.
1t is developing, just as child de-
velops.
| There is certain charm in childhood.
We are sorry to see it pass. But pass it
must. II we could arrest the child's
growth the result would not be a perna-
nent beauty but tragedy feeble
minded child
Nothing is more apparent to an intel
ligent observer than the continued prog
ress of human society. We not only ad-
vance in inventions, our march is not
only marked by steam engines, electric
machines, aeroplanes and automobiles,
but also we are going forward in ideas,
ideals, convictions.
| We have outgrown duelling, for in
stance, slavery, and trial by torture;
gentlemen no longer carry swords and
draw them on the slightest provocation
to defend their HONOR" and ladies in
drawing rooms do not swear like stable
boys, as they did in the days of Queen
Elizabeth.
There is type of mind that is alarm
ed at anything new. To such a ono
safety consists in refusal to move. They
call themselves conservatives; their op-
ponents call them old fogies, stand-pat-
ters or reactionaries.
A certain amount of caution is rood
for a nation, but when the cautious
group dominates there is danger ahead.
Europe has been esteemed by many Al
superior to America because of the sta
bility of its institutions. Other wealthy
citizens besides Lord Astor have gone
there to live because classes" there
know their place. Old families, an an
cient church, old governments, old man.
ners, and old ideas, made the atmos-
phere attractive.
But that is precisely why Europe has
exploded. They fastened down the
safety valve and have wrecked the ship.
They stopped the chi]d's growth and got
insanity along with picturesqueness.
Those precious old ideas are mon
strously septic. They are ghost ideas.
having no vitality except the power to
live on. Condemned by the common
sense of mankind as utterly irrational.
,.uworLo hlo oxpape ;yo av<va ,,o rrouf .rd
absurd. they still batten down the minds
of the people.
Such is the military idea, the king
idea, the class idea, the heredity idea.
the submission idea, and the idea that
| it is not good for common folks to think,
and especially bad for them to say what
they think; also they shouldn't NEEDLE
with government.
"No, people" said the magnificent
ones, 1--WE cannot tell you what it's all
about. You just let us manage things
for you. Run along now and sell your
papers. Leave affairs of public concern
to us, to Willie Hohenzollern, and the
Russian Grand Dukes, and the English
House of Lords, and the junkers and the
deep, dark. willy diplomats. Wen attend
to them for you."
So the people ran along, and trusted
the mighty ones, and pretty soon ,
The boy. oh. where was he'
Ask Of waves that far around
| With fragments strewed the sea. ~
The Prince of Monaco in a recent in
terview exhibits marks of cerebration,
to-wit:
European people are the slaves of
tradition. 1t is in their blood, resisting
every tendency to change. They live, as
lit were, in web of race prejudices and
customs and ideas which only the adop-
ton of the American outlook can alter.
If this change does not take place, and
there should be shree or four more wars
| in the modern style, Europe will become
a desert"