Norwich bulletin., 1921-02-04

1 (Written Specially for The Bulletin) 1 Fields and forests and mines bring l forth untold stories Of wealth; miles l | on miles of shafting drive the machin- cry by which this raw material is adapted to- human uSeS;. there is enough of every sort of commodity to give everybody abundance; and yet, in 1 the midst of this overflowing boun- l ty, a million willing workers, very few of whom are strikers, stand idle in 1 the market-place because no man has | hired them, while their little children cr3' for bread. It is not strange that | the army Of the discon tented' grows apace. It is rot to, be wonder | ed at that a feeling is spreading among the labor-class that something is rad ically wrong" The words above are timely, are they not? They fit the situation, do they not?
 Oh, no; they are .n6e- t; % Il from 1 any radical" or secialistic Dedication. | They come from tEe editorial pages of The Century magazine.
 ] But you thought you read the last 1 Century pretty thoroughly. you say, urally. They were. not in the last is sue of The Century. find them on page 319 of Tie Century for June, 1886. Thirtyfou- years ago you'll observe.
 Tkzt's a long way Lack. lt'= F,moc. a,neisnt history 10 many of us. What can the problems o1 1920 have in com mon with the anxieties of 1886. The l world has gone far beyond the marks of that bygone yeStrs. This is a new Accession, with plenty of new oppor- tunities and new dutifs.
 And yet, when you first read that quotation, not knowing that it was taken from the tattered and dog -eared pages of a moEthfy magazine thirty | four years old, you thought, just as did wben- I clanced upon 1t, that it was written bat a few days ago to describe things as they are now.
 There are just two strong impress sions which the discovery of this , fgeneration-old plaint and warning make on my mind. With your per mission, I'm going to talk five min utes about them.
 7 First: It is perfectly clear from . the inner tones of this old magazine T 1 paragraph that. the writer was not A ;. only much worked-up over the situa- !, ton but was more than little nerv. . ous about its outcome. Though hi: E' verbal coloring is restrained and coo
 the underlying tint is. unmistakabf. > blue. He was not an alarnist ana r was manifeStly careful to keep vel e within bounds in his statements. Bu
 that, he was apprehensive and gloom. e is equally apparent.
 Things looked bad. There was n, ' doubt of that. Later on in his arti 'h cle he points out that, while hundred of thousands of wage workers are c IS sound instincts and sure to give tenn or perate counsels, ''thero is also grea
 multitude of ignorant and undisciplin Ut i cd men who are likely to use thei I cc11 nd ivy It The danger thSt these last woul e. over-rule the temperate advisers va al clearly imminent
 IL And yet, we who read his word,
 thiTty-four years later, can bear test
 mony that the expected crash hash
 come yet. The crisis grew, as storl
 grows over shivering farm-lands. | ap advance clouds were ominousl :" black and their cavernous interior
 disclosed bys the rending bolts re ~ angry lightning, were seen to be crai 'l- i fly whirling masses of apparent
 uncontrolled nlaiignity. When it al ITS rived it tore off few limbs from 'ly few trees unroofed a shed, or tw
 and-blew over. Whereupon the su ne came out again. We've all seen Il
 approach of just such tempests who
 threats, figuratively speaking, "sca is us stiff, but whose actual damage ". ,w only what a few nails could repair. " So It, was in that dim antiquity
 1886. Pessimists grew gloomy ar = towards were scared. Even coo
 headed observers, of scientific tur
 became thoughtful and began to Wol - der ia their subliminal consciousne
 1T doomsday had finally dawned. \ It hadn't, as we aH krow, now. V
 lived through it. We came out Of it
 as good shape as usual Farme
 kept on blowing and planting ar
 Harvesting: nlan1t ak,urers resume
 the operation Of their factories a!
 built new ones of. double and trek
 dapaoity; eyerybot went, fo woc
 again, and the sun of general pro
 perity once more illunained smilil
 earth. = '- \; We. had been more scared than hu,
 Right there is Che conclusion of Ii
 first impression. It> all sums up
 the suggestive advice contained
 1.-the homely saying Don't cross t
 bridge till you. get to it." Don't ta . 1t for granted the end Of the wof
 is; at hand every time, a thunder he looms over the < northwestern h Don't imagined new crisis ifnpent
 that it, Is the first time a<crisis h
 ever done anything of the, sort WI
 the history tof hllfnanityziS is ractica1
 all g. history of crises met. and endu \ ed..@ and overcome. They're as. co1
 mon in the race annals as pebbles
 the seashore. And, once they are pas
 ed,s of hardly more account tn
 those same pebbles. ..g >' Seserd: You'll note, in this ,tIar.
 four>yeafs old l1tterance, that peol
 then were afraid that. the WiId-ey o \ fanatics of socialism and anarc would gain control of the organizatio . they Sbeionged to. despite the preseT 7, in them of hundreds Of thousands C men of sound instincts and sure
 give temperate counsel. There W,
 cas fj, then, where just this thi /. happened. There always will be-
 some instances the forces of ignorar
 and greed oyerbore those of model tion. But such events were the exec < tion,' not the rule. Generally the ( posite was true. In the end comm ]: sense and a wide acceptance of 1 A principle of "give-and-take" govern }. The widest of the radicals were eli
 CT voted down or kicked out and $,
 to rampage by themselves.
 h other words the fear, fran
 admitted in 1886, that the obstrep ois racket of the noisy minor s W-oull stampede the quieter and m Ii thoughtful majority, proved unfound q As usual. the men with the bigs :, mouths made the most disturbal 2 Cut the men with bigger brains O
 numbered. them and, eventually,
 them back in their properly suborl . ate blaces. 1
 NOW. very much the same sort thing is going on. What with clo / factories and l. ". WIS and bols
 Yiks and the like. Athe world is gett
 quite worried about what's going 2 If al Fall