Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980, 1922-11-13
What Of the Future?

Those who think the nation decadent should glance
the real and material progress made since the adoption
the constitution century and third ago. when country
touched the Mississippi but not the Gulf of Mexico
when have conquered the wilderness and peopled q
continent Every art science every branch of human
industry has been enormously developed Whatever bridges
distance whatever annhilates time, whatever aeviates
human pan whatever extpaes disease has nowhere beer
80 fostered as in America"
When Washington administered the affairs of the infant
nation neither steamboat poughed the waters nor railroads
spanned the land Steam had yet be utilized to operate
industries and electricity unthought Of Even the
kitchen stove had to be invented and the to
works the old oaken bucket Sanitation was unknown
matches had not been devised and choofom to the
pain of patients under the surgeons knife unreamed
Take from about the conveniences the comforts the
necessities that American ingenuity given the
within the nations brief history life would be
indeed The steamer the railroad the trolley the telegraph
the telephone the electric light the auto the tractor the
flying machine the sewing machine the reaper the harvest
err the revolver india rubber the furnace the heater the
phonograph hydroeectrc power and thousand and
appliances that contribute to life today would be missing
century ago there not blind asylum lunatic
asylum house of refuge feeblemnded institute in
this entire country Our prisons have been changed from
bothes and breeding places of crime into reformaores of
crime But two crimes punished with death where
fifteen formerly We no longer the branding iron
the treadmil have abolished Imprisonment for debt
exemned slavery and made the aborer free instead
Of serf We have covered the country with free schools
and Tree libraries ana MAINTAIN at puDc expense institutions
of all kinds for the benefit of the unfortunate showing that
have grown humane grew in wealth and
population
But nation have all of these things and still be
decadent Rome in spite of her luxury and wealth. probably
because of he decadent for centuries before the
empire crumbled of its weight 1t is the past that
usbut the future We have filled factories
and mines and of lands with the rffaff Of the old
world with inferior peoples whom asslate if can
assmate them, to loss The old native stock is dying
out We breeding degenerates and subnormas at alarm
ing All the schools in the world and all the compuson
possible will put brains into bockheads Maron major
tiles legsatng away the rights of mnorities and semi
state socialism making the child the ward of the public
made possible the expansion and development of the nation
succumbng before paernalsm that perpeuates the
unfit Unless effort is made to control the situation by
another few generations there will be enough of the fit
left to take care of the unfit
In the story of the world only few peoples have
progressed and among these peoples the progress
fined to comparatively few individuals When these
progressves suppanted by those of alien that
have stood still since the dawn of history by descendants
those decadent for thousands years. the outlook
progressive future is not brilliant
The conditions intensified by the social injustice of
institutions Privilege takes its toll of both earned
capital and labor The bulk of the wealth of the nation
concentrated in few hands and the Of inheritance
Of property casts the blight society that the law
inheritance of kingdoms formerly cast closing the door
of opportunity and keeping the natural of the
nation preserve of predatory monopoly which stands at
he of all industry taking its tribute without render
ng return
Is it any wonder that the people seethng with
est and willing to follow any demagogue who camorousy
presents his exaaton universal curea for all the
that rack humanitv2