Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-06-05

was when I was born?
Fools say life is harder, that it is more
exacting and requires greater energy.
Does it take more energy to sit in
your chair and talk through the tele-
phone than to walk a dozen blocks?
II those who bemoan the good old
times were to wake up tomorrow and
find themselves in my boyhood days,
they would think they were back in
an age of barbarism. If all that had
been done for mankind in those 30
years should be blotted out. it would
deprive probably one.half of the peo-
ple Of their occupations. 1t would ex-
tinguish all the electric lights and take
away the work of engineers and men
engaged with them in handling this
great and mysterious power wrested
from nature: it would silence all our
telephones and the click of the tele-
graph; it would stop the sewing ma
chimes; it would still the song of the
reaper and the mower, and send men
to the back-breaking drudgery of the
sickle, the scythe and the cradle; it
would close the great asylums for our
unfortunates, it would rob humanity
OF some of the greatest discoveries for
the subjugation OF disease.
Achievements i'm 80 Years.
"I congratulate myself that in these
90 years l have seen a greater adj
vancement in civilization than did all
the men from the days of Moses to
the days of Washington. and that l
h. k<N.a1-
the lead in this progress. Invention
has guarded the lives of the workers
and taken from them. as much as pos
sible, the dangers incidental to their
occupations. The air brake, the pneu-
matte coupler and other similar de-
vices have lessened the danger to life
and limb In transportation; inspec-
tions, proper supervision and a hum
dred inventions have made more en-.
durable the life and health of the
miner, the factory employe and the
public at large.
"At the same time we have a
broader conception of the duty we owe
to our fellow man. We no longer turn
our back on suffering and disease. We
try to cure, to care for, to ameliorate
the condition of the sick and the UNI
fortunate. We know that every child
is entitled to an education and a fair
chance in life. Cunning and knavery
we condemn. Laws may be imperfect,
but we endeavor to administer them
with impartiality.
Crime to Wall About Failure.
1--WE have abolished slavery and
imprisonment for debt. reduced the
number of capital crimes, improved
prisons and softened the treatment
of criminals, and in everything con-
corning man become more humane
and considerable. We have taken
women and little children under our
especial protection and tried to pro-
tect them from brutal exploitation.
AS / look back on the years that have
passed since / first saw the light down
in the mountains of North Carolina,
am thankful my life has been cast
in pleasant places, and man has been
constantly striving to reach higher
ideals. For that reason to me it is a
crime to wall about our failure, to ac-
cept the absurd ideas of a few malli-
cious theorists and to have doubts
about the present and future of our
'We have become more tolerant in
everything and reached a higher
ethical standard. If we have erred
at all and allowed our tolerance to
become too catholic it has been in
the gentleness with which we have
treated the preacher of pessimism, the
man who tried to go back to the days
Of ignorance and array man against
man and class against class. That is
the one crime against our civilization
that ought not to be condoned.
Curious, isn't it?" said Mr.. Can
non breaking off from his main theme
as he had habit of doing, "how the
of our country and the
growth. of cities have COMPOUNDED the
wise. Cairo, ILL.,, in 1850 was the
great city of the West in prophecy
and in the speculations of Eastern
capitalists. Situated at the most i'm
portant confluence of rivers in the
world and at the center of the Ameri-
can Republic, at the southern terminus
of the Illinois Central, it was expected,
as the entrepot between the Northern
and Southern markets, to dominate
commercially the Ohio, Wabash, Ten
nessee and Cumberland Valleys as
well as the great Northwest, becoming,
as a great inland emporium, the larg-
est city in the world. In 1850, how
ever, Cairo had 242 inhabitants, liv.
ing largely in wharf boats and small
temporary shanties, waiting for the
marshy bottom lands to be reclaimed
from the overflow of the rivers.
Cites Dickens Caricatures.
''It was about that time that
Charles Dickens visited the United
States and afterward wrote Martin
Chuzzlewit.' We thought he was un-
kind in his pictures of some features
Of American life and enthusiasm, but
possibly Dickens did not draw his
caricatures beyond the pictures which
we tried to draw as honest prophecies.
Cairo is now a prosperous city, but it
is not the commercial center of the
world and probably never will be, and
Dickens pictures are as amusing to
Americans as they were to English.
men over 80 years ago.
at amuses me to hear constantly
of the general moral and mental shake
up that has followed the World War
as if it were something new and un.
heard of and portented the birth of
new world. The decade after the
World War looks to me pretty much
like the decade after the War of Seces.
sion, the decade in which / was first
elected to Congress. There were over
10 years of reform which shook up
the virtues as we'll as the vices of the
people. Nothing was right and nobody
was SAFE from the reformers. socially,
religiously and politically. The whole