The west shore., September 01, 1877, Page 9, Image 9

their hiding places to accomplish thi
task; no enchanter's wand has bid these
structures rise; no fabled Herculesjwith
giant arm, has come to the aid of our
pioneers. But all that is rich and beau
tiful around us, contributing to our sus
tenance and happiness, is the result of
larok. And what has not labor ac
complished? Dignified by the hand of
the Infinite, it spread abroad the firma
ment, lit up the darkness of the space
illimitable with greaterand lesser lights,
sent worlds on worlds careering in their
orbits; fashioned hill and valley; bird
and beast; humblest shrub and tiniest
animalcule, and then created man in the 1
image of his Maker. " He spake and
it was done. He commanded and it
stood fasti" From that hour it has
been man's destiny to live, to labor and
to die. The w orld has furnished no rest
Ing place for the drone. " In the sweat
of thy face shalt thou eat bread," was
the language of the cause, and for ages
upon ages man has toiled beneath it.
But labor has had its triumphs.
Wherever human foot has trod, wher
ever the waves of the ocean have been
divided by oaken keel, wherever tower
and spire have pierced the clouds,
w herever the glittering ore has been
delved a thousand fathoms beneath the
green earth; wherever broken column
and arch, statue and vase are found
wherever palace and chapel, pagoda
and pyramid, wall and moat;
wherever the steamship wings its
way over unsounded, soundless
seas; wherever the iron horse
courses his fiery advance o'er
thundering track, or awakens the
.lumbering echoes with his snort
umUcrcam; wherever the curling
smoke on plains or forest, on moun
tain side or deep in the valley
shades, indicates a human habita
tion; wherever the earth yields
up her bounties for the comfort
or sustenance of man, there are
its written triumphs indelibly
stamped ami glorified realities.
The sting of the curse has been
plucked out; the antidote of per
severance applied, and the pleas
ure extracted from its pain.
Thank Heaven, too, a new and
brighter era is unfolding to our
people. The shackles of force are
broken and the fetters of igno
rance and superstition and preju
dice are falling'oflf. The world of
mind is triumphing over mat
ter. The very elements that once car
ried terror to awe-stricken man, are
now tame in our hands, and serve us at
ur will. In the days of the Patriarchs
the women ground corn. In the days
of the wisest king, the " Ox of Solo
mon tread out the corn." Now it is
von.plishcd by steam and as rapid as
thought. In our boyhood the mail and
passenger coach was drawn by slow
coach, jog-trot horse-flesh; now the en
gineer handles the throttle-valve and
lr;. u u.. u
iB UIC HUH IIIUIISICI UJ IMS iuiilhi-
trtted powers of most wondrous ele
ments. Our fathers navigated the
rivers by the might of muscle; now
the boiling fluid from their own fair bo
Km drives the ponderous ark against
the torrent, as if all the heathen gods
imposed the crew and sat grinning at
tli. ..-l, i. .. t -f ... .1 k .i i
. wnii iui icw ui us um uu null
remembef the "spurred and booted "
mail boy with clarion slung by his side,
nu his budget of news. Now, the har
I Cited lightning does the work and
leaves the "express rider" to "drive
the plow ahoy." We have our itincr
;mt ".eight-horse separators "threshing
the field, and close behind them
the same work. Soon this steam
'ihnnn ...:n i i : .
-kwiv mil in, pluming us in .ii Bicmi!
''"wed before. Already steam reduces
Unnre to a fluid and sends it over the
THE WEST SHORE.
field through movable conduits It -i,ts
grinds, cooks food and feeds stock. All
is changed and much will change. We
shall see no future Burns "following
his plow upon the mountain side." The
peasant poet of Scotland henceforth
rides an iron horse and disturbs the
quiet of golden fields with the harsh
sounds of a steam whistle. Judean
Boaz drives an " Improved Harvester,"
talks learned of "center draft," easy
"convertibility," " inside cut" and "well
laid levels."
And as tor the peaceful shepherds and
gay reapers in many a fair and quiet
Andalusian vale
" W,.h?! VMe" h"" tinkling In lta .hephenl'.
bell,
And singing with the reapen."
They oil the machinery now, or feed
the thresher, or stand mute with aston
ishment, while the "Patent" wool-clip-per
relieves the Southdown, the Cots
wold or the Merino f his warm winter
fleece.
" Old timet are changed, old manner, gone
A stranger fllla the stuarl'. throne."
The sickle lias no poetry in its curve,
no grace in its motion; even the young
and blushing bouri of the farm has
stopped her spinning wheel, and now
fingers the pearly keys of a " Steinway
Grand " in some brilliant aria or oper
atic gem.
Intellect devises and directs. We were
raised in the music of the spinning
jenny and that loom of blessed memory.
A VIEW NEAR
The children of to-day are lullahicd by
the symphony of the matchless sewing
machine the " iron-ncedle-woman" of
the age, which yoked with stcam,"stitch
es, hems anil gathers," whilst "mamma"
eagerly turns the fashion plates or
follows the fortunes of some mad-cap
" Alonzo the Brave, and his fair Imo
gene." Steam has turned the axman
and sawyer out of the lumber yard, and
it does more than half the work of car
pentcrs. It makes our barrel staves and
shingles. In iron manufacture it is hard
to say what it does not do, save that it
has not disturbed the " cross-road
smithy." Steam now runs ahead of the
"boys" to the fire, and works the "ma
chine." " Mow" has betaken himself
to rural latitudes for a 'Summer siesta."
In the city it is the doughtray and the
bakery, taking in flour at the back door
bv the dray load and delivering the
bread baked, weighed and counted in
the sales room. It cooks, washes dishes
scours ware, washes, irons. Soon it will
churn and rock the cradle. The trav
eling steam saw mill is sending the man
of the broad-ax and whip-saw home
ward to the "Garden of Eden," to the
society of " Betsy and the little ones."
Lol that same untiring steam is there
already sawing his stove wood.
It is the intellect that has harnessed
the elements and is working arms and
muscles of iron. It is the mental man
dispensing with his animality. We
must be up with, and equal to this new
and hiirher
The mind is now the engine. We must
know the laws that God has impressed
upon matter. Our minds must be
schooled in the sciences, or we can
not keep up with the car of progress,
but must "go under." We must get
out of that small tread-wheel cycle in
which our fathers were wont " to grunt
and sweat under a weary life."
But a few more years will pass before
our "short and simple annals" shall be
compiled by the future historian. But
a few more years will elope before our
progress shall be dwelt upon bv .Indents
with that same degree of curiosity with
which we have traced out the course of
more ancient people. But a few more
years before our descendants will won
der and laugh at the dullards of the
Nineteenth Century, who lost so many
opportunities and made such little ad
vancement. We feel this every day in
the children we meet, at school, at home
or on the street. Already they begin
to show contempt for the beaten paths
that we, their progenitors, tread. Al
ready they arc breaking the shackles of
inactivity that have held us captives
long. At ten and twelve years of age
they show more proficiency in learning
than we did at sixteen and eighteen.
They are improving upon our Improve
ments, just as we have upon those who
have gone before. The Darwinian the
ory, therefore, in this light does not
seem so highly improbable after all.
Call them "Young America," call them
forward prodigies, precocious chaps, or
what you will, it matters not. They
are the vanguard of a grand army of
improvement, who, with the advantage
liAVTON, W. T.
of our actions and all commendable
precedents, will achieve conquests more
tirilliant than present pen can picture.
Inaugurating new systems, adopting
new policies, seizing our unemployed
opportunities, gathering up tile treas
ures we have never appreciated, fash
ioning and contriving, manufacturing
joy from what we consider pain, turn
ing what we deem as disadvantages into
most propitious advantages, avoiding
the lethargy that their "rude forefath
ers" grew sleek and fal in, making our
country and their country a land which
will glow in realization with all the gor
geous imaginations that the romancer
employ! in the dazzling creation of an
Eastern talc. What a happy condition
will be theirs! What regality of ex
istence! An English writer living some
half a century ago, says: "There is, I
think, a kind of inexpressible pleasure
in lieing contemporary with great men
o witness their dawn and enjoy their
rising. Posterity can only echo the
plaudits that attend their brightening,
and in contemplating their noon, but
not the wonder of those w ho traced
them from their horizon." In some re
spects, this would be a privileged con
dition; to have lived in the days of the
kings of Israel, to have wondereil at
the sapience of Solomon, and heard the
music of the " Royal Psalmist;" to have
been a contemporary with sightless Ho
mer and listened to his matchless rhymes
of Troy; to have enjoyed the maiden
popularity of England's "Myriad-mind
ed hard ; to have lieheld the ecstacy of
napless ualilco when he discovered the
earth's rotation; to have rejoiced at the
wondrous invention of Guttenberg and
9
Faust; to have marveled at the genius
of Watt, and the philosophy of Frank
lin; to have lived in the days of Soc
rates, Plato, Aristotle; to have helped
Diogenes in his "search for an honest
man;" to hare prated of acquaintance
with men of virtue and glory and
fame philosophers, reformers, invent
ors, statesmen, generals. This would
have been flattering. But who would
forego witnessing the accomplished
splendor of their glory? Who, if he
could predestine his' life, would not
rather set in that near and swift advanc
ing future that even-tide oi excellence
which seems so close at hand, when
terrestrial things shall have reached per
fection and "earth hold jubilee a thous
and years?"
That insatiable spirit of man that im
pels to action that ever struggling de
sire for a better and happier sphere tolls
us that we have not fultfiled our high
est destiny that a lietter and a higher
order of being is wanted, and is in
store for us, if we be true to ourselves.
The riper and better geniuses sigh for
a h igher and better development of our
civilization for the practical better day
hoped lor iii the teachings of our rclig
lon, We wish for the reign of menial,
moral and social worth, and must have
il. We fed that force, chicanery and
fraud should no longer govern civil so
ciety, or shape our destiny or that of the
State. It is time We strike boldly for
a reformation. Let productive indus
try take the reins of empire.
Not long since we were passing over
one of our railroads in company with
an Intelligent gentleman from one of
the " Down But States;" he was ad
miring our cbarniinirlv wild nml
picturesque scenery, and in ecstneies
bout our farms and the soil the
evidences of splendid advantage on
every hand ; and yet, he seemed im
patient lo sec whit Yankee labor
and Yankee taste could do for them;
but he w;is almost non - believing
when told of the coal and copper and
gold that underlie almost this entire
State. He had thought Oregon only
capable of producing somcsilvcr, a
few " scrubby " cattle, anil a limited
number of common place staples.
He bad, indeed, never heard of this
grand wealthy Slate only as the
" Webfbot Stale," and by 'that title
was prepared to believe that what
few white residents there were wore
long hair and cowhide boots, and
had become impressed wilh the idea
that Abraham Lincoln had been
made emperor, or that the Electoral
College had determined to place
Henry Clay in the chair of the Chill
Executive, by way of settlement of
the disagreeable controversy arising
from the Presidential muddle. He
never learned that Oregon lias not
only mineral wealth, agricultural ad
vantages second to none, commercial
and manufacturing considerations,
ranking high as such, and why ? Because
our people arc not convinced of the
lower of printer's ink ; because they
allow these slanders and these overshad
owing injuries to go uncorrected, unre
futed; because they elect too many coffee-house
politicians to the Legislature
"third-rate county court house law
yers," who know nothing and do noth
ing outside of the street-corner school
of politics. Because we elevate too
many of those politician, bent on leg
islating themselves rich by hank char
ter ami other corporations and special
privileges, and not enough of Ihc more
Sactical, honest, common sense men.
f late we have heard it,- mmImIm. ..,
this class on " New Departures" and on
i oiru rany, oninis,tiiat or the other
strictly tolitital uiie.ium ti... ...-.i
signifies at Ihc present time. But who
U. 1 ! - I t .
.... mi.iu woru aooui an cllort to aid
and elevate the laboring and producing
thousands by Ihc light of science?
We have State and National institu
tions to make the arts of war a profes
sion! and thai, too. in a boasted Chris,
gin age, in Ihe light, the brightest
of the altcrnoonof the nineteenth cen
tury; but where is the Slate School of
Science in which to improve and
advance productive labor, ami make
the useful arts of peace posltivt sci
encc? We must up and into this work
ofinaugurating a belter order of things
at once. We will hear the wail and
howl of the frothy clique and of Ihe
"old fogy," who always hold) hack.
Let such rave 'tis all ihey know all
they can do. That u .. u.
just and truthful, remark of the tragi
- - w.u, na.Ni (ii nriRiu, lun.nlt fe
tor, our a.unir i can b. J. , ..lop! -