z
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, AUGUST 18, 1-901.
vgsoniw&
Entered at the Postoffice at Portland, Oregon,
as jsecond-class matter.
TELEPHONES.
Editorial Rcvoms....l06 I Business Office.. ..GOT
REVISED SUBSCRIPTION RATES.
By Mall (postage prepaid), in Advance
Daily, with Sunday, perjnonth $ 85
XaSy. Sunday excepted, per year. 7 Sl
Jjalty, with isunday. per year U Oi
fcunaay, per year 2 oo
The "Weekly, per year ... 3. SO
The "Weekly, 3 months &0
To City Subscribers
Dally, per week, delivered. Sundays excepted.l5c
Dally, per week, delivered. Sundays. included.-oo
POSTAGE RATES.
United States, Canada and llexico:
10 to ltl-page paper....... ..................lo
11 to S"i-page paper.... ........... ........c
Foreign rates double.
Hews or Uscucslon intended for publication
In The Oregonian should be addressed lnvarla
bly 'Editor The Oregonlan," not to the namo
or any individual. letters relating to advertis
ing, subscriptions or to any -business mattei
bhould be addressed simply "The Oregonian."
The Oregonian does not buy poems or stories
from Individuals, and cannot undertake to re
turn any manuscripts sent to It -without solici
tation. No stamps should be Indo&cd for this
purpose.
Puget Sound Bureau Captain A. Thompson,
office at 1111 Paclflc avenue, Tacoma. Box 335,
iTacoma Postofflee.
Eastern Business Office. 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 40,
Tribune building, New Toric City; 469 "Tbo
Rookery." Chicago; the S. C Beckwlth special
agency. Eastern representative.
For sale ia San Francisco by J. K. Cooper,
746 Market street, near the Palace Eotel; Gold
smith Bros., 236 Sutter street; F. W. Pitts.
1008 Market street. Foster & Orear, Ferry Newa
stand.
For sale in Los Angeles by B. F. Gardner,
259 So. Spring street, and Oliver & Haines, 100
o. Spring street.
For sale la Chicago by the P. O. News Co.,
217 Dearborn street.
For sale in Omaha by Barkalow Bros., 1612
Farnam street.
For sale In Salt Lake by the Salt Lake Ncwa
-o., 77 W. Second South street.
For sale In Ogden by "W. C. land, 204 Twenty-firth
street
On file at Buffalo, N. X., in the Oregon ex
hibit at the exposition.
For sale In "Washington, D. C, by the Eb
oett House news stand.
For sale la Denver, Colo., by Hamilton &
Kendrick. 006-812 Seventh street.
"In her arms and kissed him, and said:
"That, my boy. was conscience the
voice of God In your soul. Always
listen to It and obey It." That counsel
he followed, and the career of New
England's great preacher is largely due
to the training of that devout mother.
She and he, for profoundly beneficent
results, utilized momentous forces for
which there is no room in Spencerian
or Haeckel's philosophy. God to them
becomes a mere eternal law of iron and
conscience an instinct developed from
our gregarious habit and shared with
the brutes. Nor is there room in their
philosophy for Jesus, or Paul, or
Moses, or Luther, or Spurgeon, or
Theodore Parker, or Phillips Brooks, or
Henry Drummond, or John Watson.
The work these men have done could
not be spared. It must go on and by
just such hands it must be done. "When
the biologist can write Shakespeare he
can save man from his s'lns.
TESTERDATS TVEATHER-Maximum tem
perature, 81; minimum, 53; fair.
TODAY'S WEATHER-Generally fair; winds
mostly northerly.
PORTLAND, SUXDAY, AUGUST IS.
OUT OF HIS SPHERE.
Warmly as scientists resent the in
terference of religious opinion into their
high and mighty precincts, they make
no bones of settling offhand every re
ligious problem. The admirable reti
cence observed in this regard by
Charles Darwin has been displayed by
few of his adherents. Mr. Herbert
Spencer, for example, offers a reconcil
iation between religion and science
whose preliminary groundwork, on the
religious side, consists of renunciation
of about all that the churchman holds
dear. The latest venture in this field
Is that made by Ernest Haeckel in his
"Riddle of the Universe." He also has
a religion, as he calls it, but it is not
religion, unless black is white. Relig
ion undertakes to formulate man's con
viction of his relations to the Infinite;
but according to Haeckel there is no
such relation. Man is a mere grain of
sand upon the shore of time. There is
no God, no unseen world, no life be
yond the grave. Religion, therefore,
in his lexicon, is not religion at all.
It is simply science.
The fact is that what men like
Haeckel aim at is not the reformation
of religion, but its extirpation. They
don't like it, they don't understand it,
they want to -get rid of it- In Haeckel's
book God is accounted a gaseous being;
Jesun the illegitimate child of a Jew
ish girl who was seduced by a Roman
soldier; the Bible a mere congeries of
"mythological fancy and religions tra
dition"; Catholic saint veneration a
"rich and varied polytheism that
dwarfs the Olympic family of the
Greeks." Belief in God, says Haeckel,
Is just as impossible as belief In a per
sonal devil; the moral order of the uni
verse is a baseless dream; sun-worship
rests upon a "much better foundation
than the anthropistic worship of
Christians"; while monotheism Is
abandoned in the dogma of the Trinity.
His book abounds in caustic and con
temptuous references to about every
thing that the devout mind holds dear
and religion has countenanced.
The followers of Haeckel will doubt
less say that he is In advance of his
time. Well, Is it altogether to a man's
credit and advantage to be too far in
advance of his time? Does he gain or
lose in efficacy and deserts because
he addresses words to a generation
which can only wound and enrage it?
The message that the twentieth cen
tury needs is not the message for the
thirtieth century, and whoever seeks
to anticipate It will have trouble for
his pains. Soon, maybe, as De Galll
ennehas somewhere finelsrsaid,we shall
need no service-books, no pulpit, no
prophecy or gospel. Not on this moun
tain nor yet In Jerusalem shall ye wor
ship the Father, but unceremoniously
in spirit and in truth. But that time
is not now. j
The religious principle in man is too
deeply rooted to be eradicated by evi
dence which Science presents to the
physical senses. It is not, though
Haeckel seems to think so, a matter
for mathematical measurement and
chemical analysis. Its realm is not of
physical fact, but of spiritual emotion.
He who Insists upon establishing
physical facts by papal bull or West
minster Assembly, whether the facts
are of geology or Hebrew history, Is
not more hopelessly misguided than Is
he who undertakes to supersede the
messages of religion by the experi
ments of the laboratory.
There Is an unreality about religion
as there is an unreality about poetry.
But each is necessary and each reaches
levels of truth above the plane of sci
entific research. The men of science
who confess that they iind pleasure in
eliminating God. that prayer seems to
them a mockery, and that no hymns
have helped them, are not to be envied.
Theirs Is a real deformity akin to that 4
suffered by the man to whom Shakes
peare and Milton, Ruskin and Dante,
are unprofitable wastes of fabrication.
Not by bread alone, not by learning
facts and forgetting old errors, doth
man live, but by the inspiration of
holiness that comes only from relig
ious truth. What we are stretches past
- hat we believe and what we do. More
momentous than that man Is a physical
and an intellectual being is the fact
that he is a moral being. We can
make shift to do without the Coperni
can theory or the law of gravitation,
but not, it appears, without the Deca
logue or the Sermon on the Mount.
Therejs no system of scientific ethics
that can take the place and do the
work of the old and homely gospel of
repentance, and renunciation, and
prayerful strivings after a higher life.
It is related of Theodore Parker that
when alone in the wood as a boy he
had raised a stone to crush a turtle,
when something stayed his hand. To
his mother he went for an explanation
of his unseen prompter. She took him
arURDERERS AT LARGE.
The pleasure an otherwise humane
man takes in correcting his neighbor's
misuse of the English tongue is only
equaled by the resentment he feels
when he is himself the victim of re
proof. The man whose sense of humor
Is keen enough to enable him to laugh
at a joke on himself is not more rare
than is he who can sweetly smile when
apprehended in a grammatical error.
Inhuman as this species of torture
often becomes, and painful though its
effects may be upon the victim, the
process is nevertheless a necessary one,
for accuracy of speech is one of man's
chief ends. Language is an Implement
of progress, and we want to get ahead
with all possible expedition. Its misuse
is a- source of Infinite discomfort, and
we must make the world happier.
Nothing could more efficaciously pro
mote the desirability of this earthly
pilgrimage than the eradication of
verbiclde. Therefore, gentle reader,
bear with a few surmises.
That man is a public enemy who in
sists on using all such inelegancies as
please his fancy, with the excuse that
somewhere or other he has found au
thority for them. A man- can use a
hoe to mow grass or carve the turkey
or cut his boy's hair; but the wise man
does not do this. He selects tools, hoes
or words, for their specific use. The
man who uses "claim" for "maintain"
or "assert" as well as in the proper
sense of theword,or he who callsevery
thing a "proposition" from a proposal
to a hypothesis, is no wiser or better
than one who should insist on paring
his corns with a threshing machine be
cause there Is no law against it. Call
a preacher or a well-formed woman
"divine" and the significance of the
word is annihilated. A category, and
an announcement, and an argument,
and a representation, and an assertion,
and a bill of particulars, are all to
some of our reckless friends "state
ments." That one tool, "statement,"
they use for various purposes for which
specially fitted tools have been provid
ed. In this bungling butchery of their
mother tongue they take a pride. Over
the havoc they have wrought they
gloat. They rejoice that some un
guarded utterance or omission of the
dictionary leaves them free to surge
about the quiet aisles of composition
like a bull In a china shop.
Most of this running amuck in the
streets of language is due to sheer lazi
ness. It suits some fat-witted natures
to use any old word within reach,
whether it will do the work well or 111,
and when the protests of Inoffending
bystanders rouse them at length to
rage, they will spend more time and
trouble to hunt up excuses for their
crimes than would have been required
to find the proper tool in the first
place. He who says "loan" when he
means "lend," and "party" for "per
son." and "liable" for "likely," and
"well posted" for "well informed," and
"hung" for "hanged," and "balance"
for "remainder," and "avocation" for
"vocation," and "stop" for "stay," and
"try and" instead of "try to," and
"plead" for "pleaded"; who confuses
"shall" and "will," and tells of people
who "suicide" and "burglarize," can be
depended upon as one who would throw
his clothes on the floor rather than take
the trouble to put them In their proper
place.
It is the glory of the English tongue
that it is a living language. Words
are constantly acquiring new mean
ings and losing old ones. But the pro
cess, if it is to be of real advantage,
must be employed with discrimination.
What we want is accurate significance,
highly specialized adaptability of
words to their uses. This Is a higher
law than Shakespeare or the diction
ary. The aim of all who confess a
share of responsibility for development
of the language is not to see how many
uses a word may legally be put to, but
rather to how few. That is, we want,
if wa can get it, a language whose
every word has its own peculiar sig
nificance.' Care in the choice of words,
therefore, becomes an important ele
ment in civilization. It enables us to
see clearly, think consecutively, and to
be understood. In adding to accuracy,
it proiriotes honesty. In eliminating
confusion, it advances order and com
fort In the light of this principle of
progress, we may see how dangerous is
the state of mind that condones short
comings because they may be found
in Scott or Thackeray, or justified by
the latest dictionary, loud-heralding its
thousands of "new words" and "new
meanings." The skillful workman is
careful in his choice of tools. It is not
his boast how many things he can do
with one.
expansion and enlargement for Italy
by4 the example of Cavour, who, by
making Italy a partner with England
and France in the Crimean War of
1854. thrust the nation forward as a
power among the powers. Crispl has
been called the Bismarck of Italy, but
he had neither Bismarck's moral force
nor his vast opportunity. Crispl's in
tellectual force and energy were very
great, but he had some of the gross
vices of the Latin race, and, directly
and indirectly, they served to mar the
record of his greatness. Nevertheless,
Crispi is the only great man Italy has
had since Cavour. He drew Italy away
from France and formed the triple al
liance with Germany and Austria after
the Franco-German War. He urged in
1882 co-operation with Great Britain in
Egypt. When he became Prime Minis
ter he persuaded Italy to enter upon a
colonial policy which ended in Italy's
severe humiliation in Abyssinia. In
1890 he was at the summit of his power,
and was universally regarded through
out Europe as the only statesman
equal to the difficult situation in Italy,
for Italy was then in its deepest finan
cial and military misfortunes. Within
a few years Crispi, who had always
been esteemed perfectly upright in all
financial matters, was discovered to be
the leading spirit of that era of cor
ruption which buried his latest admin
istration in great financial scandals in
1898. When It was proved that the
ruin of the Bank of Naples, the Bank
of Sicily and the Bank of Rome had
resulted from political blackmail and
official plunder under Crispi's admin
istration, he asserted that he had used
money from these b'anks for the secret
service fund of the kingdom, for elec
tion expenses, and the subsidizing of
newspapers. His countrymen, in mem
ory of his great services, might have
been disposed to treat these disgrace
ful acts leniently, had not the inves
tigation traced millions of lire to the
private banking account of "Dona
Lina," Crispl's wife.
This exposure ended Crispi's career.
He had been ruined very much as Sec
retary of War Belknap was In Grant's
second administration, through a beau
tiful wife, whose extravagance was so
great that it could only be satisfied by
public corruption under the shelter of
her husband's official position and in
fluence. It may have been true in both
cases that the wife of Belknap and the
wife of .Crispi each profited by bribes
and corruption without the knowledge
or complicity of their husbands, but
they ought to have known all about
it, and probably did know all about It,
since they did not accuse their wives
publicly of abuse of their official good
name. The brilliant career of Crispi,
with its dark spots, has been compared
to that of James G. Blaine. He was
for many years a popular favorite with
his countrymen, but his fall was terri
ble. Blaine was only distrusted and
discredited to a limited extent, but
Crispi's exposure was complete and his
fall irretrievable. His policy added
about $1,000,000,000 to the debt of Italy
within twenty years. His colonial pol
icy was a failure, and while Italy has
not been pushed Into the first rank of
the powers of Europe, she has made
advances in the completion of her rail
road system, in the removal of bur
densome taxes, In. agriculture, com
merce and manufactures that promise
well for her future prosperity and happiness.
from Quaker guns. The son of an
eminent Congregatlonallst minister,
Holmes dubbed Jonathan Edwards
"that great master of logic and spirit
ual Inhumanity," and described the
doctrine of eternal punishment as noth
ing but the debasement of Christianity
with the old heathen Greek idea of
Tartarus; it was the alloy that was
mixed with early Christianity, to 'make
it popular and acceptable to the
heathen, and he predicted that even
as civilization has outgrown the Bible
born belief in witchcraft, so it would
rapidly outgrow the Christian Tar
tarus. Civilization had crowded out
the superstitious legends by the naked,
individual protest, and would continue
to crowd them out.
This was the effective part played
by Holmes In preaching the new gospel
of rational humanity that has gradu
ally supplanted the Edwards gospel of
absolute, unqualified spiritual inhu
manity. Holmes sharply resented the
name of "moral parricide" applied to
him by his orthodox theological crit
ics, for he makes one of the listeners
to his lay sermons say: "Think what
an army of clerical beggars would be
turned loose in the world, if once those
raging flames In the subterranean Are
chambers were suffered to go out or
calm down." And this is the man that
Professor Triggs describes as "irrever
ent and devoid of convictions." Irrev
erent in his treatment of moribund su
perstitions he was; but not irreverent In
his treatment of the Christian doc
trine of the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. Devoid of con
victions he surely was not, for In 1857
Holmes, for the sake of his convic
tions, defied the good opinion of the
majority of New England's "best so
ciety," both within and without Bos
ton. To deny that he was a true poet
was stupid on part of Professor Trigg,
but to describe him as a man "irrev
erent and devoid of convictions" con
victs the professor of Ignorance of
Holmes' published opinions.
sive war to be waged successfully be
tween the European powers, and that
in any case it must be waged in an
entirely different way from that of the
past. It is easy to deduce this conclu
sion with the startling object-lesson of
the Boer War before the eye, but Sheri
dan reached this conclusion In 1871,
before the army rifle had been finally
perfected and universally adopted.
Sheridan's clear military eye saw the
possibilities of the Improved musket In
the work of the "French chassepot and
the German military rifle at Gravelotte.
His own experience in our Civil War
with mounted riflemen had satisfied
him that they must replace cavalry.
The equal slaughter of the French
cuirassiers and the German cavalry at
Gravelotte when they charged infan
try lines confirmed Sheridan's conclu
sion that the day of cavalry was over.
The fate of attacks in column on in
trenched positions in our Civil War
against even the old Springfield rifle
had convinced Sheridan that against
improved army rifles attacks in close
column would become obsolete and be
replaced by clouds of expert shots fight
ing in extended ordertk.llke skirmishers.
THE FUTURE OF WAR,
CRISPI AND ITALY.
The recent death of the great Italian
statesman, Crispi, marks the close 'Of
an era In the history of Italy, his power
in the affairs of the kingdom having
ceased only about three years ago, af
ter prevailing through nearly a quarter
of a century of office. With Crispi's
great figure removed from Italian af
fairs, none but small men are left. He
was the last link that united the Italy
of today to the revolutionary Italy of
Cavour, Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi.
Crispi was a Sicilian by birth and
breeding, and had Albanian Greek
blood in his veins. For liispart in the
Sicilian insurrection of 1S48 he "was
forced to flee to England; he was a
graduate of the University of Palermo,
became an able lawyer and a journal
ist. He was a true patriot up to the
annexation of the two Sicilies to the
Italian kingdom, when he was elected
Deputy of Palermo In the Italian Par
liament. Mazzlni, his old comrade in
arms, who had never trusted Crispi,
denounced him as a man who had re
gard ,only for his own interests and
cared nothing for the people, but then
Mazzlni was an idealist who had al
ways denounced even Cavour.
Crispi averred that he was a practi
cal statesman, a follower of Cavour,
and justified his course of continual J
TRUE POET AND SOUND PHFLOSO
- PHEn.
Oscar L. Trigg, the university pro
fessor, who characterizes church
hymns as "doggerel," denounces Oliver
Wendell Holmes as irreverent end de
void of convictions, and Is equally se
vere in his condemnation of Whittier
and Longfellow. He denies that the
verses of these men entitle them to the
name of poet, and deems their work
childish, trivial and unworthy of con-,
sideration. There is much in Longfel
low's earlier work that is trivial; but
the taste for it was long ago exhaust
ed. There Is much in Longfellow's
latest work, like his "Morituri Salu
tamus," that is fine in form and spirit.
There Is a great deal of noble verse
In Whittier, and there are stanzas, like
"Ichabod," that are Miltonlc In dig
nity of .thought and grandeur of ex
pression. But' the severest insult to
popular taste dealt by Professor Trigg
Is his depreciation of Holmes, who has
no peer among our poets as a writer of
a stirring lyric, witty verses of society
or a poem of pure sentiment and re
fined pathos.
Holmes was a poet, a philosopher, a
ke'en yet gentle satirist, a man lumin
ous with humor and radiant with kind
liness, and he wasa great deal more
than this; he was a great and high
souled citizen of the world. Like Em
erson, he came of clerical stock, and,
like Emerson, he rejected the theologi
cal metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards
for the sweeter spirit and larger wis
dom of Robinson, Bradford, Carver and
Winslow. His early poetry is the work
of a man who had fed in his youth
on Byron and Campbell, whose Influ
ence is seen in his war lyrics and pa
triotic poetry. In his poems of senti
ment and in his society verses he re
calls the grace and tenderness of Moore
and the lively fancy of Praed; but in
his best work he recalls nobody. "Old
Ironsides," "The Last Leaf," "The
Steamboat," "The Voiceless," "Brother
Jonathan to Sister Caroline," "Under
the Violets," "Iris, Her Book," are the
echo of nobody across the seas. His
best song was his own fresh, beautiful
note. Sometimes he sang like a hermit
thrush; sometimes like a nightingale;
sometimes he was as frolicsome as the
volatile bobolink, or as eccentric in his
note as a catbird. As a pure, delight
ful, versatile, singer, Holmes had no
teacher; not only no superior, but no
peer.
But there was a vast deal more to
Holmes than his beautiful gift of pen
sively melodious or mirthful song. He
was a true and sound social philoso
pher. The teacher that served most to
make this poetic-minded man a great
citizen of the world in the breadth,
generosity and sanity of his sympa
thies was his profession of a physician,
whose daily experience tears the mask
from a deal of daily cant and hypocrisy
and humbug. Holmes became a social
philosopher and ultimately a most ef
fective evangelist in the world of lib
eral religious thought. In 1857, when
Holmes began to write the "Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table," he satirized
In the most incisive yet captivating
way religious intolerance and the doc
trine of eternal punishment, and at
once became the target for denuncia
tion by the theologIcarBourbons. But
he proved an elusive antagonist, hard
to reach, because he was not a solemn,
formal logician, but an airy, agile sat
irist. He tickled the ribs of the public
to laughter, and it was as difficult to
answer him as it would be to dissipate
the glory of a rainbow or a display of
the aurora borealis by firing at them
More than twenty years ,ago General
Philip H. Sheridan, in his printed
"Memoirs," said that the vast increase
in the range and rapidity of fire of
the rifled musket and field artillery
would be sure to revolutionize modern
warfare; that the great wars of the fu
ture would be few and far between, be
cause of their enormous expense; that
cavalry, save as mounted infantry,
would become obsolete; that attacks in
column would be replaced by clouds of
troops fighting after the manner of
skirmishers. All these predictions of
General Sheridan, which were the re
sult of his observations of the battles
of Gravelotte and Sedan, have already
come true, for Lord Roberts, In a re
cent address, said that since the in
troduction of long-range, accurate
shooting weapons, it would now be
merely courting' death to venture
within 2500 yards of the enemy in the
old close formation. At Waterloo the
greatest distance between the troops
of Wellington and those of Napoleon
was 400 yards, and in some parts the
outposts almost touched each other.
uch a disposition would be an impos
sibility today, when shrapnel can be
used with deadly effect at a distance
of at least six miles, arid an expert
rifle shot can hit any object that he
can see at a distance of 2400 yards nine
times out of ten. Wellington's army
of about 70,000 troops occupied a battle
front at Waterloo of only three miles,
while more than once in South Africa
a force not so large as that of Welling
ton was spread over a front of more
than twenty miles, and had to com
mence its attack at a distance of quite
six miles.
Volley firing is now scarcely prac
ticable, except when covering an at
tack at very long range or defending
a carefully constructed position. To be
effective at close range against such
marksmen as the Boers the modern
soldier must be taught to fire with
rapidity and at once take cover after
each shot, so as not to give the enemy
time to aim at him in return. Lord
Roberts believes that the fate of bat
tles in the future will be as often de
cided by the result of this compara
tively close distance, rapid, accurate
firing at 150 yards or less as it has
been by the bayonet charge in the past.
Lord Roberts says that accurate rifle
Are is of such supreme Importance un
der the present conditions of warfare
that no other qualifications will make
up for Inferior shooting. However
brave, well drilled and disciplined,
however capable of endurance they
may be, the men will be valueless as
soldiers If they are not experts in the
use of the rifle.
M. de Bloch, in his book, "Is War
Now Impossible?" holds that the war
in South Africa sufficiently demon
strates that no great, decisive war can
now be fought between the European
powers, owing to the increased resist
ing force of the defense. Instead ,of
being a race for the initiative, as In
former times, neither side would wish
to attack, because whichever side did
attack would find It impossible to carry
the campaign to a successful conclu
sion. At Waterloo Wellington had
some 35,000 men on each mile of ground,
while at Magersfonteln the Boers with
some 6000 men defended twenty miles
of front. That is to say, they found 300
men per mile sufficient to hold their
lines against attack. With very thin
lines, with an inferior total, with train
ing infinitely inferior to that of the
enemy, and without organization, the
Boers succeeded in repulsing the attack
of British infantry, perhaps the finest
in all Europe for1 discipline and cool
courage under fire. The Boers were
able to do this, not because of excep
tional courage, but because of ttie ter
rible effectiveness of the modern im
proved army rifle in the hands of an
expert shot. M. de Bloch holds that
since France would have 6000 men per
mile to defend her frontiers, she is to
day absolutely safe In case of another
invasion, for her increased defensive
power would enable her so to prolong
the contest that her assailant's cam
paign J would finally collapse for eco
nomic reasons. M. de Bloch holds that
the South African War lias proved that
against Intrenched men artillery fire
was almost worthless, as at Paarde
burg and Spion Kop.
It is an Interesting fact that the
greatest military critic of Europe has
finally reached the same conclusion
that was prefigured by our General
Sheridan , after his return from the
scene of the Franco-German War in
1871. General Sheridan then predicted
that the increasing range and rapidity
of rifle fire would revolutionize the tac
tics of modern warfare; that the in
creasing cost of making war would
make wars few and far between, and
now this French military critic holds
that under the military, social and
economic conditions of Europe today it
Is almost impossible for a great, deci-
The battle-ship Iowa, the scars of
conflict In battle and hard service hav
ing been carefully repaired, reached
San Francisco Friday, where awaiting
her were orders to prepare at once to
go to sea, with a course shaped di
rectly for Panama. The crew of the
Iowa Is doubtless envied by the "jack
ies" on every ship In the Navy that is
riding lazily at anchor with a squad
ron or awaiting orders in port. Think
ing no farther than the excitement at
tending a possible engagement or a
lively chase, the "man behind the
guns" hears with delight that an order
involving the bare possibility of a sea
fight has come to the commander of his
vessel. It is the hope of an occasion,
to be in readiness for which battle
ships are constructed, that keeps the
Navy sturdily manned, while it is the
ardent desire of the Government so to
equip and dispose of its ships of war
as to prevent an always costly and
generally a deplorable conflict. In gen
eral terms, it is safe to say that as
long as the Nation Is able to look after
her Interests In foreign waters, these
interests will not materially suffer. It
is in demonstration of this ability that
the Iowa will soon cast anchor in Isth
mian waters.
The result of intelligent efforts in
floriculture in the last ten years Is seen
In the creation of distinct varieties of
many magnificent flowers and the im
provement of the older varieties until
scarcely recognizable. Friendly com
petition has been a spur to these ef
forts; the development of Winter
blooms, especially, has been wonderful.
Great , impetus has been given to this
movement by the Society of American
Florists, the managers of which showed
their appreciation of opportunity by
holding their annual convention In
Buffalo last week. When this society
was organized, sixteen years ago, the
class of cut flowers now in such de
mand was unknown. Indeed, the sup
ply on occasions which called for large
quantities of any kind of flowers was
never equal to the demand. Now they
are always to be procured if those
who wish floral decorations have money
enough to back the desire.
The BIsmarcklan antagonism to an
English marriage for a German Crown
Prince, though at one time, curiously
enough, shared by the present Em
peror, seems to have abated, since
Crown Prince Frederick William seems
likely to marry the English Princess
Ina of Battenberg. Both are great
grandchildren of Queen Victoria, the
Prince through her oldest daughter,
the late Empress Frederick, the Prin
cess through the youngest daughter,
Princess Henry of Battenberg. Neither
is a child of a consanguineous mar
riage hence physiological objections
that Bismarck successfully urged
against the marriage of the present
Kaiser to his first cousin, Elizabeth of
Hesse-Darmstadt, are not so well placed
in this case, and perhaps the young peo
ple may be left to follow their own in
clinations in the matter.
Distressing stories are told of .the
poverty in which the late ex-Governor
Newell died and of the economy in
funeral expenses that thereby became
necessary. A useful man In his day
and generation; humane in purpose and
in practice, and public-spirited In mod
est, unassuming ways, his success in
life is not measured by the financial
conditions that darkened his closing
years, but by the record he left as "one
who loved his fellow-men." The man
who originated the life-saving service
of the Nation has a monument on
every point on the coast where life has
been plucked from the wrathful sea,
and the Inscription thereon is not
dimmed by the fact that his burial
robes were of the plainest and his ob
sequies the simplest.
RIVER, OCEAN AND SHORE.
The sea has done much for man, but
man has done much for the sea. Its
message to the awakened mind has largely
been prepared for it by the revealing
and Inspiring Illuminations of the think
er and the poet. To the cultivated eye
and ear the things actually heard and seen
In Nature are but a poor foundation for
the ennobling influences that emanate
from them by reason of the meaning
with which superior minds have endowed
them. There is a pleasure In the pathless
woods and a rapture on the lonely shore
Intenser far than could be felt before
Byron knew them. The clouds that cra
dle near the setting sun do take a sober
coloring for him who has been privileged
to see them through Wordsworth's eye.
Shelley and Campbell are musical In the
skylirk's song, and Matthew Arnold in
the nightingale's. The pines spring more
loftily and vines trail more gracefully
and heaven's stately processions move
with more solemnity since Ruskin lived.
What awe have Keats and Bryant not Im
parted to the groves, what Is there to the
flower In the crannied wall but a re
minder of the tender philosophy of Ten
nyson, how jocund would the morn sit
smiling on the misty mountain top If
Shakespeare had not seen It, what so
lemnity would have been lost to twilight's
hour but for Gray's Immortal elegy, how
many voices of the night would be un
heard but for Longfellow's listening ear,
how cold the Alpine mountains are since
Milton sang, how remorseless the awful
deep of ocean, how ennobled the visita
tion of blindness!
This is well. For under obligation as
the ocean Is to humanity, heavy also is
the obligation of humanity to the ocean.
No one can doubt It who witnesses the
transformation Its breezes bring to tired
mothers and puny children. How soon
the little claw-like fingers of the emaci
ated baby gather flesh In this strong, salt
air, how soon the little cry turns Into the
gurgle of glee, how soon health comes
to sit In cheeks from which all color had
departed! Yet the real blessing Is not the
child's but the mother's. It Is In Vanlty
Falr, perhaps, that Thackeray reminds
us how Inconsolably the parent grieves
over loss of the Infant who would have
forgotten that parent In a. few short
weeks. The disproportion prevails also
In life. The child, likely enough, does not
even know that it Is sick or that the
mother Is distressed, or that Its life or
death makes any difference. How differ
ent the mother! Her whole being seems
wrapped up in that little, fragile, almost
worthless bundle of precarious humanity.
How her cheek Is blanched and heart torn
at its suffering, how grateful at every
falnt sign of recovery! Is there anything
In the world to compare with this- su
preme and most sacred of the affections?
There Is something In the devotion of a
mother for an erring son that transcends
all 'analysis and baffles all praise. Others
may distrust his motives and despise his
methods to her he is always brave and
fair. Judsre and Jury may find him
guilty, but her loyalty never falters. She
sits beside him In the dock, she follows
to his prison door. Nothing shatters her
confidence, nothing weakens her devotion,
nothing alloys her love. O the tired moth
ers, the anxious, the sorely tried!
What myriads of them all over
the land are watching this fear
ful Summer over the feverish forms
of children who will some day. per
haps, bring down their gray hairs in sor
row to the grave! Yet In such a case one
cannot be cruel even to be kind. One can
only wish for them all that they might be
given a fortnight among these restful
scenes, by these ebbing and flowing
waves. In these revivifying Pacific winds.
But It is not for the many, only for the
few. And this again Is equitable, for they
are also few who have done anything for
the sea.
Never before has the beach-bound trav
eler seen so many strangers on their way
down the Columbia River. An old-timer
can ride down on the Potter any day and
see, among the hundreds on board, hardly
any one he knows. How they are to be
envied these untutored ones, new to river,
ocean and shore! To them there Is
granIeur in the familiar bluffs of the
Columbia's lower reaches, Pillar Rock Is
a spectacle of moment, and that a river,
even with auxiliary bays, should be twelve
miles wide, is a fact of almost Incredible
magnitude. We have long lost the Joys
they Either on this maiden trip. The
bay looks "up hill" to them as once It
did to every wondering eye, beauty and
mystery sit out between the headlines at
the harbor mouth, and where the breakers
lift their snowy crests across the bar Is
a realm of enchantment and delight. It Is
worth something to be reminded of these
things, and to renew the memories and
thrills of long ago.
STUFF AND STUFFING.
My solitary walk the sun did greet
With gleams of glory down the forest's floor.
Gemmed with Spring's tender flowers, and
vaulted o'er
With music which did aye tho tale repeat
Of youth and happiness, serene and sweet.
I wandered by the river's singing shore.
Its guardian banks, its ripples evermore.
Sang of a God of Love, a life complete.
Again these woodland ways my steps havo
crossed;
O'er wavo and sward, beneath th' untimely
frost.
Its Winter web of Ice stern Nature weaves.
And Autumn's blast, slghln? around me.
grieves
O'er Life's flown birds, dead flowers and
withered leaves.
There are other harvests in this coun
try than those of the husbandman,
though at the present time of year
the latter claims the attention of the
public and keeps crop experts busy
with estimates. Good judges, however,
say that the gold harvest this year
will add $100,000,000 to the wealth of
the United States, and that by the
beginning of 1902 the Treasury will con
tain $550,000,000 in gold, while the whole
stock of gold in this country at that
time will not be far from $1,200,000,000.
These figures represent a bulk and
value that can be but dimly compre
hended by the mind unused to "deal
ing with the great forces of finance.
The opposing elements in the San
Francisco dock strike reject friendly
Intervention and seem determined t'o
fight out their differences along pres
ent lines, regardless of time and cost
In the meantime coastwise trade is
suffering, and many collateral inter
ests are embarrassed. It may be
hoped, therefore, that "sweet reasona
bleness" will at an early day dominate
the councils of the opposing forces, to
the end that the costly contention may
be settled amicably and without preju
dice. .
Morgan is reported to be formulating
a plan of profit-sharing as a settlement
of the steel troubles. He has the brains
to do it, and if he succeeds it will make
secure his title to fame. Perhaps it is
in his power now to make the greatest
contribution of history to the labor
problem. It is sincerely to be hoped
he will succeed.
Elsewhere appears a fine Illustrated
article from the pen and camera of Dr.
H. W. Kellogg, Portland's well-known
pastor. This is a valuable sort of work,
and should be extended by Dr. Kellogg
and other Summer tourists to points in
Oreeon.
We are getting ahead, but with every
gain there Is some compensatory loss.
How we used to chafe over the stops at
way landings, and how we welcomed the
"straight run" to Astoria. But some
thing has departed with those old days
that one never expected to ml33. Now
It dawns upon us how much of Joy there
was In the bright oases on that otherwise
eventless Journey. The memories of clas
sic St. Helens, the white walls and pic
turesque bayou of Skamokawa, the fever
ish activity of cannery docks, the groves
of Clatskanle and the happy villagers of
Cathlamet all these things are of mere
memory now to the busy traveler, and
they are things that he needs. If he would
be wise, to know. One day a little maid
boarded the down-river boat at Cathlam
et. Of all she was and all she wore or
said or did, nothing remains In recollec
tion but the nosegay she proudly carried.
It was a peculiar collection and at It one
might smile Or breathe a pensive sigh
as was his mood. Whence came, my little
maid, these zinnias, and phlox, and Sweet
William and bachelor's buttons and rib
bon grass and everlasting flowers? To
the best of her knowledge and belief they
had been picked In some one of the happy
dooryards of the peaceful valley of EI
okomin, and she fancied them a brave
tribute to help brighten with 'her own
sunny presence the home of an Astoria
friend. But that could not have been.
Nay, nay, my little maid. These be no
flowers of Elokomln; these be the ghosts
of posies that grew In grandmother's gar
den thousands of miles from here and
many weary years ago by the banks of an
Eastern river, where apples reddened on
ancient boughs In the September sun and
where patient-eyed cows came home at
night through the pasture bars. From
grandmother's posy-garden came these
bachelor's buttons and Sweet Williams,
and these be the selfsame ribbon grass
and everlasting flowers that rustle In the
wayside burylng-ground over graves as
old today as you yourself shall be, my
Httle maid, some day when the coffin
closes over your first-born child, and the
Reaper's sickle keen has gathered In an
other floweret of lovely Elokomln Val
ley. The winds are blowing free up from
the far Paclflc as erst they blew when
the continent was raised: the river runs
on to the sea unchanged and undisturbed;
the ripples come and go In tireless rhythm
and the branches wave for us as for the
old Indian braves and the early explorers.
Man only Is evanescent and transitory.
He sets his foot upon the ground that
shall be here in its place when his name
Is forgotten and plants the sapling that
shall outlast his children's children. The
dreams of youth, the resolves of manhood,
the tragedies of hearts and homes, leave
no trace upon river, wave or shore. Maz
aroth comes forth In his season and Arc
turus with his sons, unmindful as uncon
trolled of man. Impotently rolls the sky
and relentlessly the waves. Almost as
soon as these posies shall wither. little
maid, you yourself shall fade and molder
In the dust with all the last year's flow
ers. Shelly says:
This world is tho mother of all wo know;
This world is the mother of all wo feel.
Ye3, but its motherhood is one unfeel
ing, unsympathetic. We take out of Na
ture what intellect and emotion have put
there for us. She is a salted mine. '
Lone Beach. Autr. 13. E. $.
A Kipling- Parody.
(From an Oriental exchange, called to Tho
Oregonlan's attention by Lieutenant-Commander
A. N. Wood. United States Navy.)
The anniversary number of the Star
contains, besides a story of M. Zola and a
very hlgh-falutln' poem by Mr. Swin
burne, a parody on Mr. Kipling which
we cannot forbear quoting, for Its In
genious play on his verbiage. This ef
fort lsX signed "V. C," entitled "The
Helmlskrlngla of the New Rime Stingers;
or the Chorus of the School of Kipllng
ites," and Is worded as follows;
Wo have seen the sea. we have lanned tho
land, we have whirled the world around;
Wo have found our Tun awash and aland, ana
taken it whero wo found;
We havo sized the size of the oceans six, and
sworn that they were seven:
Wo have spouted the spumy spindrift up till
It spatted the bars of heaven;
We have sagged and hogged by Saghallan
sands, and dogged the dogged cod;
Wo have banned the bars and barred the bands
and given the devil the nod.
Thro' the Rudyard kailyard we sllnked for lore
Losh! we ha' slbbed oursel'
When we gawed tho Deity o'er and o'er and
boomed tho booms of hell.
We were all oe'r-slb to tho crosshead gib till
we turned Matun. tho cripple;
But we Uvo and learn and we aye return to
the verberant verb "to kipple."
Wo have heard of Su-pl-yaw-lat's him; wo
havo hymned McAndrews her.
And we swim with vim round tho dim sea
rim whero tho ooze-deep cables burr,
Whero the tigers tigue and the niggers nig:
and the fakirs fako away.
Where the mariner marries the wind-lass big.
and tho lascars laslc all day.
Wo havo marked the mark of the seal droves
stark thro' Petropaulovskl haze.
And tho cuttles kipling within the dark ayont
the gunnel sprays;
We have marched tho march of the Birds of
Prey, and tho d d old goose-march, too;
Wo have 'unted oonta and pounted punts and
way'd tho wayds through;
We ha Tommled here, we ha' Tommied there,
wo ha tippled the tipay TTppIe,
And we still rejoice In the active voico of
the verberant verb "to kipple."
Wo have Joined Her Majesty's horse marines
for special chrysanthema.
And ever and oft we have theosophed soft
phrases llko Dana Da;
We have rimed the frost and legioned the lost,
and verst the Russian miles.
And the big South Mirk we have met at kirk
in Tierra del Fuegan aisles.
We yanked the Yankee railway king and railed
at Indian rails;
Wo bruited the Bengal brutes aboard and
tweaked their Jungle tales;
We Winnlpegged out the great wheat belt, and
sutteed the rites of wrong
Ero we trekkaroo'd over Afric's veldt and
kuriled Into Hong Kong.
We have waved the flags, wo havo flagged
the waves, till they rippled with a rip
pling ripple;
And early and late we conjugate the verberant
verb "to kipple."
We have traded the oldest trade of all,, tho
oidest art ever sung;
We have perched Lalun on the city wall and
'ung the pictures of Ung; "
And wo fuzzy-wuzzed till the niggers buzzed
through tho square we made our boast;
Wo were beat in fleeting, but oar fleet in
being has carried the morning post; "
Wo havo damned tho Ganges with Hooghli
dams, and driven the drifts sky-high.
Where tho wolverine worries tho warrlgal, and
and the wallaby wallows by.
We have rocked the rookie and ranked the
ranker and ball'ad the Bolivar;
Wo havo bunked the bunker and anked the
anchor, and. lo! we have berthed a start
As rank as herbs we have coined new verbs.
with syllables double and triple.
And early and late wo conjugate the verberant
verb "to kipple."
Bernard, It will be remembered, who
was a monk at Clugny under Peter the
Venerable (1122-1136), wrote a poem on
"The Contempt of the World," of abqut
300 lines long, which satirized the cor
ruptions of the age. It would have slept
unknown, however, had not the author
prefaced It with a hundred lines or so
describing the joys of heaven. These
lines have appealed powerfully to Chris
tian imagination, and, as edited and re
arranged by Archbishop Trench, they
have become the source of most of the
hymns describing "Jerusalem,, the Gol
den." Bernard's poem is written In Latin and
the rhythm Is most ingeniously planned,
since it consists of dactylic hexameter
couplets that rhyme at the ends and also
In the middle of each line. So complicated
was the device that Bernard believed the
form was the result of direct inspira
tion. Even those who do not know Latin
can get a very good Idea of Its style
from the four lines beginning "O Golden
City. Zlon," literally, "City Zlon, golden,"
which runs as follows In the original:
Urbs Syon aurea. patria lactea, cive decora
Omno cor obruls, omnibus obstruia et cor et
ora.
Nesclo, nescio, quae Jubllatlo, lux tlbl quails,
Quam soclalia gaudla, gloria quam special's.
Dr. John M. Neale. who has translated
It, says of this hymn: "It la the mo3t
lovely as the 'Dies Irae' Is the most sum
lime and the 'Stabat Mater' the most
pathetic of medieval poems." It Is his
well-known translation, tho first stanza
of which, as can be seen. It la a literal
translation of the lines printed above,
and was as follows:
Jersualem the golden
With milk and honey blest.
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice opprest.
I know not, oh, I know not.
What holy Joys are there.
What radiancy of glory.
What bliss beyond compare.
The length of a story may be shorter
than that of the sequel. The British In
South Africa are still busy with the se
quel, although they finished the story
long ago.
The -Irish should protest against Kitch
ener's purpose to end the Boer War so
soon. They pay taxes and are certainly
entitled to the worth of their money.
Vacation work3 us very hard.
Our peace forever frets;
The more we try to make it long
The shorter still It gets.
Count Hlppolyte Pallovlnclnl will" get
$25,000,000 and the Philadelphia heiress
will get his name. Fair exchange Is no
robbery.
The sole purpose of that lost period of
hot weather seems to have been to splto
those of us who had had vacations.
'TIs better to havo had a mother-In-Iaw
and lost her than never to have had
a mother-in-law at all.
The piano trust has gone flat. It was
pitched in too high-toned a scale. l
General TJrlbe-Urlbe Is at least up to
date. He has a ragtime name.
This Is the day to be in tune wlthv the
infinite, but not to tune up.