Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1886 — It Is to Be. [ARTICLE]

It Is to Be.

In the history of nations, and of men, the works of thh fittest seem likely to survive the longest. They may be lost sight of for a little season, but like the flowers of June they come again and prove their right to admiration and renewal.

Passing over the events in cyclopedia from the wars of Alexander to Grant, from the pyramids of Egypt to the Brooklyn bridge, and noting the drift of sentiment in art, religion and invented improvements, we are forced to conclude that, with all of the crime and suffering of the races on the globe, we know but little af’er all of the cruelty of war, the baseness of passion, or the utter degradation of man in the present as compared with the past. The past was bloody, revengeful, stupid, cruel, and barbarous in war, reaching to the hand-to-hand contest for kingdoms by poison or by intrigue, while the present consents to battle only as a last extremity, and treats the vanquished with becoming regard for their humanity. The past gloried in blood and torture to men and women over religious contentions, the present grows more and more tolerant of personal belief. The past aimed at the promotion of rulers, the present would improve mankind. It mattered little in the past that whole nations were subjugated as serfs; to the present the intellect of sages is bent on humane dealings between all conditions of life. That the fittest seem surviving in a material as well as a social sense is shown in t e progress of educated natians. England, America, Germany and France, these are the progressive people of the Avorld in thought and science; the restless invention enjoyable by the masses who govern themselves by new and original methods, and instead of saying with Alexander that we fight them, because two cannot govern the same country, we compete with them proudly and celebrate, their advancement in fairs and expositions with rejoicing, because we see in them an element of profit and friendship. There may be times when political leaders look on the misfortunes of neighboring nations with Alexander’s greed of conquest, or Caesar's desire for their gold, but it is not the sentiment of our time to foster such ambition. Men are learning to like each other for selfish reasons if for no other. And this is one of the surest elements of universal progress—a desire to create commerce by friendship. The signs of the times to-day indicate that the four great Christian nations, with several more lesser ones in influence, would cheerfully unite in a treaty of perpetual peace or an agreement to arbitrate every national difference hereafter.

With this sentiment comes a deep feeling of security, a love of home, and a desire to command commerce by deserving it. The people of the West are hurrying their grain to far-away markets in islands on foreign shores, while those of the East are taking interest in farm lands and large ranches to bring them into greater production. The people of the North and South are busy in their forges and their forests fitting and preparing the tools and timber to be used by these who, in ancient times, would have been enemies. And what does all this argue—for the scroll seems unrolling and the marching armies and tortured prisoners and chariots falling from precipice rocks, and martyrs burning at the stake, and kings enjoying the combats of wild beasts in the arena, and rulers plotting the destruction of Cities, while vast armies, fording streams, are met and murdered without truce or mercy, seem rising in the Eastern back-ground, and industries with their palace loads of grain aud blooded cattle are flying back to meet them from the West — what does it mean, this startling sentiment of men ? It means that a union of the good is before us. It means that the implements of modern warfare are to be forged in the friendship of nations, that the war is to be a war of commerce, its battles to be fought with skill and enterprise; that instead of destroying productions we are learning to applaud every means that will increase trade, cheapen good living, supply luxury, and benefit mankind.— J. W. Donovan, in the Current.