Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1893 — Ponder It. [ARTICLE]

Ponder It.

The assassination of Carter Harrison, mayor of Chicago, last Saturday night was a very-shocking and very deplorable occurenee. Not only from the high official position he occupied, but also from his great personal popularity, and the very wide circle of friends and relatives to whom his sudden violent death will bean overwhelming personal bereavement. The murder was the work of a crank, if not an absolute- lunatic; and was an act to which men in high official positions are always more or less expo r, °d. The total paid attendance at the world’s fair, for its entire season was in round numbers, 21,500,000. As to how many different persons saw the great exposition, there is no method" of determining with any degree of certainty. If four admissions to each person be taken as a fair average, then only five and a quarter million different people have seen the fair, at all. In any case it is safe to say that not more than one person in ten of the people of this country have ever beheld the glories of the “White City.”

The repeal bill has at last passed the Senate and will become a law. The effect will no doubt, be decidedly beneficial, although not nearly to the extent that many appear to expect The coinage of depreciated silver was not the primary cause of the panic and of the succeeding depression, but so many people believe that it was t'nat the repeal bill was one necessary measure to the restoration of confidence. Another and much worse needed measure, is a joint resolution by Congress that the protective principal shall be retained in the tariff. This, unfortunately, there is no grounds for parting, nor, more unfortunately still, is there any just grounds for expecting a restoration of general prosperity until there is a restoration of the prosperity party to controlling power in the nations government. And that auspicious event is nearly four years off.

The State Farmers’ Alliance, at their meeting in Indianapolis last week, chose three of their state officers from Jasper county. Namely, D. H. Yeoman, for president, Mary E. Welch, vice president, and James Welch as a member of the executive committee. The fact that the order chooses three of its 7 or 8 state officers from a single county, and that county one of the least populous in the state, is a striking illustration of the state of decay the order Ims fallen into. The order is practically dead, everywhere, and wLd llttldlifc it still shows herein JasperM-ouuty is mainly the realm of the efforts of one or two persons who expect in some way to ~J; the order further their po!:*: d ambitions, and of one 'or two others who expect, as heretofore, to work it for the money there is in it. All of which reminds us of a prophecy made by The Republican before the order was three months old in Jasper county, and “spreading like wildfire.” It was that if the order went into politics its fall would be as sudden as its rise. Well, it went into politics and The Republican’s prophesy has proved true.

The fact that 'Pettit, the supposed wife murderer, requested to be buried t>y the side of the wife he was accused of murdering, is taken by a good many people as a strong proof of his innocence. It should be remembered, however, that this request was not made in the anticipation of immediate death, but some time before. In fact, Pettit died without himself being aware that death was at hand. The last words were an order to pack his trunk, in expectation, not of death, but of a re moval from the prison, consequent upon his having been granted a new trial. In this connection, we give herewith some extracts from the Delphi <7ounia/’sOld-Man-on-the-Corner observations on the subject of the guilt or innocence of Pettit; the remarks being of special interest fiom the fact that Bro. Landis, of the Journal, visited Pettit in prison and talked over his trial with him, and relates his impressions as follows; I never saw Pettit but once. That was in the northern prison eight or ten months after he was taken up there to serve a life sentence. I then talked with him a half hour and I made up my mind he was guilty of the crime with which he was charged. I also made up my mind that he was morally depraved and the most accomplished vi Ilian I ever met. I could not help coming to this conclusion.

—His trial and the incidents cnnupcfced with it was the sole theme of the conversation between us. And while talking about it he was in ecstacy. He chatted as glibly and laughed as heartily as though talking over the incidents of a coon hunt. The sparring and cross firing of the attorneys who tried the case were all stored up in Pettit’s mind and there was fun in everyone of them for Pettit, When 1 left him he was smiling and he said with a face as bright as a school girl’s, “I’ll come out ahead of them yet.” I made up my mind that if Pettit were innocent he would never have been able to smile after entering the walls of the prison. A sense of injured innocence would have weighed him down and the burden of sorrow on his soul would never have permitted a light word to escape him. Had he been an innocent man who loved his wife, the thought of her death, and worse still, the charge that he had murdered her, would have put out the light of his heart forever.

The subject .of faith cures, or “Christian Science” healing has lately attracted some attention in in this vicinity. Now there is no question but what there is a large range of diseases, mostly of the nerve centers,

perhaps, from which people will get well if they can only be made made to think they are going to. Still further, the great majority of cases of sickness get well, sooner or later, doctor or no doctor. It is in treating this first named class of diseases, and cases of all classes that would get well anyhow, that faith healers and all other workers of miracles, as well as “queer” doctors have their successes with; and from their real or apparent success in such cases, grows up the belief in their ability to cure all cases. That the faith healers do some good in curing people who only need to think they will get well, there is no doubt. On the other hand, there is no doubt either but that they often do a great harm by causing or allowing people who put faith in their power, to die, whose lives might with proper medical attendance have been saved; and in much more numerous instances are they responsible for severe and dangerous sicknesses, from causing people to discard proper medical service and to depend upon their faith cures. If this faith . cure or “Christian Science” busiI ness is really what its devotees ' believe it to be, it cures diseases | by miraculous intervention of diI vine power; and as such there is and can be no limitations to the number and character of the diseases within its power to cure. If divine power can be induced to interpose to cure lumbago or St. Vitus dance, it can also be induced to set broken bones or to restore lost limbs, or put new eyeballs into empty sockets. Did anyone ever know of a new leg or arm being given by the faith doctors; or a lost eyeball restored?!

They never did. Cures of that character do not occur; and the fact that they do not is absolute proof that “Christian Science” is not what it professes to be, but is a superstitions delusion with the most people and a conscious fraud and deception with the others, of its devotees, Ji

Here is a summary of the results of last fall’s election as shown by the industrial census just completed by the American Economist: Decrease in labor since November 5, 1892, is GOA per cent. Decrease in wages since November 5, 1892, is 69 per cent. Decrease in business since Novvrnber 5, 1892, is 47.2 per cent. Number of hands out of work is 101,763. The loss in total weekly wages is $1,202,851.36. Average decrease in the rate of wages is $2.35 per week. Ponder it, farmers, mechanics, laborers!