Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/905



tence of the pioneer stock. What school of the modems can make any such show- ing? Not even the colleges of other states can send here men of equal ability, honorable record, and public service. And the test of public service can be fully equaled in all ranks and employments in the state where the sons and daughters of the pioneers have been brought into comparison with the standards and com- petitors produced by modern ideals and teachings.

It is not necessary to claim that the sons and daughters of the present era^ the actors on the present stage, have not equal natural ability with the children of the pioneers. It is not a question of abihty, but a question of training and environment. The moderns have not less ability, but different training. Just as the twig is inclined the tree is bent. The people of the present day have allowed themselves to be persuaded that a vast amount of training, the study of a great number of books, and "cramming" the youthful mind with a multitude of subjects is necessary to an education. It is not education at all, but dissipation. If a de- partment store brain and equipment for life is the aim of the parent, then he will get a department store clerk as the outcome of his boy in nineteen cases out of twenty. That will be the result of training.

As to environments, the conditions are even worse for the boy than the popular college. Called to take their places in the ranks of modern town society, the young man or woman finds themselves beset on every hand with all manner of in- fluences to divert their minds and attention from the real and serious things of life, to the dissipation of time and money on the "attractions — advantages of so- ciety." Many of these things occupy the mind to the exclusion of more useful and important concerns, and not a few of them are morally debasing. It will not be claimed that relaxation from study and business should not be indulged in. Neither will it be claimed that clean and healthful amusements have no value. All work and no play will make Jack a dull boy in the majority of cases. It is not the play, but the character of it, and the extent of it that dissipates the mind. Evil influence comes in where "money making" insinuates its graft on the minds and morals of the young. Fifty years ago, the idea of playing base ball for money, or "slugging" on a foot ball field for the gate fees, would have provoked the same horror to parents, as the Roman holiday, which two thousand years ago, cast malefactors and Christians alike to an arena of Numidian lions.

The one chief factor that has changed the standards of character and rectitude in modern times, from the standards of the pioneer days, east and west, is the cor- rupting influence of corruptly accumulated wealth. The old Jewish prophet was not mistaken when he declared that "the love of money was the root of all evil." Go back as far as you please, and you will find that the pioneer founders of all the abiding benefits of American civilization, were satisfied with a very modest amount of this world's goods and gear, as compared with their descendants of the third generation.

What do we see now ? Greater inequalities of wealth and position in the United States within 134 years after its founding, than in any European nation that is a thousand years old. Direct poverty alongside of single fortunes of two hundred million dollars accumulated in forty years. Working men clubbing and beating working women in a contest for labor and bread, in a city of two million people which is not yet two generations old ; and where men have accumulated fortunes of fifty million dollars, from the labor of their fellow men, in a single gen- eration. Combinations of capital to fix prices, and raise or depress wages, increase or decrease the supply of commodities, and drive out competition, with a more effective and autocratic power than was ever exercised by any absolute monarch of any old world dynasty. Unscrupulous adventurers, casting behind them all the restrictions of honor, decency and fair play, with millions accumulated from reck- less gambling or downright extortion, buying their way to the highest legislative or executive offices, to disport their vanity and corrupt the public conscience.

It is therefore, little wonder that the laws of nation, state, and municipality has had to be reformed, on a stricter basis than the Jewish lawgiver's ten com-