2 tlbe Conservative.
disciplined in these great nationnl insti
tutions until their pupils arc perfectly
prepared to enter upon those vast inter
national corpse-making matches , called
battles , anywhere on earth. Such
splendid machinery has modern civiliz
ation and Christianity invented for the
wholesale destruction of humanity
when the opposing armies of two re
fined and pious peoples meet in conflict
that physical courage has become almost
a part of the mechanism of that mag
nificent murder which we call war.
And now the need is for men who
have that sort of intellectual and moral
bravery that will make them bold
enough to tell the truth , to advocate the
truth , and if need bo , to politically die
for the truth.
The schools , colleges and universities
of this Republic should teach their stu
dents the importance of thinking instead
of depending upon what others have
thought.
Individuality and the strength and
self-reliance of an enlightened independ
ence in thought and speech are sadly
lacking in the public life of the United
States.
Men who dare to denounce wrong , in
the face of a mad populace who for the
moment approve and support the wrong ,
are needed , and needed now.
The old fallacy that "a majority is
always right" was exploded on Calvary ,
at Jerusalem , more than eighteen cen
turies ago !
It takes from ten
AN AMERICAN
to twenty
generations
ItllEED OF MEN.
tions o f careful
coupling of the best types of domestic
animals to found and establish a breed.
The owners of cattle , swine , sheep and
horses in the United States thoroughly
understand and perfectly appreciate the
law of heredity. They therefore select
the best individuals from each race so that
the more valuable traits may be intensi
fied by transmission.
The result of all this study and care
in breeding the domestic animals of the
United States is strikingly satisfactorj * .
The American standard-bred trotting
horse has no equal on the globe. He is
the result of transmitted qualities of en
durance , gait , form and celerity of the
movement of the limbs , in such combi-
nation and porportion , as to produce
speed. The continued lowering of the
mile record from three minutes shows
that the shortest time in which a mile
may be trotted has not yet been re
corded.
The Short Horn , Herefordshire , Polled
Angus , Jersey , Swiss and Holstein cat
tle herds of the United States contend
triumphantly with their Icin for superi
ority in all the markets of the world.
And many specimens of each have been
bought in the United States for exporta
tion with the intention of improving Eu
ropean stock.
In. sheep and in swine the American
farmers have shown equal intelligence
as to breeding , for the most desirable
and useful purposes , so that today the
farm animals of the United Stales are
equal to those of England or any of the
continental countries of the old world.
How long , in view of the foregoing ,
may it possibly be , before there will
exist a human be-
HOW LONG BEFORE fa R who , g
AMERICAN MIS. ( lis t in c ti ve 1 y
American ? The breeds of Englishmen
and Germans are well defined. Even the
casual observer can distinguish one from
the other on sight. And the children of
English parents are altogether unlike
the children of German or French par
ents. The racial characteristics of each
nation in Europe are inscribed upon its
physical and intellectual organism.
Here in the United States however
there is since the landing of the Pilgrims
in 1620 , only a lapse of two hundred
and seventy-eight years. And reckon
ing thirty-three years as a generation
less than nine generations of Americans
have been born into the United States
from the small original stock of the Pil
grims in New England , the Swedes in
Delaware , the Quakers in Pennsylvania ,
the Dutch in New York and the English
in Virginia and the Caroliuas , though
the first attempt at colonization in the
latter was hi 1585-87 by Sir Walter
Raleigh ; and in Virginia by the Captain
John Smith colony in 1606.
And each year there has been , since
the present century began , a steady in
flux of foreign blood to commingle with
the native. It seems possible that , in
the wisdom of an Omniscient Mentality ,
this country was reserved for the pur
pose of breeding a new race of hu
manity.
Hither have come individuals , male
and female , from every part of the
globe , civilized and uncivilized , repre
senting all the tribes and breeds of man
kind. Under new conditions of climate ,
soil and environments they have hero
renewed the struggle for existence.
Here with better average nutrition , less
of the asperities of life and with con
stantly cumulating comforts this vast
conglomeration of humanity has been
amalgamating race with race and typo
with type. But not yet , seemingly , has
there been evolved a markedly distinc
tive American breed of men.
Sir Francis Galton in his "Inquiries
into Human Faculty and its Develop
ment" a work of great research and
candor , published in 1888 philosophi
cally remarks : "The tyrannies under
which men have lived , whether under
rude barbarian chiefs , under the great
despotisms of half-civilized oriental
countries , or under some of the more
polished but little less severe govern
ments of modern days , must have had a
frightful influence in eliminating inde
pendence of character from the human
race. Think of Austria , of Naples , and
even of France under the third Napoleon
leon ! It was stated , in thaLondon.Daily
News of October 17,1870 , that according
to papers found at the Tuileries 26,642
persons had been arrested in Franco for
political offences since December , 1851 ,
and that 14,118 had been transported ,
exiled or imprisoned. "
Galton holds that under long contin
ued conditions of suppression blind in
stincts of fear have been ingrained into
our breed so that they bar us from the
enjoyment of the freedom which the
forms of modern civilization are capable
of giving us.
"A nation need not , " says Galton ,
"bo a mob of slaves , clinging to one
another through fear , and for the most
part incapable of self-government , and
begging to be led ; but it might consist
of vigorous , self-reliant men , knit to
one another by innumerable ties into a
strong , lonso , and elastic organization.
"Tho character of the corporate action
of a nation in which each man judges
for himself , might bo expected to pos
sess statistical constancy. It would be
the expression of the dominant charac
ter of a largo number of separate mem
bers of the same race , and ought there
fore to be remarkably uniform. Fickle
ness of national character is principally
due to the several members of the na
tion exercising no independent judg
ment , but allowing themselves to be led
hither and thither by the successive
journalists , orators and sentamoutalists
who happen for the time to havethe ,
chance of directing them. "
The ideal standard of a republic
seems hardly attainable by the present
breed of Americans. A republic
wherein each citizen shall soberly think
upon all public questions and make his
ballot the reflex of his candor , judg
ment and patriotism may bo far distant
in the future. But until the slavery of
the masses to leadership and partyism
has been abolished and their mental
emancipation established how can a safe
and solid republic be hoped for even by
the most confirmed optimist ?
The taint of the primitive barbarism
of all the peoples of Europe , and the
tendency to follow head-men , chiefs ,
leaders and plotters must be bred out of
Americans before they can transmit to
their descendants a common or general
inherent capability "to rise to the posi
tion of free members of an intelligent
society. "
Self-reliance , non-gregariousness are
individual qualities which in a proper
civilization should speedily assert them
selves. In the original colonies and in
states founded by and maintained by
immigrants these characteristics most
abound ; for the reason that the depend
ent , the gregarious and the easily led
members of an established society never
quit it to take upon themselves the
rigorous duties of trying to found a new
one. Such individuals are too servile in
soul and body , in thought and action , to
even think of self-reliance sufficient to
