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About The Nebraskan. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1892-1899 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1893)
THE NEBRASKAN 63 duties? Have you admired him for his skill plex ; divine laws, infinite, and difficult for and thought him the type of industrial per- human comprehension. For five thousand faction? There are hundreds of such men years men have been patiently seeking the in almost every community ; and though clues to natural law. Today a few have been some of them are true types, many of them grasped: some feet are passing across the illustrate perfectly this very evil of irrespon- threshold into the realm of Nature. Two sible power. The hand is indeed skilled but thousand years ago, because, I believe, God there is no heart back of it. How to get the knew that divine laws were too infinite and weekly stipend and how to spend it are the difficult for man to comprehend without absorbing questions that shut out all higher clearer help from Him, the Christ came, and considerations. No thought here of intellect- when he had said, "One is your Father, even ual development, no thought of country or of God," he had unwrapt all mysteries and de-fellow-men, or of God only of self; an in- clared the brotherhood of man. dustrial giant, an intellectual and moral The national character must be nurtured dwarf. intellectually and morally, so that every man, The growth of individualism, so percepti- woman and child will appreciate the inesti- blc in our modern life, is a legitimate result mable value of the birthright America has of a growth and exercise of patriotism. This given to all her children, of political and re- self-developmcnt, however, is but the first ligious freedom and equality before the law. step. The theory of individual rights, so Too many today would sell this birthright triumphantly established in 1775 and again for u :ness of pottage ; too many are ignorant in 1863, leads on, in the evolution of human- of their privileges and of their opportunities ; ity, to the spirit of fraternity, the brother- too many would forget to bepatriots and ig- hood of man. nore the claims of brotherhood to secure sel- Social equity, the relations of industrial to fish ends. Industrial and political problems political life, and most imperative of all, the are fast approaching each other, both in dif relation of individual to Individual, are the ferent ways, hampering the march of social questions that cry today for a solution. They progress. How shall the confused, conflict cried out at Homestead, when misunder- ing claims of capital and labor become recon standing, ignorance, greed, fanaticism met ciled? Into the raging, seething cauldron of in deadly struggle. They cried out when the present what potion shall be poured that Jay Gould died, leaving an accumulation of shall unify it, yet leave its components fit for wealth beside which the treasures of medi- grander uses in the future than their past has aeval Venice would pale. A cry, not because known. Is not this potion found when, to he called that wealth his and grasps it even the patriotism of the fathers we add a faith from the grave, but he amassed it regardless in the brotherhood of man, strong enough to of his fellow man's needs and claims, and serve as a working rule for every problem of disposed of it without a sign that he recog- national and civil life? nized any brotherhood in his humanity. With the development of the industrial Each day there goes up to Heaven the cry of world, conditions are growing favorable for misery and suffering wrought everywhere in an international, world-.vide commonwealth. the earth by the unthinking intellect and the hardened spirit upon our brothers the mis erable. All things and all thought are compre hended in these three nature, man, God. The whole world's intellect and heart and soul are responding, with vibrations more and more distinct, to the magnetic touch of in dustrial progres . The nations are being woven together into an inseparable, eternal Natural laws are simple, harmonious, un- union of strength and peace. Commerce, yielding ; human laws, conflicting and com- - industry, social intercourse, and literature are