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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 22, 1898)
Che Conservative. crop production vie with the very best of the West. One of the most glorious pieces of scenery on the whole globe may bo found in Rabun scixiuv. : county , which is the northeast corner of Georgia. Tallulah Falls , with cataract and gorge , sounding torrents and an environment of natural grandeur and sublimity unsur passed anywhere east of the Rocky mountains , compel admiration and awe. But one must , in order to see and feast upon this wonderful and attractive liv ing picture , almost take the risk of losing his life. No pioneer promoters have been there. No companies have been organized with American capital as they already have for Porto Rico and further-off Manila with the intention of making the falls useful as well as beautiful. Therefore to see them one must crawl along logs , hover over chasms , climb rickety ladders and stake life on paths marked "dangerous. " All this awaits with gold and beauty the touch and pluck of American enterprise. With that it would burst upon the world as one of its most wonderful , productive and attractive regions. This is only one opportunity out of thousands which the citizens and this republic have at home. These invita tions to intelligent industry are all about us. They are not confined to the West nor to the newly acquired territory in Texas or New Mexico. They are scat tered around generously oven in and among the old thirteen colonies and states. Why seek alligators and heathen , leprosy and savagery , yellow fever , for eign wars , enervation , deterioration and degradation for a race in tropical ac quisitions among the islands of the Pa cific archipelago , or the West Indies ? If we yearn for more empire to develop it is , like Heaven , here at home. If we must annex let us annex , by develop ment , some of the wilderness of the old thirteen states which is still sealed , un opened and unknown ! Why not begin with Georgia ? Why not open the eyes and unwad the ears of the advocates of jingoism , the declaimers - claimers of destiny and make them know something and appreciate some thing of the unexplored and untried values of our own mighty brain-needing , muscle-employing and over glorious re public ? Why not annex the full development of the United States and territories to our duty and destiny as a vigorous \ branch of the Aryan race ? The question of A MATTKIl . how we are to handle OK HACK. dle the natives of Cuba , Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands seems likely to bring to a head the related question of what is to be the final disposition of our negro population ut home. Our fathers began by malting the negroes mere cattle and beasts of burden : the Uncle Tom's Cabin move ment went to the opposite extreme and made them as gods ; the compromise which was finally effected , and which has endured for a third of a century , made them our political equals. Thus , it was considered , was the divinely- inspired wisdom of the Declaration of In dependence made effective , in which it had been said "that all men are created equal ; " and "that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. " We are , however , as wo have since re flected , a branch , and not the least vig orous branch , of the Aryan race ; and the Aryans have , without ceasing , since a time of which geology gives almost the only testimony , been taking other peoples under their wing , which peoples they have forthwith proceeded to govern ; sometimes they have governed gently , sometimes they have governed by ex terminating ; but , first and last , they have governed. The Declaration of American Independence was struck out when two collections of English-speak ing Aryans found themselves in collis ion ; one party proposing to rule the other , which , in the nature of things , could not bo ; but if its fminers had fore seen that one of its effects would be to put men of their race in legal subordin ation to negroes whose fathers were then running naked in Africa , even their French-fed enthusiasm for univer sal brotherhood might have hesitated somewhat. Now wo find ourselves under bonds in the justice-coxirt of the world , to keep order and preserve personal and pro- pert } ' rights , as our race understands such things , among millions of men who are on no very different grade in the scale of humanity from the African negroes ; and this can only be done by governing them , whether with their con sent or without it. If the conclusion is reached that these people are so inher ently different from ourselves that no relations are possible save those of a superior and subordinate race , what can the next step logically bo but a recon struction of our negro problem at home ? A CHUISTMAS CAKOL. "God loveth a cheerful giver , " said the apostle Panl , writing to the brethren at Corinth , who seemed not to respond at collection-time with the proper alac rity. "God loveth a keerful giver" is the amendment proposed and carried by the pious but prudent Puritans , and ad hered to generally by their descendants. The morality of giving for the sake of the pleasant sensation that accrues to the giver has come to bo more open to question , with the growth and general diffusion of means for giving since Paul's time. It is now held to bo good , when giving , to stop and think whether it is your own money or another man's with which you are being generous. Furthermore , everybody being aware of cases where painful results have ensued upon well-meant benevolence , it is thought to be permissible at present to consider first what will bo the probable effect of your charity upon the recip ient. But during this holiday season everyone allows himself a little latitude in this respect. There is something in the air that impels one to give things to others ; even if you are ashamed and do it on the sly , still you give and hope for the best. One may approach the time with the best of resolves to be circum spect , but the soft holiday air is sure to thaw his determination and loosen his purse strings , and he ends by treating himself to the rare pleasiire of a smile from a human face , such as come easy at this season of the year. This is be cause these holidays are not really a religious festival , but an echo of the annual gladness that has filled the heart of mankind for an unreckouablo num ber of years , when they perceived that the ominous withdrawing motion of the sun had ceased , and that he promised to return to them once more , bringing back the good times of warmth and ease , with the birds , the flowers and the good things to eat. It is because they found the determination to make merry in these days to be quite beyond arguing with , that the early promoters of the Christian church decided to turn it to their own uses , which they did by making it one of the high festivals of their system. And it is not likely that the Pilgrim Fathers , stiffly starched , as we usually credit them with having been , refrained entirely from the tem porary expansion which the human juices of their hearts urged upon them. Their spiritual leaders would not have been so severe upon Christinas as they were if they had not had some resistance to overcome. They certainly were very much down upon Christinas ; sermons of theirs which are extant prove as much. They argued that Christ's birth could not have occurred at this time , for the reason that shepherds would not have been spending the night under the stars with their flocks at the end of Decem ber ; that it was a surviving heathen ish festival , as appeared from the ten dency of the carnal heart to dance about a tree and sing unauthorized songs in its celebration ; and finally that there was a very suspicious Popish flavor about the "mas" a reason more valid to their state of mind than to ours. Our children still dance about a tree and stuff' their interiors with things that are not good for them , but otherwise little remains to us of the traditionary celebration of the Feast of the Unconquered - quered Sun. They do these things differently in the old country ; a Ger man is likely to be incredulous , when he hears that we really think wo keep Christmas at all. One pitiful ob servance we still keep up the yearly massacre of the innocents of the forest , to which the train-loads of baby pine- trees that are brought to the cities for brief adornment bear melancholy wit ness ,