K.
y
7
-c VOL. XV.. fO. XI
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OBSERVATIONS. 8
Rudyard Kipling.
Judging from, the reviews and the
newspapers, Rudyard Kipling is nut
the man he was. His books sell just
as well, but the critics, less and lesser,
profess entire disenchantment. It is
said that the English army in india
officers and men object to his reports
of their conduct and character.
Truly, according to Kipling the Brit
ish in India are a bad lot: the otlicers,
carousing, conceited faithless roues,
the men no better than thieves, when
not dead drunk and the wives of offc
ers, men and civilians thoroughly
untrustworthy and irresponsible.
The English schoolmasters and the
alumni of the secondary schools at
Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and the mili
tary schools deny that the scholars
are the disagreeable, brutal prigs of
Stalky & Co. Even the beasts ol the
jungle are holding meetings and have
drawn up resolutions repudiating
Kipling's portraits of them and dis
tinctly asserting that this man Kip
ling is unauthorized. The Gloucester
fishermen were the first to detect the
fishy tlavor of tie story he wrote
about the tishing-fleet off the
hanks. The naturalists of the Indian
jung'es are quite willing to accept
Kipling as a romantic authority on
the British army, the soldiers are
willing to believe what he says about
the English schools, the Yankee skip
pers, and the animals in the jungle
but they disavow his authority and
ability to sketch them. As he is not
a so'dier's soldier, or a sailor's sailor,
and as the school-boys whose grown
up name is alumni, and the school
teachers are huffy because of the very
b'ack eye he has given the English
schools, and further as the English
poets have always refused their con
sent to h s reputation as a poet, the
testimony is conclusive that he is
not an universal genius. His stories
are like post mortems. They dis
cover diseases that intimates had
never suspected and other individuals
of the types he portrays protest that
he is unjust and und scriminating.
But the stories are interesting if not
true and the sale "f Kipling stories
will not be injured by the wholesale
repudiation of Kipling by tve soldier
as the novelist of the British army,
by all women as their dramatist, by
the naturalist as a student of ani
ma's, by school-boys as their his
torian and uy the Gloucester fisher
men as a writer on ships and sailors.
The Gloucester fishermen were the
fi-st to laugh at Kiplfng's sttiries of
fishirrgoff the Banks. 'They were not
affected by his reputation as a writer.
They do not pretend to any
knowledge but that of fishing, and
literary standards and reputations
mean nothing to them.
Such a revision of a man's reputa
tion is unusual during his life. For
the continuity of Mr. Kipling's fame,
it is perhaps as we I that he should
be re-rated while he is still producing.
Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico either belongs to the
United States or it does not. If it is
our it is a great scandal that must
injure the republican party, to defend
ourselves against its trade, to apply
to its trade with other nations our
prohibitive system and then to turn
it against the Puerto Ricans them
selves. No commerce is strong
enough to stand the application of
such a hateful principle It is said
that the Sugar Trust has been able
to convince congressmen of the wis
dom of delay. It is very unfortunate
for the country thac a few men are
able to put such a shame upon it.
Expansion.
Colonization or expansion is the
test of a nation's virility. It is a
stage of growth and a sign of it. No
great nation has ever existed that
has not grown to its political bound
aries and beyond them. It may be
that this experiment In democracy
will not succeed. If not we shall fail
in the Filipines. Like the gold seek
ers who printed "Black Hills or bust"
on their wagons in the seventies. It
is colonization with us now or admit
the most indisputable sign of na
tional weakness and prophesy of dis
integration. What has happened
will happen again und history is the
most reliable s.byl or oracle that we
can consult. England is colon zing
the world. We are sib to her and
have inherited the capacity to colon
ize; a curious national tact which
the Latin and Romance nations do
not poshes. Universal peace is more
likely to be accomplished through
this persstent English habit than
through an international p-iwwow
and agreement. England in British
America, Australia. Nova Scotia, In
dia, and the smaller Islands is as loyal
to Great Britain as the English in
England. "When America and Eng
land shall have colonics enough there
can be no more fighting.
The government of the United
Stafcjs is just finding out that colo
nizttion or expansion is incompatible
with a high protective tariff. Colo
nization is a settlement of a people
in a new country, while retaining the
institutions and laws of and allegi
ance to the mother country. Expan
sion, in the American sense, is adop
tior, and the imposition of our laws,
institutions, customs and conventions
upon an alien people separated by
water, or another nation from our
boundaries. It was expansion, for
this last reason, according to the anti
expansionists when we bought Alas
ka, and it was not expansion when we
gathered in Louisiana, Florida and
the Northwest Territory. With a
part of the United States in the Fili
pines and another part of it in the
Atlantic between North and South
America the difficulty of maintain
ing a protective tariff will become ap
parent, if not to everybody, of neces
sity to congress when it attempts to
reconcile the rights of the people on
the islands with our protective sys
tem. A Christian Newspaper.
Doctor Sheldon's strictly censored
newspaper containing only the cur
rent events that he thinks Christ
would want people to have printed is
the financial success of the week.
"Whether such a paper would retam
its circulation for a year or more this
experiment of a week cannot fairly
determine.
Those who believe that the New
Testament is a faithful and unexag
garated report of the life and teach
ing of Christ cannot deny that Doc
tor Sheldon has authority for claim
ing to know exactly how Christ would
run a newspaper in His year 1900.
Chr st taught the disciples that His
life, more than anything else was an
example. Everything expect the
rule of love and its unrestricted ap
plication, was taught "by them of
old time." But the Jews then and we
of today learn by concrete examples.
The ten commandments do not mean
anything to us until one of the sins it
forbids tempts us, or we see some one
else breaking them. Perhaps the Jews
of that time were a trifle harder to
teach by precept then, than we are
now. Their language was that of a
very primitive people. It was all in
parables and figures. Worship of a
spirit, had degenerated into the wear
ing of phylacteries and amulets, into
a very formal and complicated cer
emonial. Yet they were an emotion
al, easily moved people, as the quick
acceptance of Christ's radical and
revolutionary doctrine demonstrated.
Nevertheless there is not one of us
who is willing to take Doctor Shel
don's prescription ot news. There
areallsTtsof things in the Bible.
Under another name some library
boards would censure it and exclude
it from the library over which the
board is the guardian Yet nevertheless
old, and new, it is still the rule or
morals and manners for the Chris
tian world. In claiming to be able
to know just how Jesus would run
the business of the modem world. Dr.
Sheldon does not exceed bibical in
structions while he directs his own
movements, but a deliberate attempt
to publish a newspaper as though
Jesus were the publisher is an exhi
bition of extraordinary self compla
cency. Perhaps a better Bible stu
nent can find authority in the books
for treading in His footsteps and thus
becoming another example of what a
godlike man can do, but I fail to find
such a passage. Fanatics have killed
women, children and themselves un
der the impression that the Bible
directed them. Only the sanest,
broadest mind can interpret the
Bible for others. It Is singular that
Christ himself refused to give specif
ic rules in specified cases. When
implored t rebuke this man or that,
He picked up a little child or wrote
on the ground, or gazed absent-mindedly
past his interrogator. From the
reports of Mathew, Mark, Luke, John,
and the writer of The Acts it is very
certain that if these were the days of
His advent He would nor edit a news
paper. The Robins.
That early morning, plaintive itera
tion, that is so much nearer and so
much more human than that other
sound of the morning, has begun.
More than two weeks ago the robins
arrived in this part of Nebraska and
the cocks are only a distant echo if
winter that sounds in our ears with
out effect. The great multitude on
their way north from the coast stop off
by large companies in Nebraska, leav
ing their comrades, who prefer a still
more northern latitude, to keep on
their way.
Arizona.
Occasionally a young, very pretty,
and frivolous woman who happens to
be married to a good, brare, devoted
man, underestimates her good for
tune, tires of the monotony of good
ness and runs away with a villain.
To insure a dramatic situation on the
stage, a young and beautiful wife is
forever fascinated and almost induced
to run away with a man who swag-
