Newspaper Page Text
8
PERILS OP THE NATION: "By the Late Malcolm MacGregor
HERE are among us political optimists
who affect to sneer at every indication
and warning of danger to the nation,
and who profess to believe that all
things pertaining to the nation are as
well as they need be or can be. They
base their optimistic confidence and
complacency, apparently, on the as
sumption that Divine Providence is in-
T
exorably bound to preserve intact all the interests
of children, fools and the United States.
Without lapsing in the least into pessimistic views,
it must surely be admitted, upon any adequate sur
vey of the facts, that there are now threatening our
national well-being several grave and imminent per
ils.
Among the foremost of the perils that menace (he
nation, is the prevalent disregard of the high ideals,
and sanctities of family life. The family is the pri
mal and the most fundamental and formative of all
the institutions pertaining to mankind. It is the
microcosm of humanity and the worm of all its
other institutions. The relations between the fam
ily and the nation are manifold, intimate and vital.
Whatever deteriorates the family imperils the na
tion at its very source; and perverted marriage laws
inevitably subvert the family.
It is one of our greatest national misfortunes that
the divorce laws of all the states of the Union, ex
cepting only those of New York and South Carolina,
are, for the most part, corrupt in character, ten
dency, and results, and are working all manner of
confusion and evil. It is notorious that in conse
quence of evil laws and evil customs in innumer
able instances all over the Union, the sacred insti
tution of marriage is desecrated, discredited and de
spised. In most of the states divorces are granted
on the most fallacious and frivolous pretexts, as if
any whim, caprice, or subterfuge were as valid a
ground for divorce as conjugal infidelity—the only
ground recognized by reason and revelation. The na
tion being dependent upon the family both for the
number and for the quality of its citizens, can not
fail to partake of the characteristics of its family
life. Lawlessness and disorder, like respect for 'aw
and order, have their origin and earlier develop
ment in the home.
It would seem desirable from all this, thaf'there
should be instituted, without delay, a strong na
tional movement —a movement harmonized with the
fundamental principles of state rights, impelled by
a wide consensus of feeling, and concerted in gen
eral and strenuous activity—to effect adequate re
formation and uniformity of our marriage laws. The
Shut Jn and Shut Out,
(Continued from Page 5.)
and helpful, because the result of careful thought.
So the outreach of that one little room has stead
ily increased until the shut-in, instead of being an
object of pity, is enviable for the multiplicity of his
interests, the numbers of his friends and his far
ramifying usefulness. Professor Hunt does not talk
about himself or his mission; he has evidently had
his own battles to fight against the invalid’s temp
tation to morbid self-centeredness. But one day, in
adroitly turning some insistent friend from the sub
ject, he let fall an illuminating phrase: “Oh, it is
just an experiment in geometry, to see what there
is in the postulate that from any point a straight
line may be drawn in any direction and extended to
an indefinite length.”
In speaking of his friend. Mr. Ellis said: “He is
shut in, but not shut out.” But another case comes
to our observation that seems to be both shut in and
shut out. The case is that of a little dwarf girl. She
is forty-five years old and has never walked a step.
As long as her mother lived, although the family
was poor, the little cripple was cared for tenderly,
but now that boon friend and tireless comforter has
been taken away, and the little invalid is depend
ent on her married brothers and sisters, all of
whom are well burdened with growing families of
their own.
For many years she has supported herself w_ith
The Golden Age for June 16, 1910.
well-being and safety of the nation demand the
speedy and persistent application of some such
remedy to this present dangerous and scandalous
condition of things.
The increasingly great influx of alien and incon
gruous population is a peril to our national life.
During the ninety years of the Republic previous to
18S0, ten millions of people from foreign parts came
to settle in the United States —three-fourths of them
during the last third of that period. The propor
tionate rate of increase of immigration has been far
greater since, than it was during that period. Since
1880 the United States has been qmetly invaded by
a host of foreigners four times as great as that of
the Goths and Vandals which devastated Southern
Europe and broke the power of Rome.
Most of the many millions coming from abroad
to stay in this country are destitute of acquaint
ance and sympathy with our government, institu
tions and laws; and many of them have a strong
tendency toward lawlessness and spoliation. Hun
dreds of thousands of them are impatient of the
most reasonable and necessary restraints, and are
ripe for mischief to person and property.
That the United States can successfully absorb
and utilize a vast amount of immigration, if it be
of the right sort, is unquestionable. But if immi
gration be inadequately restricted, as to quality, it
will prove greater than the nation’s power to as
similate; and, as a consequence, the health and life
of the nation will be endangered. 1
For a very long period immigration into the
United States was practically unrestricted; and so
our land came to be the dumping ground for the
criminal and outcast classes of foreign countries.
Latterly there has been a partial sifting out and
sending back of the unworthy from the general
mass of immigrants. But still more discriminating
and effective immigration laws are needed on all
our coasts and borders to preserve the national life
from contaminating and disintegrating elements.
By wise interdiction of the burdensome -and dan
gerous incoming classes of persons, and by judi
cious encouragement—particularly in the Southern
States, of desirable accessions to our citizenship,
drawn from the more pure blooded and sterling peo
ples such as the English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh,
Scandinavian and German, —the peril from excessive
immigration can be largely averted; and the vast in
flux of foreign people can be converted into a na
tional advantage.
The prevalent lack of respect for law, in all sec
tions of America, is a serious peril to the nation.
There is a strong tendency, in every part of the
her needle, which she uses with equal skill in her
hands or held between her toes. Her feet and limbs
are drawn out of all shape and are just as undevel
oped as they were in infancy. No school advantages
were given the little girl, but by her own patience
and persistent effort she taught herself to read and
write, and these simple accomplishments have fur
nished her untold joy during the tedious years she
has had to spend largely within the confines of her
simple country home.
But now the hand of affliction has been laid upon
her again. A period of severe illness, prolonged by
stubborn complications is passing over her frail lit
tle body, and with difficulty she writes that her
sense of hearing has been involved in the illness
and that now she is to be deaf as well as lame.
But despite her sufferings, and the afflictions that
crush so heavily upon her fragile house of clay,
Little Mollie Willis, as her friends affectionately
call her, is brave, cheerful, trustful and prayerful,
and is ever ready to speak a word of comfort and
optimistic hopefulness to the discouraged and dis
tressed.
It seems impossible to augment the pathos of her
condition, but to one who reads in sympathetic in
terest “between the lines,” the real distress that
consumes the heart of this heroic little girl-woman
is not her sufferings, although they are intense, nor
her afflictions, sore and griveous though they are;
but it is the fact that she is unable longer to ply her
United States, for a man to take the law into his
own hands, to be a law unto himself, and to do that
which, whether right or wrong, seems good in his
own eyes. We are always in danger of perverting
liberty into license. True liberty and true law are
correlatives and mutual guarantees; and neither can
be had without the other.
It is a recognized principle in law and equity that
the aggrieved party, by virtue of the inevitable bias
of his intensified personal feeling, is diqualified from
being judge in his own cause; and a change of venue
is often righteously sought and granted, on the quite
sufficient ground that the populace where some out
rageous and highly exasperating crime has been
committed, is too agitated and excited to furnish a
dispassionate jury. No righteous and ethically cul
tured judge in a court of justice would think of
sitting in judgment in a case in which his own per
sonal feelings or interests were in any degree in
volved. But in our American nation it often hap
pens that an aggrieved man seeks directly to avenge
himself and thus in his own cause, in effect, to
constitute himself law-maker, judge, jury, witness,
sheriff, and hangman all in one. In this way the law
is shorn of its majesty and brought into contempt.
Though the American nation is in advance of all
other nations along the lines of inventions, mechan
ical appliances, industrial enterprises, business facil
ities, and in the temperance reform; yet there is one
nation, the British, with its colonies, that far sur
passes us in respect for law, in legal protection of
person, reputation and property.
It is surely our privilege and duty, as good
American citizens to accept from any people any
wholesome lesson it is capable of teaching us, and
above all to learn from our neighboring English
speaking nation the vitally important lesson of re
spect for law. But we are by no means in a
hopeless condition in this regard. The recent pop
ular and legal movements toward civic righteousness
in New York, Philadelphia, and some others of our
great cities are, in their measure, prophetic of na
tional reform. The high ethical ground recently tak
en, at a critical juncture, by the pulpit, press, judi
ciary, and the great mass of the citizens of Atlanta,
in the interests of law and order, is one of the most
refreshing and encouraging signs of the times.
To avert the before-mentioned and all kindred per
ils of the nation, it is necessary that all our right
minded citizens shall, in every legitimate way,
apply all the purifying and ennobling influences of
sound education, wise legislation, and pure Chris
tianity, both to our present and to our prospective
citizens.
busy needle and sell her bits of fancy work, and
must, therefore, be dependent upon her kin. It is
this oppressing thought of helpless dependence that
drives the courage from her stout little heart and
makes her long to fly to the sheltering shade of
the juniper tree and, like Elijah, pray that death
will come and set her tired spirit free.
Some years ago, Mollie Willis wrote a story of
her life. The effort that this undertaking cost her
would have quenched the zeal of a Saul of Tarsus,
and filled a Sullivan with faintness and fatigue.
But persistence has its own reward. The book was
finished and published, and has gone out on its
ministry of cheer to all corners of the globe. It
is not to be expected that a book, written under
such adverse conditions, would be a classic, or, in
any sense, a masterpiece of wisdom. But it is
thoroughly readable, nevertheless. A spirit of fine
courage permeates the simple recital of the little
girl’s afflictions; and flashes of native wit and rare
philosophy astonish the reader at frequent inter
vals.
We wish the readers of The Golden Age would
take it into their hearts to give the little afflicted
Shut-in Mollie Willis a real surprise. Let’s make
the Fourth of July a genuine celebration for her.
Instead of spending our good American coin for
foolish fireworks, suppose we build a brighter illu
mination in her heart by sending some token of re
(Continued on Page 16.)
