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I GOODWIN'S WeBKILY. 3 jjf -1
R . t . i
I BE AN AMERICAN.
Tlio Mt. Pleasant Pj'ramid asserts that this
journal "has not missed a single opportunity to
snub and defame tho dominant church of Utah."
I is our contemporary still in the toils? "What has
I this journal said about the "Dominant Church?"
H public men are legitimate subjects of fair criti
I ti&m. Is the criticism of the acts of certain men
H an attack upon the creed? When men use their
HE official place in a church to work out purely earth-
ly purposes, cannot that fact be stated without its
I being construed as an assault upon the church?
I When those same men in their conduct of a
B religious office bring contempt upon the Govern
I ment of the United States is it an assault upon a
church to call ahalt? Is being an American,
proud and jealous of American institutions, a sign
B of hate? We would say to our neighbor of the
B Pyramid: "Be as good a saint as you can but do
B not forget to be a live and aggressive American,"
B The rights of churches are very many and many
B of them are very sacred, but none are so sacred
B as are the inherent rights of men, and these
B latter ought to bo the chief solicitude of all church
B men, for when they are for a little time disre
B garded, then the church itself suffers, for it is
B because of tho rights of man that all reasonable
B rights of the church are cherished among men
B and defended by men, and when the directors of
B any creed make that creed supreme regardless of
H mans' own inherent privileges, then no good is
H accomplished, rather irreparable damage to the
H power and prestige of the creed itself, is sure to
follow.
I A WISE VAGARY.
H Adam Smith died one hundred and ten years ago.
H Ho is still quoted as a profound authority on
H political economy. But he made some proposi
H lions which experience has demonstrated are not
very sound. He lays down the axiom that "the
Bj general industry of society can never exceed what
H the capital of the society can employ."
We believe that is true, but at once, he pro-
cceds to declare that "what is prudence in the
conduct of every private family can scarcely be
folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign
H county can supply us with a commodity cheaper
Hthan we ourselves can make it, better buy it of
them with some part of the produce of our own
industry, employed in a way in which we have
some advantage."
As an abstract proposition that it well enough,
and if there was no- money in tho world, if all
the dealings between men and nations were through
barter the exchange of commodities that would
be a snfo rule to follow.
But tho trade of nations is conducted on a basis,
not of commodities, but of that material which is
the measure of the values of commodities, namely,
money. In starting out the great thinker ack
nowledges the full power of capital, and rates
labor as part of a nation's capital upon which it
draws interest, but he nowhere in his argument
favoring free trade seems to consider the advant
ages of skilled labor over unskilled labor, or the
fact that whon one nation exchanges its raw
'material for a finished product which is tangible to
imthe eye and the touch, but it is likewise obliged
)Hlo purchase whatevor amount of brain the foreign
,Martisan has, in invisible threads, woven into the
fabric. Further, the great reasoner failed utterly
Eee' that the inevitable result of exchanging raw
products for costly manufactured products has the
'LIrCCt effect of compelling five or twenty men in
(P,le county to work for one man in another. That
jMl tll slcilletl product of one artisan buys the
JBwduct of the labor of from five to twenty un-iB-Wlled
laborers in another country. Had the
"easoning been a little deeper the great writer
JBvoukl havo seen that the exchanges would not
Be vn, that naturally there would be a trade bal
jMce in favor of one or tho other; 'that this would
Mnevitably bo in favor of the nation selling the '
more costly goods, and that the balance would
have to be made good in that material which all
nations accept as a basis of trade, namely, money.
But in another place tho great writer admits
that the volume of money regulates prices, that
prices increase and decrease precisely as does tho
volume of money in a country. This paying the
yearly balance then could have but the effect to
reduced the prices in tho land paying it and to
increase the prices in the land receiving it. This
multiplied vastly faster than ever before, just after
the death of Adam Smith, through the application
of steam as a working force.
Under it the world saw Great Britain, which had
the machinery, the ships, the factories, the mines
and the harbors close to the factories, in the
beginning of the last century, especially after
Waterloo, enter into the legitimate business of
despoiling the nations through trade, through ex
changing her manufactured products for the world's
raw products. She took about all that Spain had
left of the product of the American mines. She
left Italy well nigh bankrupt, Turkey and Egypt
too poor to make a sign; she kept all her colonies
drained of money, even Australia, after the mighty
yield of her placer mines in the '50's; she occasion
ally got a chance at the United States and every
time left her treasury empty and her laborers
without employment.
Still our country is filled with statesmen who
go back to the reasoning of Adam Smith, declare
that it is faultless and unanswerable, and that
the truth of that proposition is so manifest that
only fools and knaves attempt to combat it.
GIVE THE BEIL.
Governor Dockery wants the citizens of Missouri
to subscribe money to purchase a bell to be pre
sented to the battleship Missouri, now nearing
completion, while the Republic wants the gift to be
a superb service of silver that the officers may be
able to entertain visitors in a proper manner.
Why not give the service and the bell also?
That-would not be much for the great state to do.
But if only one gift can be counted on we incline
to the Mirrors' belief that the bell is the more
appropriate, because that would belong to and
become the solicitude of every man on board the
great ship.
There is a vast deal of sentiment about a ship's
bell. Seamen learn their voices. Wo suspect that
there was no man aboard the Olympia or the Balti
more or the Raleigh, or any other ship in the
original Manila fleet, who would not recognize the
tone of his own ship's bell could he hear it, no
matter how dark might be the night, no matter
how many other bells might be ringing.
Does any one think that any sailor who was on
the Oregon during that long voyage from Seattle
and up to the chase and the fight off Santiago, who
does not yet hear that bell ringing in his dreams?
One of the most touching and thrilling passages
in the description of the overwhelming of the
fleets in Apia harbor, Samoa, by the hurricane a
few years ago, was the sentence which said that
to the watchers on shore the ringing of the bell
of the Trenton, calling the hours, was regularly
heard, despite the lashings of the storm. That
meant that while ships were sinking and men
dying the old discipline was in force, the old devo
tion to duty was stronger than any anxiety for life.
At that description landsmen thousands of miles
away and unfamiliar with the sea could, in
thought, hear tho pealing of that bell above the
roar of hurricane and wave.
Missouri should supply to her namesake of the
sea a bell. It should be massive that its tones
might be deep, it should havo much silver in its
composition that its tones might be clear; it should
be of bright metal that it might always be kept
shining. It should be a distinctive bell, that when
it sounded men would say "Missouri is ringing!"
There are marriage bells, joy bells, fire bells,
alarm bells, church bells and death bells; but
there is none so impressive as the tolling of a r'iir'IM
ship's bell under the beatings of a great storm or j Sffil&iffl
under tho canopy of a battle. We hope if Missouri al IH
can offer but one gift to her namesake it will bo ij'M f fm
that suggested by Missouri's Governor. j I i',1
MAN'S DOMINION. ' T fi J 8
Last week Thursday was the day on which the jr f M
coronation of the King of Great Britain was to 1 iliB
take place. i' pfB
All the nations of the earth had, for months, i ik M
been preparing for the groat event. Representa- j ''M $' j
tives of all nations had gathered in London; the I) ff i fl
war-ships of all the principal nations were rest- i &j I rl
ing on their anchors at Portsmouth waiting for J j "$;
the hour when their sleeping great guns should j j 'B
awaken and roar in salute of the newly-crowned 1 1 "j , I
King. All England was excitement and London I ;.i ',!
had become a tumbling sea of surging humanity, m A r
all expectant of the great event. m 'i'i ,)l
Suddenly a swift and potential notice was ffl $ ''
served upon the world, that no divinity "doth I M Wm
hedge a King" about. A pain seized him just as K fl.'B
it does common people, under it he fainted just II M'riB
as would a common individual, .and when the II i lB
men of science investigated they declared at once . II M 'CfB
that the only chance for life was through the 1 :J!"jlB
operating table and knife. Millions of people in ' ' ' ()B
the morning envied the King because of his glory j K " pfl
and his power, at night not one of the millions j l , jB
would have exchanged places with him for a II iv.llB
thousand thrones, and thousands were whispering: j l i-jfl
"Thus passes away a glory from the earth." J BiB
The innate weakness of poor humanity was h 1 $
never more pointedly shown, never was there, a llH 'lfl
more direct lesson of how frail a foundation all ii n''$M
earthly hopes rest on. Hi J ," H
But those lessons have been served on mankind M i 'V 1
from the first. There is another feature about HlKM
it, however, which, though no longer new, con- il
tinues a wonder of the world. Had the same mis-
fortune come a day or two previous to tho corona- I l" A .9
tion of King Edward's mother, only sixty-five L ii
years ago, it would have been a month or perhaps l
forty days before it would have been known in 1 $$
New York; from four to six months before the M '-
men in the seaports of Australia and India would i- M
have heard of it. But in an hour, even In far-off Hl-fl
Siam, the word had been flashed, all civilization ilfMH
had heard the news, the preparations for festivals Bp '; M
were stopped and tho day of the proposed corona- Bf M
tion was turned into a day of prayer. H i
Only out at sea did English subjects celebrate HI ffl
the day. Quite possibly in ten years more the Bfi'iH
air will carry soundless messages to the plunging mf j ' fl
ships to keep them in accord with the moving If1 B
world on shore, for man's dominion over the earth if ( M
and its elememts is extending daily and the if 'i M
divinity of mind over matter is more and more If ' fl
asserting itself. There is still another fact worth ; If M
noting. Had the same affliction assailed the King's fll'l' m
mother on coronation week, the surgeons would fflw J
have stood helpless before Her Majesty, and the My B
day appointed for coronation day would have been 811 oflj
tho day of her death, for no other science haa Jwll 1
advanced so rapidly as has that of medicine and BI '' l
surgery during the past three score years. If IBfl1 'H
man's utter weakness under disease is revealed, Bfif r
the strength of man in combatting disease is Bf
more and more magnificently demonstrated, and BL Bl
tho proof that his dominion over even "the pesti- BIHHl
lence that walketh at noon-day" is shown. IBflH
The notice that it all serves upon mankind, BIBPB
especially upon the youths of the world, is that BBHBB
there is nothing impossible to brave workers in BBBB
all the world's flolds, that all can, if they but try BHB
with earnest souls, bravo hearts and persist- BBHHB
ent brains, do about any glorious thing that they jHH
try to do, for tho promise is still good that man fl9H
shall have dominion over all the earth, and that Bfl
includes not only what is material to the senses flBB
but the viewless elements within the earth and in BBBfl
the air and ether above it, HHBB
