Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], May 22, 1915, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

Image provided by: University of Utah, Marriott Library

                
T.Hn u t'nlvualty of 1
Vol. 24 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, MAY 22, 1915 No 23 H
An Independent Paper Published Under
:: the Management of J. T. Goodwin ::
'I EDITORIALS B Y JUDGE C. C. GOOD WIN
I '
jjj Not Quite Yet
F URING the past eight months the statement,
I - in substance, has often been made that this
is the time for the United States to assume and
hold its place as the foremost of the nations of
the earth.
Our country has a fine chance to take a fore
most place, if we as a people, and ours as a gov
ernment are great enough to assume and hold the
position.
Are we great enough to stand the test? The
.first requisite is strength, the second is to have
such control of our strength as will make it effec
tive if put to a sudden, supreme test. Are we
ready for such a test? Hardly.
Our children are receiving fairly good mental
training in the schools, but what is being done to
educate their eyes and hands to make them ef
fective in case of trial?
When our boys leave school, how many of them
are fitted to undertake some useful occupation
and perform its duties? How many can ride a
horse well or shoot a gun accurately? How
many know anything about living in a camp or
the sinlplest lessons of military drill?
How many of the girl graduates know when a
homo is well managed?
Again, is there any sensible organization of so
ciety? Take for example the little city of Salt Lake;
how many of her citizens know the real condi
tions? What proportion of the people who need
work are idle? What is being done to give to
such people honorable and honest employment?
How many who need employment are fitted to per
form some honest work in a capable way?
. It may be asked, "What has that to do with na-
) I tional greatness?" Only this. Salt Lake City is
1 1 one of the small units of our republic, and the
fyunits are what give character to the whole.
More, as the suns, the satellites and the stars
are created out of just such atoms as our earth is,
and our planet symbols them all, so the greater
governments, state and national, of our country,
are only what is symbolized in the little units
t that make up the smaller subdivisions.
' That leads up to the natural question, "What
are the states, what is the central government
doing to prove that our nation is essentially great,
and prepared to vindicate its greatness should a
crucial test come?
Suppose our country was to be confronted sud
denly by a great war, in what position would it be
a to meet it? Have the eyes and hands of the
people been even superficially trained in the re
quirements of military life?
The prudent man takes out an insurance on
his life and property to serve him against ago
and disease and to protect his family. How much
nt""''' ... -
insurance has our country taken out in order to
meet the exactions of a possible great war?
It makes a good showing' on the sea, but how
are its coast defenses equipped and in what state
would a million of men bo in, if suddenly called
to the colors?
Again, are we as a nation doing the right thing
toward the people who need work? Are the neces
sary factories running? Is all the land being culti
vated that should be? Have we the needed steam
lines to carry away our surplus products and to
bring back what our manufacturers and people
want?
Looking over our educational, business and la
bor conditions and estimating our preparedness
for defense against outside, possible foes, havo
we really any right to assume that wo are leading
the world's civilization, or in a position to claim
a right to lead?
The American mind is bright and bravo
enough, but wo are not using half our gifts, are
not in private or public being trained to bring
out half our powers; and nevr havo either as in
dividuals or as a nation been subjected to the
discipline out of which comes the utmost wisdom,
power and effectivensstof a people.
Just an Animal
IN the stone age the law of might only was in
voked. Man, like the beast, preyed upon his
fellows. When he had advanced up to the point
of semi-civilization, after he had learned to weave
and wear garments; to build houses; to tamo
horses; to cultivate the ground; to make agricul
tural impliments and instruments of war; to build
cities and to learn the necessity of enforcing or
der and had created and subjected himself to nec
essary law; he still held in his soul the original
instinct; the savage claim that the strongest lias
a right to rule, really governed him. Only his
methods had changed, the old instinct was still
strong in his nature.
He was like Sisyphus, he was still ready to
steal his neighbor's beeves and then to bribe tho
oracle to predict a famine that he might advance
the price of beef. He still claimed that prisoners
taken in war were his and he had a right to kill
them or reduce them to slavery, and woman to
him was either a plaything or a slave.
After men had watched tho lives and deaths of
men for many generations and had learned that
man, despite his superior intelligence, had no
hold upon this life; that tho strong and weak
alike were all fated to die, and through that
knowledge and through the incessant longing to
know if indeed death was the end; religion was
finally born; men began to call upon the gods; to
admit some of their obligations to them and to
each other, still the old, original perversion re
mained'; stronger than man's sense of justice;
strong enough in woman to crush back the yearn
ings of maternity and give her the unnatural
strength to expose her deformed child where the
cold or wild beast would kill it, rather than permit
one to live that could not, at maturity, be able to
bear arms if a man or if a female to become tho
mother of soldiers.
As ci 'lization progressed into marvolous en-
lightenment, when in mechanics men rivaled some H
of the works of tho Infinite; when in scholarship
man attained so high a place that tho mysteries B
of tho sciences were unfolded in a thousand dfrec-
tions to him; until even God's working' agent,
electricity, submitted to become man's slave;
when man learned to talk, us face to face, with BP
friends separated from him, by continents and fc
rolling oceans; when men had learned to find the 1
germs of disease in the beaks of insects and tho . H
miasma of the swamps; to measure the speed of H
light in its journeys from world to world; when Pl
music had taken on tho divine tones which it B
gives out in the realms where music was born; H
when the experience of tho pges had taught that H
all men are on a common level and each one is H
entitled to a free right of way in this swift jour- H
ney between the eternities which we call our hu- H
man life; in the most scientific nation of the H
earth we find a subtle intellect putting forth a H
theory; that the nation which is the strongest, H
most skilled and best prepared, has a right to go H
out into the world to conquer and possess what H
belongs to weaker nations, and the whole nation LL
lias apparently accepted the theory as right, and LL
has engaged in the work of carrying to fruition LL
this idea. What different if t from the original H
idea of tho cavo man? H
In the long cycle of the ages has man returned H
back to the place of beginning? Despite his cul- H
ture has he returned with all the old fierce in- H
stincts? Has he the same old promptings only H
with a scientific knowledge of how to exercise H
them? H
When the fury of the present "(slashings shall HI
have, through exhaustion, ceased, will man have H
learned the lesson that he cannot be civilized IH
through learning; that only the grace of God can . Lm
subdue his savage nature and really enlighten 'Lm
him? jH
Some people havo predicted that when the IH
present war shall havo spent da forces, a great LM
religious wave will sweep around the world. L
Whether that will prove true or not of course re- 1
mains to be seen, but surely all thoughtful men H
should learn from the war the experience that iM
man does not possess within himself tho elements (W
which by any earthly evolution can make him H
fairminded, merciful and just; that only through j
the grace of God can he put away what within J ,H
him is of the earth earthy, and put on the robes I !i,H
of righteousnes. -
The Note to Germany D
HTIIE last note of our government to Germany I
rings high and true. It carries no threat, but
it makes clear that justice is expected, justice fl
under tho law from a great nation for a great
wrong committed, and tho implication that right ;
must rule is unmistakable.
The first feature of it is that what it asks is B
not limited to any national boundaries, but for all
tho world.
Tho high courtesy in which its words are
couched is maintained all the way through it, and
its tone when its entire import is considered, ac
centuates its power and broadens its significance, -
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