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Monday, July 22, 2019

H.D. Stewart Reflects on Europe, Criminal Nations, Caucasian Races, And Once He's Home, the Needs of Monroe, July 22, 1919

From The Monroe Journal, July 22, 1919

Dr. Stewart in England. . . Stumbles Across Many Familiar Union County Names. . . Advises Coming Generation to Discard Silk Hats and Spiketails for the Plow. . . Some of the Things Monroe Needs

By Capt. H.D. Stewart

Somewhere in England, June 10—Next to Almighty God himself righteous intelligent public sentiment is the greatest power on earth.

When an individual cheats, defrauds, robs or otherwise inflicts gross injuries upon his neighbor or his community he becomes a marked man. He and his family must pay the penalty. Public sentiment will drive him out. If his crime is great enough or his conduct against the peace and dignity of the commonwealth public opinion will crystalize on him and drive him out.

So it is with criminal nations.

Materialism and lust for power drew a veil over the eyes of the Kaiser so that he could not see out into the great world of humanity and understand the ways of public opinion. So he and his nation are condemned. They have departed from the Bible and from God. Who can ever trust them in anything again? Nobody; no nation.

The bar of public opinion is terrible in its judgments. Only the wrath of God surpasses it.

The reflections of the dawn of world-wide democracy are already appearing in the East foretelling the peace and brotherhood of the world.

England

England is a beautiful hilly country with thousands of fine cattle and sheep. The woolen industry is very large. The dogs are all muzzled and only the best breeds may be kept at all. This arrangement protects the people against rabies and the sheep against being killed by stray dogs.

England’s coal and iron resources are inexhaustible. Her hills and mountains are full of these products. But the country is too small to feed herself. She must be fed from outside. Her people are very fine, and are intellectual, thought spiritual. They are becoming more democratic every day. They are becoming tired of kings and queens. The English soldiers, many of whom I saw and talked to, say they are becoming very tired of the House of Lords, that hereditary body of law makers corresponding with our United States Senate in legislative power, but not in brains and ability.

Two nights ago I attended grand opera at the famous Covent Garden theatre. They were playing French and Italian operas. Melba appeared as Marguerite in Gunod’s Faust.

In strolling about over London the study of names was very interesting to me: Houstons, Heaths, Ashcrafts, Simpsons, Marshes, Williamses and things. The Tons are all English, the Crafts are Anglicized Teuton. The Blivenses are Anglicized Dutch. The Sons are originally Norwegian, the Sens are Dains, the Macks Scotch and Irish. The dark-haired Simpsons and Johnsons and things are English, while the blondes are Norwegian. The red-headed Stevenses are Irish, while the dark-haired ones are English.

The Prefixes O’, Mc, Bar, etc. mean son of. The suffixes son, sen, etc. son of.

While walking through a Parish churchyard in an English village reading the epitaphs on the weather-beaten tombstones I came across one which read thus: Interred here lies the body of John Cornish, who died in 1757 at the age of 32 and left a wife and four children, two boys and two girls, to get along the best way they could. The widow married again and so did the four children. All lived happily after John died and the whole family, including the second husband, landed right around that same old tombstone. The second husband was the last to die—in 1822. I think John killed himself drinking.

It has been observed that there are blonds of four different natural extractions in Europe. Most of the Irish are of the blonde type. Most of the Teutonic peoples are of the blonde type, with blue eyes and light hair. Many of the Scotch are blonds. But it is not far across the English channel or the German seas to Scandinavia. The Scotch are a mixture of Gauls, Nords, Scandinavians and Romans.
The Norwegians are largely blue-eyed and light-haired. So are the Danes. The Swedes are of two principal types—light hair and blue eyes and dark hair, fair skin and blue or grey eyes.

Each of these nations has three general types.….

The blue-eyed and light-haired or red haired people have the most energy, initiative and fire.
To understand this world war well one must acquire a good working knowledge of the four different branches of the Caucasian race—their languages, history, literature, religions, churches, industries, climates, ideals and governments.

This war has been called a religious war—a conflict of religious ideas and principles. It has also been called a war between capital and labor—between those who collect the wealth of the world (all of which belongs to the Creator himself) and are greedy to acquire it all, and those who produce the wealth, but cannot hold it on account of ignorance, lack of organization and lack of opportunity and facility.

Again it has been called a war started, conducted and fostered by military leaders seeking power, money, gain, self-promotion and self-acquirement, and urged and encouraged by moneyed interests, speculators, war contracts, and frenzied financiers, all of whom in their insane, infidelic greed are willing to make money (as if there were no heaven, no hell, no judgment for the quick or the dead) out of mothers’ tears, mothers’ broken hearts; the blood and body of mothers’ sons; the ignorance, poverty and misery of the masses. The militarist is a dangerous non-producing consumer and master of wealth. Intelligent public sentiment must get his number and call him.

In this time of worldwide crisis it is clearly the duty of the pulpit, the press and the school teacher or college professor to create and to crystalize a righteous, intelligent public sentiment and action against the forces of evil and for that which is right. The great university professors whose life and thought are confined to limited channels should cease to teach materialism, agnosticism and extreme science, and try to stamp the character of a christian civilization upon the personalities of the many young men who come under their influence.

Back Home Again

I was just sitting here thinking about the amount of time that is wasted in frivolous conversation, telling smutty jokes and squirting tobacco juice. There has never been such a thing as a scarcity of labor. There is a scarcity of willingness to labor.

Urgent Needs of Monroe

Monroe needs a park and a band, an auditorium; a library; an information bureau and advertising bureau; an intelligent non-political government; a public market and a market day, with frequent inspection; a union of all churches and all classes to accomplish the ideal and the purpose of making Monroe and Union county the most habitable spot in the world.

Monroe needs last but not least 15 funerals and 11 fires. (15 funeral homes and 11 fire stations??)

One day I was counting them up and looking over the field, and one of my friends said, “Doc, you ought to be one of those funerals yourself.” That put me to thinking. I became quiet all at once. Of course my friend was joking. The question then came to me, Have I done my full duty toward my community, my city, my county, my state and my nation? Have I just been passing through?

Now I want to say one more thing to the Union county boys who are acquiring college educations. You are not obliged to become a professor or a doctor or lawyer or preacher or some other non-producing consumer of wealth. Back to the farm! You may become the germ of a great community development as Coker did in South Carolina.

It is no disgrace and no sin for a doctor of philosophy to follow the plow.

A high hat, a cane and a long tail coat are no sign of a gentleman; of culture and refinement. They may be attached to a politician, a dancing master, a horse-racer or some other doubtful personage. Who knows?
--H.D. Stewart

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