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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