Book Description

Excerpt from The Centennial Northwest: An Illustrated History of the Northwest, Being a Full and Complete Civil, Political and Military History of This Great Section of the United States, From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time Which the great result has been attained will be found, glanced at rather than described, but still touched in the pages of this book. It is true that the gov ernment of this country is not capable of. Arbitrary strength, because it oper ates in society as volition rules in the individual; but the popular judgment once convinced, and its feeling aroused to action exerts through the sovereign form a power against which it is Useless to struggle, and before which every wrong must succumb. The grand features of a free press in the union Could have no better illustration than is supplied by the fact that there is no censor ship but public opinion, a power which can and must be moulded by the press itself. It cannot be denied that some portions of the journalistic litera ture of this country are partisan to a reprehensible degree, but that is an ih evitable concomitant of our social growth under party government, the phase of life through which the nation is passing, toward the next evolution, possi ble only in the midst of an enlightened people, the rule of the wisest and best, expressing the highest thought of the community. The growth of the newspaper press will be found traced by successive instances in the north west, from the petty sheet devoted almost entirely to advertisements, to the ih uential daily that wields a power which can be felt throughout the union; and arising from the taste thus formed and nurtured, the magazine literature of the day is graphically reviewed, as a yet more hopeful feature in press de velopment, toward which as well by patronage as by labor, this section of the union has not failed to contribute its quota. The church as a means of pro gressive effort has not been lost sight of in this history, because it has been found in every community in which the materials for a sketch have been collected, that the first and best steps toward social and intellectual organiza tion, have been in connection with the place of worship and the Sabbath school, leading up to a spiritual excellence and aesthetic culture, which will in the future rule the councils of the people. The value of secular training is not questioned, the conquests from nature, which from the curious experi ments with the Leyden jars and the Voltaic pile, were by the practical energy of an American newspaper man - Franklin - turned to such channels as that Faraday, an English bookbinder, carrying on 'the chain by which natural phenomena were surveyed, obtained the rotation of the needle round a mag netized wire, and laid the foundation of modern Telegraphy which again is largely due to the activity of American intellect will not admit of doubt; and few will be prepared to deny that electricity is to become every year more potent in aiding the progress of mankind by such works as electroplating, electrotyping and electro-dynamic machines. Which may eventually supersede steam itself; but above and beyond the uttermost triumph of science and art, the race has a necessity for spiritual culture, which the church in its varied forms must help immensely toward realization; hence the little meeting house of logs in the backwoods settlement has been recognized as an agent with which civilization cannot afford to dispense, and the successive steps, by which the edifice has gone on to ever-improving forms and grander dimeh sions, have been observed with the interest properly belonging to the highest essential in our lives. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com"