The Ironton News

BRUCE BARTON
Says:
The Race Goes On

You have read, of course, the story of the French Revolution. Riot and pillage swept through Europe's noblest city; proud necks were bowed upon the block; the gleaming knife descended: wise heads and beautiful heads rolled together into the basket.

Ask almost anybody the question: "How many met death by the guillotine?" and the answer probably will be: "Tens of thousands."

Recently I had occasion to look up the figures. It appears that in the fifteen months from March 1793 to June 1794. 1251 men and women were sent to the guillotine in Paris. The highest computation that we can make of the increase in the death rate in the city in that period is that it rose from 27.8 per thousand to around 30-nothing to be compared with what an influenza epidemic or a list of automobile casualties can do in this country today.

France was as near to chaos as any modern country has been at any time. Yet even through this chaos we must assume that bakers rose early and fired their ovens, the butcher slaughtered his animals. the grocer chaffered with the farmers. the mothers scrubbed the faces of their children and packed them off to school. The actors played in theatres; the people walked the streets.

I was quoting these historical facts recently to a rich and apoplectic gentleman who had been arguing that the United States is about to come to an end. I said: "You confuse your personal fortunes with the fate of the nation. You are going to lose some money, perhaps, but the country is not going to die. People will keep on getting married, having babies, telling lies, engaging in silly quarrels and drinking too much coffee, just as they always have done. You and I, who have had things easy up to now, may not be quite so comfortable, But the race goes on."