THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9506280009
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 30 lines
It often seems that everything is going to hell in a handbasket.
Kids aren't as polite as they used to be.
A dollar doesn't buy much anymore.
Taxes are higher.
Doctors no longer make house calls.
And so on. And on. And on.
A main reason for reading history is to learn that in many areas, believe it or not, things used to be worse.
Consider this excerpt from historian William E. Leuchtenburg's book, The Supreme Court Reborn:
``In the spring of 1883, a Philadelphia baseball team entirely composed of one-armed men took on a rival club of one-legged players; save for one man whose arm had been severed at Gettysburg, all of the athletes were Reading Railroad employees who had lost a limb in a work-related accident.''
Those were hard times. by CNB