The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-04-04
DAILY PRESS.
CORTLAND.
Saturday Morning, April 4 1868.
The Greek Relief Commi,,ee,
PCRT'LAND

/
The French have word which, though a
favorte of the philosophers and especially of
the Liberals, has been adopted into the vo-
cabulary of the Emperor himself. The word
is s0liddrite, and passing fine one it is. Lat
terly it has been making its way among the
words of our own language, where it appears,
stripped of its Gallic form, as Solidarity"
Originally meaning joint and several oblga-
| ton, by natural transition it has come to he
used as convenient term to express the in
innate relation existing between all the mem
bers of the human race. Sometimes in re-
stricted sense it is applied to the organizations
which are intended to give practical effect to
doctrine of the human brotherhood; some
times it is extended in its signiication so as
to indicate the complete identity of interest
which makes all nations and all races one.
In the mouth of Napoleon it means moth
ing; but in the mouths of the just and up
right it indicates the most advanced political
sentiment of the age. Patriotism is narrow
and friendship becomes mere Sc lfishness by
the side of this great cosmopolitan sentiment
$1,000 AN~OoAAiNSo III SfCi AulldH DtlUS COLI
patriot and friend. Those that are animat-
ed by it are incapable of feeling that a line
fence can legitimatey place limit to their
sympathies, or that geographical boundary
constitutes an arbitrary enclosure for their
benevolence and humanity. Solidarity is
Christianity in disguise; or rather, we might
say, the philosophical side of Christianity.
SO much we take occasion to say by way
OF introduction to the subject of the Greek
Relief Committee, and we say it for the ben
eft of those who pertinatiously insist that
Americans shall not go outside their own
households or their own nation in the minis
trations of benevolence. To such persons it
seems that DR.. Howe and his associates
might better find scope for their humanita-
rian impulses in relieving the wants of their
destitute neighbors. They would make the
American doctrine of non-intervention in the
affairs OF foreign countries hold good with re-
spect to individual American citizens, as if it
were not hard enough to see the vessels of
all Christian powers but the United States re-
moving the Cretan women and children TO
the ports of friendly Greece, without insisting
that Americans in their private capacity shall
not keep them from starvation. They have
accumulated in such large numbers on the
mainland of Grece, that local effort can do
little toward relieving their necessities. 1t is
not mere capricious and irrational mania
that induces the committee of which DR..
Howe is president 10 appeal to the benevolent
and liberty loving people of the United States
to relieve the wants of an oppressed people.
The struggling Cretans, notwithstanding the
periodical lying dispatches tina. come from
Constantinople announcing theirsubjugation,
are still making gallant and successful resist
ance
They are embarrassed more by the unhappy
situation OF their families than by aught else.
Ii this great burden can be lifted from their
heart, they will resist the tyrannical oppres-
sor till the last. Prevented by the tradi-
tions Of our government from interfering
as nation, it is peculiarly fitting that as
private citizens OF the great Republic we
should supplement the moral support given
to the Cretan cause by the expression of
sympathy on the part of the national legis-
lature by such pecuniary assistance as each
one can afford. The existence of the asso-
citation to which we have referred is known
probably to each one of our readers Monday
night the wife of the President of the asso-
citation viii address the citizens of this city,
and the well-earned fame and the benevolent
purposes of Mrs. Howe alike entitle her to a
hearty reception.