Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1869-11-09
Noble Words.

The following extract from the
Fourth of July Address, delivered by
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., at Gum
cy, Mass, is only too appropriate to
the times, and well deserves general
attention and circulation:
"To every picture there is shadow
as well as coloring. As regards those
great leading features Of policy upon
which each generation must present
itself for Judgment, do not think we
have ought to fear. Yet our situation
is not without its dangers, and the
future is no more free from causes OF
serious alarm than was the past
Eternal vigilance is the price OF liber-
ty, and there is more danger from the
insiduous poison Of corruption than In
the armed hand of rebellion. Events
move rapidly. In these days OF the
telegraph and steam engine, century
of the lives of our grandfathers is con-
centrated within the compass OF one
revolving year. Changes which for
merly demanded a generation of work
ing, earnest men to bring them about,
are now wrought between the budding
and falling of the leaf. We had best
to look to it then, for evil as well as
good is rapidly maturing.
Every period Of mental or material
perturbation is followed by quick
ening of forces. We see it in nature;
we see it in men. So the recent war
has been followed by this time of rap {.
id growth. Within these nine years
just completed, as we have been lavish
of our best, so we have displayed
some of our worst qualities. The
time has been prolific of knaves as well
as Of heroes,-of evil as well as good.
We have drifted from our moorings,
and every crude theory, every unfiedg-
ed reformer, every half-crazed fanatic
has been sure of sympathizing audi
encc and an earnest backing. All this
will pass away and need cause US no
alarm not so with the dishonest,
demoraliziEg influences which have
found their seed time and harvest.
They must remain to perplex. perhaps
to overwhelm our descendants. This
country is no longer sparsely settled
land of simple habits-it has passed
out of the earlier stages of civilization
with all their security from danger
and freedom from want, into the pha-
ses of latter development in which
extremes are ever found in closest
proximity, where ignorance crouches
under the caves of your colleges,
where poverty skulks behind affluence,
and squalor crouches at the portals of
magniicence Our future is not to be
our past Capitalization is the order
of the day, and Capitalization breeds
corruption and abuses. We see it
everywhere, and everywhere that we
seeit may also see,if we only choose
to look, the rank evils which mingle
with its good and ever follow in its
train, growing with its growth. The
government at Washington draws
power away from the individual
States, and the government at Wash
ington is an Augean stable of abuses.
Our great corporations draw to them
selves the smaller ones, or crush op-
position out of existence, and the great
corporations are reducing corporation
to science. Our great cities are alb
sorblng our country towns, and the
records of our great cities are omin-
Gus of the failure of free institutions.
The evils that follow Capitalization
must be sought in the centres of CEN.
tralization. Go to Washington and
what do you find? A city of Office
seekers. A mob of scheming, restless
men who rave like wolves around the
President and the heads of Depart
ments, and snap ike hungry hounds
at each others bones, while they dis
grace our age and our country by
) system OF government founded on
what is known as rotation in Office
and illustrated by such maxims as 'to
the victors belong the spoils.' Where
) now is heard that noble utterance of
Jefferson We are all republicans
we are all federalists; it is not heard
III the White House more frequently
it appears in another rendering to the
J effect that an associated thief is better
than an opposing angel. :
: We lad best recognize the truth;
new and very terrible lion is in our
path; we have overcome one enemy
only to encounter another. What
: Juvenal, in the bitterness of his sat
ire, exclaimed of imperial Rome, that
| luxury more savage than arms had
fallen upon her and avenged conquer
ed world,-this may yet,-will yet be
true of US. We are getting to pardon
everything, so it be gilded by success.
Examples Of this force themselves on
} the memory; they rise unbidden like
: thoughts of evil. Have we not seen
: unconvicted thieves finging their mil
! lions about the stock-exchange, and
) even proud of their own infamy Have
we not seen the fit inmates of our
State prisons and inebriate asylums in
command of army and of army corps,
and elevated to high civil functions
amid the plaudits ofadmiring throngs? ?
Have we not seen outlawed ruffians
appointed to execute the sentence of
the law on their accomplices in crime,
while brother ruffians sit upon the
: bench? Is this reform? An ancient
, proverb tells US that all roads lead to
Rome 1t may be that they do, but if
this road leads there, it is to the Rome
of the Empire, not to the Rome of the
Republic" oua