The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-07-28
The National Centennial Opposition
1t NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. 1T Onco.

The National Centennial Imposition
1t PhilsaelPhis-Begin 1T Once.
The celebration of the centennial Of Ameri-
can Independence should be such as to honor .
day the most worthy of honor. It is true
that the histories of nations are divided into
epochs, with which centuries, merely as such,
have little to do. The use of one hundred years
as grand division of time is simply mathe-
NAUTICAL convenience; but deep sentiment Of
awe is evoked in the contemplation of what
worldwide fields of thought and deed; what
broad, fair plains of human good; what end
less wastes of human i'll; what interchang-
ing sweep of life and death; what mighty
problems beyond mans solution are seen
dimly looming through the picture wherein
we essay to linn century of the worlds
doings. 1t is an accepted period whereby
progress or reaction is measured; and when
the dial of the years shall tell as that one hun
bred can be counted to the credit of our ma
tional existence, what is more natural than
that we should pause to look upon the gains,
and in doing so mark the altitude of our gratu-
lation by feast of peaceful triumph AS
the event to be celebrated in 1876 is
that which ushered the nation into
existenoe-an infant with luminous
brow in troubled time-so must the feast
be national in its strongest sense when the
citizen children, million breasted, come to
honor their mighty mother, as she stands in
the pride of power beside the narrow cradle
where her first words, one hundred years be-
fore, we're those of hope and strength to all
mankind. No matter how broad the base of
the Union may then be, we must look back to
q single point as tho apex whence all this has
broadened in century. That point is where
the Fathers of the Revolution raised their
arms and pledged their lives to the nation
newly born. There once more must we return
to celebrate in peace and joy the day of pride;
there is the hallowed ground of the Union in
deed. It is enough that Philadelphia, our
sister city, encloses Independence Hall within
its boundaries to make it the scene of the
national centennial celebration No other
city can dispute the claim to an honor which
the date on the Declaration of Independence
dSSlBub pIeSCIIpuVoly W AeI.
We shall have century of marvellous &C
ton to recall we shall have results of that
action to show which are unparalleled in the
history of the world. In no more appropri-
ate manner can this be achieved than by an
exhibition to the world of our progress as a
people in the arts and sciences of peace
Through the fiery gate of war the young Re
public of America passed into the ways of
peace, where her true mission lay. Glowingly
as men turn to the days of the struggle for
national life, it is not there that in 1876 we
must look for the criterion by which our first
cycle must be judged. Smaller States have
carried on wars beside which the glory of the
Revolutionary War would pale upon COMPARE
son. In the battles of the ploughshare and
the reaper, the hammer and the loom, instead
of those of the sword, will our true glory be
harvested. In the army Of labor must we
count the host wherewith we have combated
and triumphed. In the march of that army
from ocean to ocean must we trace our
progress. In word, the most substantial
proof we can give of cur national strength
will be found in the tangible evidences of our
industrial achievements. If our conquests
have been few in the way that the soldier wins
territory, by bloodshed, we shall have some
thing far nobler to show-namely, how the
thinking brain and the sturdy arm won rood
and acre of the land from the forest, the bar
rem and the wild, until it bloomed beneath
our tread How the land thus won was made
to nourish its conquerors will be story worth
the telling in centennial times. If the tale
bring not forth either the sabre glitter or the
lannon's roar, or the false and feeting bril-
lance of warrior triumphs, whose traces are
slippery with the blood of our fellow man,
it will have all the tranquil, lasting grandeur
of wondrous forward movement with all the
attributes of national strength therein dis
played in the name of peace and good will.
Where in our way blood has flowed the
flowers bloom once more, and he, the chattel
of yesterday, who was doomed to toll for
others, comes forward regenerate and disen-
thralled to ratify with us the great charter of
our liberties We have seen great World Fairs
unite the arts and industries of nations
beneath one roof in the name of peace but
to us must remain the matchless opportunity
of giving to Universal Expeditions signif-
canoe in this regard which no empire or king
dom in the world can hope to give. They have
shown what nations can do where the fate of
the people is in the hands of an individual or
class our opportunity will be to teach the
world that the nation which wisely governs
itself makes the greatest progress in the arts
that most contribute to render ''life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness the common
realization Of ALL
1t has repeatedly been urged against us as
q nation that our self-consciousness is an ex-
aggerated passion-that we are too prone to
admire ourselves. But our critics have never
denied that our rapid rise in wealth, strength
n