The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-07-27
A True Word from Boston.

Boston still celebrates the Fourth OF
July. That day has lost much if not all Of
its oIden glory. For it is no longer the
Feast of Principle. 1t is simply mem
orial- day of great Principles dead and gone
Boston, however, keeps the day without
thinking of the Principle.
Onstbe 4th of July the Rev. John F. w
Ware delivered an grafton, in Boston Music
Hall, of which the following is an extract
We commend the extract to the attention
Eof our readers. Here it is:
We, the sovereign people may be morally
upright yet sound at heart, though there is so
much that does not look like it but we trust
ourselves and all our dearest interests to the
keeping of immoral men, men Who never see
deeper nor further than VIII at shall serve them.
selves, men who turn the trust we repose in
them to that end. Politics is a noble scienc e
but party intrigue and chicane threaten the
very life of the republic. These get into all
our responsible places, and rule out principle
and brains, from customhouses to school com
mittees. The great interests of the republic
must not and cannot remain at the mercy of
partisan intrigue OF transient gusts of popu-
lar opinion. We put meu into office who fiat
ter us by calling themselves our servants, and,
once secure in their place, and the manipula.
ton that wifi keep them there, like the ami.
mails spoken of in Scripture, they turn again
and rend us. We are as afraid of our servants
as the Southern aristocracy of it's slaves.
They bully US out of our morality. They leave
US scarcely the name of liberty. They suffer
us in no opinion. They override us by trick
The republic is laPsed into an oligarchy. We
keep its name, its form, it's phrases but there
is no tyranny on Gods earth 40 CALLING 80 de-
grading, 80 fraught with mischief as the tyr
amy that the moral cowardice of the Ameri-
can people has placed in the hands of the
American public man If we will not break
1t, 1T must recoil upon us, or what ia worse in.
hnlteiy worse upon our children. OF no use
our individual morality if We will not take it
out OF Its individual belongings and apply il
to public service. 1t is not q half quality
Better without it. Has it come to this that
that leading American paper, the Nation eau
soberiy say, All being corrupt, what is the
use of investigating each otheri" Has it
come to this that America can undertake moth
ing without a scandal annexed, a suspicion, at
least, Vienna exposition, a freedmans bu-
reau. Pacific railway, Presidential cam
paign, Washington treaty. Are we to be |
followed all the time by the Incompetence, |
the dishonesty, the hlnnders of those ~ ho- are |
by our system foisted into places, if not of |
trust, of conspicuousness-we can't saw honor |
where no honor isl 1t is only for as to decide, |
The shame attaches only SO long as we will |
we may talk about the evil as IN the system,
or IN the times, or in the men. 1t is in us. We |
make that which we allow. Men in place ONLY
dare because we permit. The easy going good |
nature with which we look on at things that
degrade us In the eyes of nations, and must
beittle us in our children's, turning to our
farms and merchandise ii that only con=
cerned us which touches th oul is not a good |
nature at ALL and criminal if 1t WERE 1t Ia a
bloated moral sense it is a sered moral CON
seriousness it is u fatal moral deterorationin
you and in me. Our easy going is lack of
principle, OF courage. of patriotism.
The great crimes that 20 unpu aished the
prostitution of the great principles of law to
,he mere piggle of skillful council ; the spot
led Judici ermipe; the audacity of what are
properly termed rings" the seltishness of
'yergrown corporations; the graspiBg, coosol-
dation and defiance of railways; the nuIlIfy-
nS OF deliberate enactment are ouIy ont
'roPpings, permissions of something more rad
cal, personal, which may go on to permit
wills more fatal. These are not merely pass
ng phases of busy life, carelessly absorbed,
they are Indications of a spirit which strikes
u the life of the republic they are not con
ulslons of values and shocks of credit and
movements of intrigue and fence of reckless
leu bat, deeper than that, they indicate bad
ess at heart badness in the men, aud eouallv
adness in you and in me for letting them he
there they can do such things. 1t is not that
len III these relations and with these oppor
nnities are above all or peculiarly sinners. ,
hese but express through their opportunitv
ne lack that lies in all. The sin is that the
ldIvldual American man has lost that fine, t
enstratlug sense of honor and fidelity, and self