The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1873-10-17

partially administered; for economy in
administering the government and hon
esty in collecting the taxes, for virtue
protected and intelligence spread abroad
amid the people; and in the personal
rectitude Of those who are elected to
honor. No one 80 silly represents the
republican idea as the man who gains
and uses wealth only for selfish ends;
who having been elected by the people
to frame laws for their protection filches
money from their pockets with one hand
and votes to legalize the villainous trans
action by holding up the other.
No, never let 1t be said that the worth
and dignity of any pursuit are measur-
ed by the money standard. There is
that in every honorable calling which
makes it dearer TO its followers than the
coin it brings them. And agriculture is
full of what might be called these COM
pensations. In bodiely health and mem
tai peace; in the absence Of temptations
and tumult; in the domestic joys and
home privileges that it allows and in
ships it encourages; and in the knowl-
edge and love Of Him who presides
benignly over hill and plain, house and
fold, in these the agriculturist finds
wealth which rust cannot corrupt nor
thieves break throught and steal
We can not afford to allow agricul-
ture to pass into decadence. When the
farming class shall be considered as an
inferior class we have revived the disas-
trous distinctions Of the middle ages
1t is because the New England farmer
has not been serfosa peasant that New
England has become what she is.
doubt if Republic could endure in any
country where agriculture is not the
prime industry. When wealth and cul-
ture and civic honors have been divor-
ced from the soil of the country, the
country itself will have sunk into la
mentable debasement. For il cannot be
denied that the forces that originated
and secured for US our free institutions
came as directly from the soil as the
streams flow down from our native hills.
The land-holder il all civilizations has
been a noble. A part Of the country
was his; his to love- to improve, to de-
fend. Having rights himself he was
easily educated to regard the rights
Of others. Being a lord himself he could
not become a slave. Calm Of judgment,
economic in expenditures, fervid in his
patriotism, bringing to the discussion Of
every question the presence Of all true
scholarship. Strong common sense re-
garding civic position as a duty, not as
sinccure the early agriculturist Of the
country was, Of all others, the very man
to stake out the foundation Of temple,
in which, when builded, liberty might
gather and pour out her treasure up
on all mankind. is not on the farm
that little children are worked fourteen
hours each day the year round, deprived
of school and home influences. II Is not
on the farm that men learn to corner"
great interest and impoverish the many
that improbable wealth may be added,
to th few. II Is not ON the farm that
men learn how to manipulate caucuses
and then celebrate the success or their
trickery with supper at the city's ex-
! pense. Nor Is IL on = farm that a man
acquires that hardened dudacity 10 steal
the money Of the man whose guest he Is,
and then, when the neighbors are aroused
go forth to the steps Of the house and
coolly defend his act as in perfect acc
cordance with the constitution and the
laws Of the land. No, gentlemen, uclr
men never could never have founded a
Massachusetts,; nor can such men ever
perpetuate her honor.
! But / viii detain you no longer, and
yet linger in closing AZ one whose pen
has found a congcnial if not familiar
theme Beyond the walls OF this tent, look
ing over your heads and far away, / be-
hold the hills and wales Of New England.
In those wales and under the shadow Of
/ those hills most Of us were born The
roads along which we ran to school; the
little streams where we learned 20 fish;
the fences we helped TO build, fields
where we learned to toll; the dripping
well where we eagerly quenched our
thirst, all are there We have changed.
but they remain the same. Our faces
fade, the rose withers from the cheek and
the luster deserts the eye, but nature
seems immortal in her youth and renews
her beauty with the coming Of every
Spring. There is something soothing and
sustaining in this permanence Of nature.
Life is a shadow and our eyes ache IN
watching it, so rapidly does it ny but
the soil beneath our feet and the sky
above our heads, these pass not, but re-
main and abide as nourished and upheld
l.. a.. Aa..I e tI.,sv Nre.fcr