The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-05-14
ssrHE PR EISS.
rHITRSDAY MORNING, MAY IA. 1874
Uncle Samuel at a Hundred.


Until the recent debate on the centenhiai
bill we had thought that Yankee Doouie "''
dead, or at least that that gamesome' po"'''oi'
self-satisfed parsonage had gwen p'"oT'
the century was drawing to its cioSe' " -
Samuel. the better-bred and more seoa.e
rarresent,tive of our nationality. Ana IL
- s,,roIv inst as well if the gamecock OF
the western world should not again utter MS
sbrill cry. Rollicking self-assertion is well
enough, perhaps, in callow youth, when the
eve is bright and the limbs are supple, when
a five rail fence is no obstacle and the mus
cular arm really seems, to the sanguine mind,
able to slick all creation" But mature
sge affecting the mettlesone airs of sappy
youth and Haunting gay colors on its sturdy
but stiffened limbs-such improperly shocks
everybody.
Not that our Uncle Samuel has by any
means Appropriated to the ''lean and sup
pered pantaloon,'' but it is undenlabie tha'
he is ''agng'' little. A few gray hairs SHOW
themselves. He IS fellow that "hath. hao
his losses" At hundred years he trusCs'
not unreasonably, that he has long ana pros
porous career before him, but care and sor-
row have little dampened his youthful
confidence. His material acquisitions have
been vastly greater than could have been an
ticpated at the start, but his moral gains have
been something less than could fairly have
been hoped. How the hearts of our fathers
would have swelled with exulta;ion if they
for hot IN, hundred
the United States would stretch from ocean
to ocean, that forty millions of people would
inhabit them, and that they would consti
tute one of the great powers of the world
But how their patriotic souls would have
sunk within them, if the Complementary
picture had been presented, Rthey had seen
the great debt, the irredeemabe currency,
civil war raging in one of the states and the
fires of similar conflicts just dying or just ready
to fame up in five or six of the neighboring
states. And what pang sharper than al
the rest, it would have given them, TO SCI
that the closing years of the first century wer'
in an especial manner characterized by pc
cuniary dishonesty-that just before the cen
tennial great schemes of fraud and plumber
affecting the purity of both public and pri
vate life had been brought to light
that some of the foremost men of the coun
try had been implicated in them, that the
largest State in the Union had but just beer
rescued from the dominion of a gang Of
thieves. This condition of things results, o
course, from the demorazing effects of thu
great war, and is temporary in its nature
indeed we are far on the road out of it; blu
it is none tie less deplorable while it exists
Yes, Uncle Samuel is rich and vigorous
he is like Coleridge, can archangel littl
ruined" He has had immense opportuni
ties, has performed great deeds, most of then
in the interest of liberty and justice. and ha
proved the possibility of self-government
It is too bad that, just as he had prepared
for his centennial by making freedom univer
sal, and taking several very important step
toward the establishment of really Demo
cratic government, he should have got sucl
a smirch on his brow from the abnormal out
burst of pecuniary responsibility.
How absurd to talk about the ''honor'' O
the country being staked on making a grea
spread at the centennial, when the fact i
that, even if the government would not b.
obliged to borrow money TO do it with, i
would be unsafe to make the appropriation
because of the danger that it would be Target,
misapplied! The honor of the country is in
timatey connected with the toning up O
the public conscience. and bringing the integ
rity of the nation into thoroughly good re
pute. But it is little short of idiocy to talk G
'saving the nation from disgrace" by Dor
rowing money for spread eagle celebration
for the delectation OF foreigners, while w
permit such an impression concerning thu
national character steadily to gain ground a
to impair the value OF all American securi
ties with these same foreigners. To invite
the nations of the earth to an exhibition O
our worst national failings on a grand scale
would be a Yankee Doode-sm of SO wretch
ed type as to make the nation an object OF
universal contempt.