The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-07-06

our tlme OF retrOspection, THANKSGIVING.
ana hlgh resolving, has fallen upon us
neither occupied upon one hand with any
great national calamity, like civil war or
an invasion, nor on the other hand over
driven with our sordid cares, the noise and
indecorum of our complicated building
and thrift. We have invited the world to
visit us on our great birth-festival, to be-
hold the working for n century of q free
government In. the formation of national
character, and courtesy requires, that we
come in doors from our shops and mills,
our ship yards and cattle-sheds, put on our
coats, and do fit though frank and simple
honors to our guests.
TYPE OF MANHOOD WE HAVE PRODUCED.
But the occasion is too rare and serious
to be given wholly to etiquette and ciyility.
Whatever may be due to visitors and
strangers, our principal concern is with
ourselves. The solemn anniversary, which
no eye, that looks upon intelligently, will
be likely to see again, brings with it Sc
rlous thoughts and imperative duties. It
is time for new devotion to noble pur-
poses.
In the finished century what have we
achieved? | must pass over as unfit for
this occasion, and incapable of being COM
pressed into the limits of this brief dis
course, q recapitulati0n however summary
OF our progress in population, in breadth
OF territorial occupation, in military
strength, in Overflowing abundance of pro-
duction, in agriculture and manufactures,
in education, arts and inventions. But
"What constitutes State?
Not high raised battement or labored mound
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad armed ports,
Where laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness watts perfume to
No:-men, high minded men,"
Political institutions are only valuable for
the quality of men they help to form.
What in hundred years has our trial of
government given us in the order of men it
has produced? We cannot shrink from
the investigation. L know how frequent,
during the disclosures of the last year. of
corruption in politics and fraud in the pub
lie service, have been our confessions of
degeneracy and decay. Much of this is
due to wholesome quickening of the pub
lie conscience; much to the salutary ex-
posure and universal discussion of evil
practices, which, under more despotic gov
ernments, and in earlier periods of our
own, were decorously suppressed to avoie
general scandal; much at last to the
small economy and scrupulous thrift that
belonged rather to the poverty than to the
virtue OF our ancestors. Besides, there is
glamour about the past that hides all
traits of character in historic men but
those that are luminous with heroism. We
forget the disreputable intrigues among
the generals and patriots of the revolution
to undermine the influence of Washington,
and to take from him the chief command.
We sigh for the devotion, fidelity and in
tegrity that characterized the times of JEFF
ferson and Madison, and have forgotten
the partisan animosities which alienated
citizens, and embittered all the inter-
course OF political, professional and social
life. Men compete with each other now,
as in the last century, as in all centuries,
for the goods of life, for wealth, lucrative
employments and honorable stations,
rather with less than greater rancor and
unfairness. The usages of civil life always
tend to enlarge our respect for the rights
Of other men; and we learn justice, which
is the law of affairs, as we learn courtesy,
which is the law of society, by use.
Neither the virtues nor the vices of any
age are like the virtues or vices of another
age; and if the weakness of the public vir-
tue has exhibited itself of late in the direc-
ton of the greed of gain, it is due to the
deranged standards of value, one of the
calamities of great war; to the increased
difficulties of obtaining subsistence, inten-
styling the struggle for life, and to the
sudden access of luxury among classes
enriched by the unfair distributions of
gains. only possible under commercial dis
orders.
But | do not wish to saw SINGLE word
to assuage the keenness of the nopnlar
conscience. which must be left bv fine
overwhelming shame of naInabIe evil to
work out our repentance and diliverance.
Metternich once said TO GEORGE Ticknor,
speaking of the Tendencies of monarchies
and republics: 81 labor chiefly. almost en-
tirelv to prevent evils, In a democracy
you cannot do this; there YOU must begin
bv the evil and endure If fiji If has been
felt and acknowledged. and then nerhans
YOU can apply tbe Temedv.n Mr.. Tieknnr
himself afterwards acknowledged this re-
proach of democratic institutions entirely
inst. ssVe must.n he said ssfirst snffar
from an evil before we can annlv tbe ram-
edv. We have no preventive Ieoislation
upon such subjects. But then on tRe other
hand. when the people do come To tbe res
cue, thcy come with a flooding force.
which your societies. where mower is
balanced between the government and the
masses, know nothing about.n
We are slow to provide against antiei-
pated and problematical evils how
ever threatening thew NAV seem
to dispassionate observers. We per-
mitted. even cherished slavery.
while philanthropists and nubii-
cists among ourselves and in foreign
states gave eloquent warning of its de-
structive tendencies. But when it armed
itself in rebellion against the Union, and
demanded half our territory, as theatre
upon which to put to the test its plan of a
government built upon a dominant and
subject race, the people rose in their might,
and crushed the evil thing with a thor
Oughness, that brooked neither palliation
nor delay. So we have failed to agree
upon any remedy for corrupt civil SER
vice and the degradation of the public
patronage to the uses of self-seeking men,
until the general offence has become so
rank, that the popular viii is fast ripening
to the determination to obliterate the
shame and scandal in the same resolute
and thorough wav.
Above the shame that few mean and
mercenary men, intruding audaciously into
public stations, to which neither their
characters, abilities or public services en-
titled them, have been able to infiict upon
their countrv the GREAT honest heart of the