Connecticut western news., 1882-01-04
THE NEW HIGHLANDER.
What Henry Ward Beecher Has to
 say of Him.


 say of Him.
 At the New England dinner in Brook lyn the President called upon Henry Ward Beecher to respond to the toast, "New England" He spoke in part as follows:
 "MR. PRESIDENT: When the represen- tatives of the various nations come to- gether like to hear France tell what she has done in the great battle of lib erty. I like to hear Germany tell what she has done, and Holland what she has done; and it gives me courage at least to tell little what New England has done.
 "When I speak of the Puritans know perfectly we'll that they were not theo- rists; that they were not philosophers. Every Puritan had this theory, that every man is man. They simply went upon the principle that I am man be- cause Christ is within me. They had simply an ineradicable sense of the right of man of his own self. Out of that simple consideration of the inher- ent dignity of man as child of God out of that grew New England. They sat down there and opened school houses and built churches and made laws that should suit their consciences and the rights of the individual. They had no forecast as we now have back cast. Laughter. They did not antic- ipate the future any more than we per fectly read the past. But out of that little leaven grew all the institutions of New England, and from that germ sprang all the institutions of America. You call them State builders. You never hit it more perfectly in your life. Like the universal Yankee, they could turn their hands to anything when the time came.
 "They came here to establish theii liberty, civil and religious. There is not State nor Territory to-day whose constitution, laid alongside of the New England constitu tion, varies one-tenth of an inch from it's fundamental princi pies. New England has built America. You can like it or not, but these are the facts [laughterI and we are not here to celebrate New England in any provin cial sense. Where is New England Wherever Now Englander lives. [Ap plause. We are celebrating the whole country. We are the grandfathers O every State in the Union, and this is T National gathering and therefore fam | fly gathering. '4
 "But there is great deal more i'm portant question. Are we going tt maintain what our fathers believed Are we children worthy of the fathers I say we are. I hold that the industr, of New England has not gone out, ex cept to all ends of the earth. [Laugh ter and applause.] The old New Eng landers lived on ground granite, ant committed burglary on nature to get { living out of it. Laughter know something about it myself, for used te get up at 4 o'clock in the morning a this season of the year to do the chores and make the fires. I used to go two miles to school, and used to sit on Sun days in church in which they though that fire was sacrilege. used tt live where the old fireplace would holt logs ten feet long, which required twt men to roll them in. I knew what i was to work. .a..e .oa'
 '.Did you ever hoe potatoes on hill side just after the alder bushes hat been cut off IA voice, 'Yes.' Laugh ter. I am glad that there is one req Yankee here. Laughter Well, have Did you use to stand in your doorwa. yard and not be allowed to go dow town to see the training? I did Laughter. One of the great sorrow of my life was to hear the base drur down in the village andahave a fathe who was so solicitous on the morals o his son that he would not allow him t go out in the yard to see the soldier train. Laughter. ..- ''The industry of New England is nc dead. All the great enterprises of tn } continent, and many of the great enter prises of the globe, derive their suppol q from New England. And when tn , New England spirit is rife in any con 3 munity it respects law, government an
 parties. There exists that same pluc I and personal independence everywhere p and when the managers of parties fol get that they are the servants of tt n people, and decree that the peop F should do as they want to have then F instead of their doing what the peop I want to have them do, the old Ne
 England pluck rises up against it, an
 opposes the machinery, and elects to tf
 magistracy of every city the man wi
 expresses the will of the people. [Gr' applause. I think we will all agr' y that the spirit of New England is sti " alive, and that we are carrying on u 'r great work inaugurated by our fathe . on this continent, and not alone in - province. I think we can say that u ' glory is mot alone in the institutions tn D, they founded, but in that posteri 'I which has descended from them, a1
 which carries with it the heart, tf D power and the conscience of the fathe o of New England" Applause