The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-07-04

Times prudent doubt nor ages wrong
But gifts of gratitude and song,
There are days and days. Time is not as
most men think, natural product. It is only
as man puts his impress on the days and years
that they have significance and become capital
letter days. The whirling worlds of God set
off the times and measure the seasons, and
mans work begins where that of the rolling
planets ends. The year rolls around, but the
days are not alike. Man has put his stamp
on Christmas and New Years, and they stand
out like the sun and moon in the heavens, and
all nations recognize and do them honor.
There are days for the family, consultations
of birthdays of marriage feasts, and the dark
days Of the tomb. There are the days Of the
churches, and each devotee knows and keeps
in solemn reverence his own. There are clus-
ters Of days in literature the 18th of Janu-
airy, illuminated from dawn to dawn with
Scottish song that comes to man like his
own heartbeat, and makes that day worthless
as a birthday for all poets to come. There is
whole galaxy of such names in English and
in American, and in every nations song And
there are starry days in each national life and
history-the days Of birth, Of deliverance
from enemies
The history of the United States has a score
Of such days. The Father of his Country
so bent back upon the 22d Of February the
radiance Of Sll his life that it will shine
independeHppof the sun throughout the course
of history. There are other names and other
days. The days of the physical emancipation
for the black race was the day of moral
emancipation for Massachusetts and South
Carolina alike.
Washington, Lincoln and Garfield are
among the men who, standing next to the
nations heart, and under the nations eye, so
put the image and superscription of worthy
deeds and noble sacrifice upon their work, that
the days upon which they were born should
stand out from the dull rank and file Of the
almanac and halt every citizen of the United
States like sentinel.
But these were only men. They were in the
way and the God of nations did his work
through them and ia their lives and memory
every patriot and lover of men may see the re-
Election Of his own. The day of the nation is
the Fourth of July. It is impersonal; it be-
longs to every citizen; it has no distinction of
age, sex, color; of citizen, politician or
civilian; it is the day we celebrate It repre-
SCENTS an idea and not the sound of broken
bell. It should be celebrated in every hamlet
from Maine to California. It is not bombast;
its speeches are not idle; its roar Of guns and
cannon are but the translation into the dialect
of gunpowder of the eloquent words uttered
under the shadow of Kings Mountain:
t.These colonies are, and Of right ought
to be, free and independent States =
Once year is not too often to read the Dec
laration Of Independence; to hear the guns
and see the flag unfurled. The patriots Of the
when there was no Fourth of July, with a
capital letter, will no longer be found in the
procession; but we have few relics of 1912
still with US, and the glorious old Fourth is
big enough to take them all in, in spirit or per
son, from Concord and Lexington to Bull Run
and Richmond,
Then let US get out the old fife and snare
drum, the flag with the eagle, turn loose the
floods of patriotism and rhetoric, have an old
time dinner, an old-time procession and an
old-time celebration, with all the "pomp and
circumstance that to the day belong And
if any grouty old Tory, who has heard that 81
lence is golden, calls the celebration of the
Fourth after the manner of auld lang syne
American fap-doodle, ram a bunch of fire.
crackers down his throat, light them, and
hold him for FIVE minutes under the town
pump; for this is Nation, with big N, and
will never become so refined 4 not to cele-
brate the day Of its birth with a,noise the chill
dren will remember and the add delight to
hear
stormy the day of her birth;
Was she not born Of the strong
She the last rpeness of EARTH
Beautiful prophesied longY
And stormy the days Of her prime,
Hers are the pulses that beat
Higher for perils sublime
Making them fawn at her feet.
Was she not born of the strongf
Was she not born Of the wisei
Daring and counsel belong
OF right to hcr confident eyes.
Human and motherly, they,
Careless Of nation or race.
Hearkenl Her children to-day
Shout for the joy Of her face
AS a specimen Of digni6ed independent