Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-06-08
OUR COUNTRY.

COlleglaU6 INSTITUTE, Itlu t'J uiC NP~'"
House on last Friday evening, Judge Z. Z.
Goodwin, in a very good and instructive
address to the graduating class, made the
following remark: "All the grandeur Oh
ancient realms fades away by comparison
with vour own native land - This is a broad
and sweeping statement, and one that II
accented literally by the graduating class
will lead them into errors and concelt.
The love of country is thing that must
ever make men better and nObler, but 1t
should not be the blind love that allows
no merit to alien lands. Vast tracts OF
land, be those tracts never so beautiful,
be their mountains filled with "the wealth
of Ormus and of Ind" do not constitute
the true greatness and grandeur of ma
tions; their true greatness and grandeur
consist of toe moral and intellectual
worth of their citizens. Where these
have come to their greatest excellence,
there has been the greatest nation, and
that excellence only comes after centuries
of trial to attain it. The primary conditions
of this moral and intellectual worth and
excellence are well developed material
resources, to which stage we have
reached in America. This development
has been arrived at through wise and
liberal form of government, whose chief
care has ever been TO further the interest
and welfare of the citizen, recognizing
that in a free government it is the citizen
who gives dignity and stability to the
government. 1t is the theory that the
strength of the whole is only equal to the
strength OF the parts, and hence the
great care for the parts in our Govern
ment-the citizens. That our country is
spanned by three separate lines OF rail
roads does not on that account make the
grandeur of the Appian Way fade away,
and the Empire that in part depended
upon that way does not sink to insgniii
canoe because Italy is not SO large as
some of our States. The grandeur of the
Roman Empire was the grandeur of the
Roman character. The smallness OF Greece
in no way prevented her from attaining
to such intellectual greatness that to APP
proach her in intellectual grace and
power has ever been the endeavor OF
modern nations and the ambition of the
great men of modern times. One of the
greatest men OF modern times spent
years of study and thought to
reproduce in Germany Grecian
drama worthy of Sophocles, and
in Iphegenia, Goethe produced work
that, were its authorship unknown, might
well be taken as the work of Il Greek of
the days of Sophocles. Goethe was a
cosmopolite, citizen of the world, and it
is Germany's pride that he was so. In
America our orators have perhaps cX
celled all oursother men whose work has
lain in the domain of thought and reason,
and the greatest praise which can be
given to Patrick Henry, or Clay, or Cal
houn, or Hayne, or Webster, is that they
have approached Demosthenes, or Per
icles. And yet would America exchange
the fame and greatness of these men
for the material greatness of her Astors,
her Vanderbilts, her Goulds, her
Stewarts, her Macllays and others? II
Washington gave to America freedom
and a place among the nations, so Crom-
well saved to England the freedom and
spirit that inspired Washington. And
who can place an estimate upon the SER
vice that Hampden rendered to humanity
when he refused to pay his eighteen
shillings of ship money? II Washington
refused crown, so dill Andrea Doria
when he saved Genoa. To France we
owe the ideas which Jefferson embodied
in the Declaration of independence, and
to the unwritten Constitution of England
we owe the written Constitution of Am
erica. The merit OF our country is that
we have recognized the equality of all
men, and to their thought and action
have given complete liberty to work out
their own destiny. That destiny is vet to
be worked out, and what it will be time
alone can tell. What we are in America
is the result of that which has been in
in other lands, and that which we shall
be, will be the result of what is and what
hath been. That which is most admired
in the nations which have gone before is !
their intellectual prowess, foritis intellect
which rules the world, and force must ever
bow to it. The pride OF America is that
her present greatness has been attained
upon the theory that the intelligence of
the people is sufficient to guide and gov
ern them in all things, but if that pride
shall become so overweening as to think
that all the realms of antiquity are as
darkness when compared to her light,
the time is fast approaching when her
progress will cease, and when her
progress ceases there will come stagna-
ton, then retrogression, then death.
The tender and beautiful poem
OF Montgomery on the love of
country does honor TO the human
heart and brain, but when the love of
country becomes SO intense as to blind !
people to their own faults as we'll as 10
the merits Of other and alien peoples. it |
is the love which leads to death. Gods
chosen people are that people who have
most wisdom and know best how to emu
late the virtues of all peoples. A great
people ever render homage and respect
to great peoples, and self-praise and
laudation are not the true tests of a ma