The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-04
A LESSON FOR THE DAY.

III every age some country Is az the IrOnt,
and more than any other represents the hope
and future Of the race Thus stands to-day
the United States as is shown by the vast
migrations pouring in like a sea from western
and central Europe. For ourselves, and for
these peoples and their mutual descendants,
we are day by day settling the questions
which will make for the prosperity or calamity
of the future. It is worth while, amid the
din and JOY of the national holiday, to stop
and consider what we are doing to pay our
debt to the past, and build solidly for the
future.
AS a Nation, we have marched to the height
of power. We are secure in vast possessions;
great in latitude, reaching from ocean to
ocean. We have food and fuel, salt iron,
gold-all that is useful and precious. The
new forces of the century, steam and cleo
tricity, have grown with our growth. Force
and matter have been our servants as in no
preceding century.
The bill of human rights which the colonies
carried to perfection almost ideal, and which
has been sealed in the blood of the revolution
and the civil war, is the pledge of liberty to
the world. The sanctities of liberty-secur-
ity of the person, of the home and of property
have been secured for sixty millions of peo-
pie Great strides are these, carried Oh
through and by successes and failures. There
has been no failure in the scheme of repub-
lican government. The power lodged with the
people has held things to common sense, and
we have escaped the follies of courts and arts
tocracies. Vox populi vox Del has never
been so absolutely true in history as
with the American people to-day.
Elections may 60 wrong at times; votes may
be bought; it may look to an outsider that the
country is governed from barrooms. But
these things are local and transient. Carlyle
did not understand the ''nigger business, as
he chose to call it. He virtually sanctioned
African slavery, and saw in the late war only
the dismemberment of the States, and a fail
ure of government by, of, and for the people.
But this was the dyspeptic and the outside
view. 1t does not tally with the observation
of Spencer of Carnegie, Of Tyndall, of Mat
thew Arnold, or of any philosophic foreigner
who has been on the ground and viewed our
institutions through his own eyes and in the
light Of history.
Every place has its croakers as we'll as it's
hopers. The lugubrious voice of the frogs III
the swamps sets off the songs of the spring
birds. Every town has its dyspeptic news
paper every club has it's prophet of evil,
every church those who see no hope in Zion
These are the croakers, who think the world
is going to the devil, and that the United
States leads in the race, with Indiana, or their
county, or city, Or ward just little ahead
But this badness is only in spots.
There is no universal dry rot
in the hearts of the people,
The very greatness of our growth, the stern
logic of necessity, appetite, cold, the cries of
children, debt, all seem to hold the people to
the essential duties of right citizenship.
But the best civilization only affords q
ground work for hope. We have, after ALL but
made beginning, and in all that goes to make
perfect world are still at the foot of the ladder
We must stand by what we have achieved
and grapple with the higher questions The
ballot is not all. 1t is greater to be free from
ourselves than from England. The questions
of society, of labor, of education, the cult
walton of talent, the formation of character
come to the front, and have the same or greater
claims than taxation and representation. We
have begun well. There is no dominant
church, no terror of inquisition, no kings or
aristocracy. But our passion should not stop
short of an exalted manhood. The sensualism
and materialism that stops with wealth and
comfort, with personal liberty and secure
homes, is not the end it is only the be-
ginning. We want wills that will not wayer
or follow custom because it is custom; judges
that will not finch; juries and witnesses that