Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-11-28

saying, :" We did itr' Ard success in them
is no augmented self-will, but the ripening
years of increasing duty, and vigilant
reverent responsibility.
The construction of the overland road
had many great and powerful allies
The weight of the revolving earth
swung with it; the stars in their
courses favored it; the rising and
setting sun smiled on it with morning
beams and blessed it with evening splen-
doris. The mountains broke forth into
singing, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for
our Godp History bore it upon its
waves civil war illumed she dark abysses
with its lurid fires the voice of the blood
of men poured out upon the steaming
earth cheered it on with dying echoes,
and the last breath of heroes famed the
fame of its advancing camps The success
was brilliant, and conferred plenitude of
power. 1t was success into which entered
many causes beyond human control
The civil war familiarized the mind Of
| the country with the names of vast sums
of money, of which men have little con-
ception beyond the names and with pri-
vate fortunes which were quite fabulous to
former generations. The spirit and tenn
per in which these fortunes are held, and
which the power they confer is exercised,
is one of the invisible forces working in
modern society. There is a conviction that
vast wealth cannot be got by per
sonal industry that times, seasons,
occasions and monopolous advantage
must converge, and social and commercial
opportunity condensed in single man, the
child of fortune. Whatever yagaries of
thought or passion in regard to property,
that great practical ethic of society, may
be mixed with this conviction, or strag-
ling after it like camp followers in the
wake Of an army, there is a moral concep-
ton in it that can never be extinguished
unless the inspiror of the human con.
science withdraw his illumination and
leave manhood in starless night We live
in period Of much social discomfort
That discomfort centers largely upon the
mutual rights and duties of labor and
capital. am not discussing that beyond
the simple statement of the moral fact
and the moral fact is, that taking the
world as it is taking men as they are, tho
possession Of vast wealth brings with it
the idea of power rather than the idea of
responsibility the notion of right, rather
than the notion of duties This cherishes
the ethics Of self-will, that has no deca-
iogue, but monologue-" do as | will
with my own" On the other hand, labor,
having no support or help from the mys-
FERROUS power that lies in more than
enough, weak, ignorant, and often blind,
yet catching now and then through the
riffs of darkness fash Of that light that
lighteth every man that cometh into the
world, exclaims in the half passion of out
ragged sensibilities: To do as you will can
not be the whole truth, for that leaves
me hungry one year in FIVE" Between
those two positions there lies the
great moral and social fact, and there
is between them an irrepressible conflict.
Thus to the student Of human nature, in
its deep processes Of thought and charac-
ter, most interesting and instructive
study is the mind and heart of man
as he moves among the grandeur
of outward fortune Does he retire to
the citadel Of self-will, or does he go forth
undefended in the genial air and climate
Of human feeling?
l applaud our citizen that his great sue
cesses have increased his sympathies with
his fellow meni 1 applaud him and es-
TEEN him most happy that in times of
passionate prejudice or envious calumny |
his good genius of patient silence has
never deserted him, and that his firm con-
fdence in the substantial honesty of men |
and of their capacities for higher and |
higher good has never been disturbed [ !
congratulate him that in the sobHety of
reason and faith he has been able to ap-
peal from the caprice of the present to the
judgment of future generations, and in
trust his deeds and his motives to the im-
partial opinions of mankind l take his
proclamation and manifesto as a whole, as
it is on paper, if you please, and in imagi-
nation l unfold its purpose as it shall be
unfolded by the fostering care Of : l;.Ll,eral /
age, and [ see in J. the fulfliment of
Berleley's prophetic hymn shadowing
forth the coming greatness Of the new
world:
There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts
The good and great inspiring epic rage
The wisest heads and nobest hearts.
If there is mingled with his feeling, as
he looks down the vista of future years
and generations, an honorable desire for
corporate Immortality, and wish to asso-
ciate great human sorrow with perpet-
ual benefaction to mankind,
Is it an ofTense TO own
That our bosoIns e'er incline
Towards immortal glory's throne7
And did bending grief e'er rise to such
hight of human lover Grief and money
are naturally selfish; one thinks of its own
possessions, the other thinks of its own
suferings. Happy are they whose posses
sions are transfgured by glory from
above, and whose suferings are trans
formed to sympathies.
1t is no part of my duty or purpose as
citizen or a man to offer any detailed opin-
ions or criticisms upon the plan of Mr..
Stanford's projected foundation. There
will be opinions from other sources, the