The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-05-25

HuuaHItyr @uI lhc hul5ulig sentiment Of
chivaIry. Out Of the fiery furnace into
which all these diverging purposes were
turned, there came through the chemistry
Of Gods grace, pure gold. God was writing
in letters Of flame aud blood, so plainly that
the most needless. careless and goddess
could not fail to see and learn it, the central
thought Of this text, that righteousness Is a
nations strength, and ain is a destroyer.
But many times since have wondered if
America and the world had thoroughly
learned that lesson. As I have studied
American politics, and the forces controlling
and dominating them as I have tried to
forecast her future, confronted as she Is
with 50 many unsettled questions, and have
marked how selfshIy and narrowly these
are discussed, 1 have sometimes thought
that we Americans had already forgotten
this lesson, and that God would be COM
PEELED to teach it to US again. Let Us pray
that it may not be in the awful school Of
war.
am no croaker. love America with an
intense devotion. I behave in her, and that
she will maintain and fulfill her manifest
destiny. But did not Emerson, in his grand
lecture, The Fortune Of the Republic, " de-
livered in the historic Old South Church,
Boston, in 1878, come much nearer the
truth than most of our Fourth of July ora
tors, when he said
We have much to learn, much to cor
rect-a great deal of lying vanity. The
spread eagle must fold his foolish wings and
be less Of a peacock must keep his wings to
carry the thunderbolt when commanded.
We must realize our rhetoric and our
rituals. IT'S certain that
our civilization is yet incomplete. 'Tis
wild democracy; the riot Of mediocrities
and dishonesties and Judges. Ours is the
! age of the omnibus; of the third perssn
| plural, of Tammany Hall.
ut is not question whether we shall be
multitude of people. No, that has been
conspicuously decided already; but whether
| we shall be the new nation, the guide and
law giver of all nations, as having clearly
| chosen and firmly held the simplest and
best rule of political society"
| I believe America is to be that ''new
| nation" But she will net become such
| by Americans at home and abroad boasting
| how big and how rich and how much we
surpass all other nations in material re-
sources. We must learn that bigness is not
necessarily greatness. America can only &C
| compIish her manifest destiny by writing
| On the hearts of her sons and daughters the
| immortal truth contained in this text, and
| by the same spirit Of devotion and self-sac-
rifce filing their souls and holding them
| faithful to duty and country, as inspired our
dead comrades whom we are met to
honor tonight.
1 think we will best honor our patriot
| dead tonight. not by Vain-glorious Boosting,
| but by carefully seeking answer to two
questions. l. What great unsettled ques-
tions confront America to-day? 2. In what
may she find peaceful and honorable So
luton of these questions?
And while I speak especially to Americans
and of America, yet many of the
questions which now demand solution
in America, one Of the greatest
among nations, also confront Hawaii,
the smallest Of the nations. Principles are
eternal and universal, and know neither
great nor small. So much that I shall say
of America will have its direct application
to Hawaii and to all nations.
1. There are some questions confronting
America which may well give US pause, and
cause us to grasp little firmer than ever
before our national ensign, and stand as
true men and women ready to do our duty.
And the first mention is this: How shall
we bind together such vast domain. and
diverse sections with conflicting interests
into one homogeneous body polite? That
which causes the average Fourth of July
| orator to pipe the loudest, gives me pause.
Our vastness and bigness-stretching from
ocean to ocean, and from the orange groves
of Florida to the everlasting SHOWS of
Alaska-what cohesive power shall hold it
together? TeIegraphs and steam power, and
| rapid printing can do much to modify
! the disadvantages of mere size. But
it is still long distance from
Portland, Maine, to San Francisco,
| and from Behring Straits to the Gulf Of
Mexico. Do we not need something stronger
| than telegraph wire or a railway tie to
| bind the vast domain together? Rome, with
no such diverse or enormous territory,
DIOhe III ploCpS lIOIl lCI OnA Weight
| Twenty-Five years ago we heard cracking
along Mason and Dixon's line, which was
healed only by pouring into it the best
blood of the Nation. 1t is easy TO conceive
| of circumstances in which there might be
another chasm opened along the line Of the
Rocky Mountains.
2. And, second, is our universal ballot.
Not that the ballot is not good. The right
to the ballot, and the principle Of manhood
suffrage, believe in. There is an educating
power in the ballot. Men with ballots in
their hands are of more worth generally
than those without them. But, Disguise it
as we will, there is peril in universal SUI
Trage. There are hordes of ignorant voters
in the United Statesmen who cannot read
the ballot which they cast. This ignor-
ant population, joined with the vicious and
criminal classes, is the ruling element in
some of our great cities. It is a ruling
element in some sections of the South. 1t is
question whether education is keeping
pace with population; it is certainly not
gaining rapidly upon it. There are i'm
mense sections in America, where local
prejudice is either sleepily Indifferent or
vigorously opposed to popular education.
Morp1oDism has no love for the public