St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-06-28
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.
A Minneapolis salesman asks the GLOBE
this morning to make an appeal to the bust
ness men of that city to close their stores
on the nations great holiday-the Fourth
of July. We take it for granted that such
an appeal is not necessary, as our business
men are among our most patriotic, and they
certainly should be as thoroughly imbued
with the spirit and sentiment which the
day commentaries, as any other class OF
people.
1t is lamentable fact that as we get
farther and farther away from the date OF
the birth of the republic we seem to attach
less Importance to the event. There is not
the same disposition to hold in reverence
the recollectionS of our earlier history that
once prevailed. We are year by year be-
coming more Indifferent to the traditions OF
the past and forgetful of the heroic deeds
of our fathers. This should not be so. If
frequent recurrence to fundamental princi-
pies is essential to the preServa-
ton of liberty, it is equally impor-
tant that we should be constantly
replenishing the fires of patriotic ardor, that
we may retain a firm grasp on that precious
boon which the founders of our government
bequeathed to us. There is no better way
to keep this spirit alive and continually
fresh in the minds and hearts of the people
than by a proper observance of the days
which commemorate events connected with
the birth, the rise and the establishment of
this government. The Fourth of July is
to the American heart what Christmas is to
the Christian world. 1t is day of rejoic-
ing enveloped with halo of sacredness.
The history of the progress of liberty. next
to the history of the Christian religion, is
the most sublime and instructive lesson
taught in the annals of the world. Liberty
is that divine emanation from the bosom OF
GoD to the soul of man, which survives
every shock, change and mutation. The
proudest works of human hands have de-
cayed, the brightest models of human wis
dom have grown old, but the spirit of
liberty has always survived in some
form or other to assert its sway in
the human breast. Here on our own con-
tinent and in our own country has it found
its fullest development and supremacy.
Other ages, other people, and other coun-
tries have achieved excellence in the various
fields of human action; but the peculiar
form and character of the American gov
eminent stand alone, without a model in
all the past. The declaration of indepen-
dence was the grand enunciation of the
principles of freedom which have made us
such great nation: We must venerate it.
1t should be the Mecca to which Americans
should annually make devout pilgrimages,
and pray for the success of every effort
which tends to enlarge the liberty of the
citizen. It is good thing for us to pause
one day out of the year, to lay aside our
daily toll, to divest our minds of business
cares, and devote ourselves to contempla-
ton of the rise and progress that our Re-
public has made under the benign in
fiuences of liberty. Liberty has not only
conferred unequaled rights on the American
citizen, but like BRIAREUs of old, it has
touched with a hundred hands all the
springs of human progress. The sudden
and brilliant promotion of the American
government to the foremost rank of ma
lions has afforded theme for the proudest
periods of statesmen and the sublimest
passages of poets. But in the presence of
the great fact itself, in the presence Of the
living glory, all description fails and eulogy
falls weak and baf1ed to the ground.
Strange, strange, and without parallel;
alone, solitary and without peer in all his
tory, has been the career of American
progress. 1t will do us good, therefore, as
each Fourth of July comes around to pause
and reflect upon the fabulous growth and
development of our country and to lay to
heart the vast and overwhelming moral the
subject carries with it.
If we expect to retain the illumination
and glory of the presence of liberty ON
these shores: if we expect to transmit to
our posterity the exalted and priceless bless
ings which it bestows; If we expect to es-
cape their reproach for being false to the
great trust which our fathers reposed in
our hands forpresent and future genera
tons; if we would avoid the utter and alb
solute overthrow of every principle which
has signalized this government as repub-
lie, and not a despotism; if we, standing
here on an isthmus of time dividing the
past from the future with the graves Of
our ancestors stretching back into the past
and the advancing footsteps Of rising gen.
erations coming up in the future, desire to
be faithful to our duty as American citizens,
we can never be unmindful of the sacred
ness which attaches to our greatest national
holiday Therefore, we do not make an
appeal for it's observance upon the ground
of philanthropy or humanity alone, as sug
gested by our correspondent, but we base it
upon the broad duty of patriotism.