Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1886-06-19

gallant, energetic ana able Young oncer,
who thenceiorth gets general credit as faith
ful secret agent OF his government and
heroic defender of his couutrymen, as well
as saviour to us of the territory Of California
His reputation gained in this affair nearly
makes him president in 1864 The warfare
in question Is also theuceiorth publicly jus.
tilted 10y unfounded reports of Californian
hostility All this is authorized as the
story goes, by government that thus orders
sixty men tn distress "A vast aud ill.vganiZed
land, without providinga any support Whereby
the work of their rifles can be promptly
utilized to found any new and stable govern
ment in place of the one that they are COM
manded cruelty to bsraSs, without warning
to assault, and thus unlawtully To over
throw The commonly accepted eNplana-
ton placed all the responsibility for this out
rage upon the federal government, under
whose secret orders Fremont is supposed,
and by him declared, to have acted. Prof.
Royce, however shows that the whole blame
rests on Fremont and Benton. The former
acted, on the advice of the latter perhaps,
without any sucn orders, aud virtually in
open disobedience of orders from the gov
ernment " What inner motives led him To
this rash, and in its consequences most dis
astrous act, which once for all did Whatever
one agency could do to set over against each
other in deadly enmity the Americans and
the CalitoTniaus, 1t is not mine To know
The traditional hero is but little different his
toriCally from a common tilibuster " the
gallant generals clearest memory and sin
cerest impressions to the contrary notwith-
standing"
But don't imagine that our government
was free from blame altogether 1t was ill.,
triguing in the most willy, dishonorable and
hypocritical way to gain possession OF Cali
fornis, the great Nsboth's vineyard of the
time. 1t was expecting and planning and
hurrying on the Mexican war. But it
wanted to keep the Calirornians well dis
posed in fact, il wanted to lure them on 10
separate from Mexico and offer themselves
To the federal union. All this is fully shown
forth. " In acting as he did, he (Fremont)
not only became for the moment a hlihuster,
pure and simple, but he endangered our
whole scheme 10y perhaps unwittingly doing
his best to drive California directly INTO the
arms OF England If England had wanted
her-which is another old tradition that is
here exploded.
But when hostilities had once begun,
the men who were not in the state secrets
were as American and as moral rs those who
were initiated To them the whole thing ap-
peared partly as glorious revolution, a des-
tined joy for the eyes of disappearing
posterity, high and holy business and
partly as a visionary enterprise, destined to
teach our beloved and erring Spanish
American brethren the blessings of true lib
erty. The Bear Flag heroes interpreted the
affair, in their way also, to large and repre-
sentative American public; and these heroes,
like their betterS, show US what 1t is to have
a national conscience sensitive enough to
call loudly tor elaborate and eloquent COM
fort in moments of doubt, and just stupid
enough 10 be readily deluded 10y mock-elo-
quent can't The result of the whole thing is
that although in later years the nation at
large has indeed come to regard the Mexican
war with something of the shame and con.
tempt that the BiglOw Papers and the
other expressions of enlightened contempor-
AIRY opinion heaped upon the unworthy busi-
ness, STILL in writing California history, few
have even yet chosen to treat the acts of the
conquest with the deserved plainness of
speech while, in those days, the public both
in the South and in the whole of the West,
together with a considerable portion of the
public elsewhere, was hoodwinked by such
methods as were used, and so actually sup
posed our acquisition OF the new territory to
be a GOd-fearIng act the result OF the aggres-
sion and of the sinful impotence Of our Span
ish neigh bOrs, together with our own justiti
able energy and our devotion to the cause of
freedom. 1t is to be hoped that this lesson,
showing US as II does how much ofcOnscience
and even Of personal sincerity can co exist
with a minimum of effective morality in in
ternational undertakings, will some day be
once more remembered SO that when our
nation IS another time about to serve the
devil, it will do so with more frankness, and
will deceive itself less by half-uncOnscious
of liberty is to be accomplished through a
steadfas devotion to the cultivation of our
own inner life, and not by going abroad as
missionaries, as cOuquer0rs or a. marauders
among weaker peoples"
IT will be most interesting work, | fancy,
to read Gen. FremOnt's forthcoming Me
moirs, or RecollectiOns or whatever his
book is to be called, with this volume of
Prot. Royce by ones side as commentary !
WE urgently need some more historical
writer's like this young author-thorcugh,
conscientious fearless and outspoken other
wise we surely will never get AT the true MIS-
tory, for example, of the late Rebellion. For
every " war article " that appears, and every
volume of memoirs &c, only serves TO con-
fuse the matter more hOpelessly, so won-
drOusly defective and marvellously varying
seem to be the I" memories " of some of the
chief actors and would-be historians OF the
war. They sorely need somebody like Prof
Royce to " remind " them OF a number of
things, and to impress upon them what his
tory Is for and what it Is not tor and that
what the country wants is not gloritication
first and truth afterwards but nothing but
the truth, first, last and all the time.
Is it not a rather interesting and a pro.
phetic circumstance, by the way, that Prot.
Royce, native and former citizen of one OF
our younger and WesterDmo states, should
occupy the chair OF assistant professor of
philosophy in the oldest college of one of the
oldest states OF the country? Think of it
Harvard goes TO California for instruction in
philosophy The Pacific coast gives teach
ers to New England That means almost
more than the mind can grasp.
USCAs.
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The Bottom of a Volcano Gone
A note from DR.. Hyde, of Honolulu, to