St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-01-12

than were implicitly there. He
has confined himself to the econO-
mic question, to that which directly
concerns the national housekeeping.
He has not allowed himself to be lur
ed from the direct forethOught by any
temptation to discuss the more general
and at present mainly academic ques-
tons of free trade or protection. He
has shown us that there was such
thing as being protected too much, and
that we had protected our shipping in
terests so effectually that they had
ceased to need protection by ceasing to
exist. In thus limiting the field of his
warning and his counsels he has done
wisely and we shall do wisely i'm fol-
lowing his example. His facts and his
figures will work all the more effectu
ally. But we must be patient with
them and expect them to work slowly.
Enormous interests are involved and
must be treated tenderly. 1t was 60
years before the leaven of Adam Smith
impregrated the whole sluggish lump
of British opinion, and we are batch
of the same dough. | can remem
paid for the raising of wheat in Massa-
>.
discredit now. They have taken an
alias and play their three card trick as
subsidies or as protection to labor, but
the common sense of our people will
find them out at last. If we are not to
expect any other immediate result from
the message than that best result of all
human speech, that it awaken thought,
one can at least already thank it for
one signal and unquestionabe benefit.
1t is dividing and will continue more
and more to divide our parties by the
lines of natural cleavage, apd will close
the artificial and often k.ischievous
lines which followed the boundaries of
section or the tracings of by-gOne pre-
judices. We have here IL question
which equally concerns every man,
woman and child, black or white, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the
Gulf of Mexico to the bay of Fundy.
nugatory all those problems of ancient
history which we debated and settled
more than 20 years ago by manly wa
ger of battle, and that so definitely
that we welcome here tonight with
special pleasure some of the brave
men with whom we argued then and
WiOIl "C luSlSUCu oil oiiO hiOiO VII
keeping as cOuntrymen, that they had
taught us how to value them.
Gentlemen, think have occupied
as much of your time as chairman
should. l will only ask your patience
while | detain you for moment long
er from other speakers, whom L am as
eager to hear as you must be. The al
fusion to our civil war, which ! made n
tn a thnn trb
which [ should be glad to share with
You before | close. That tremendous
convuision, as, | believe, even those
engaged on the losing side now see as
clearly as we, saved us a country that
was worth saving, SO that properly
there was no losing side. Now what
| wish to say is this, that II country
worth saving is worth saving all the
time, and that country with such
energies us ours, with such opportuni
ties and inducements to grow rich, and
such temptations to be content with
growing rich, needs saving all the
time. Many of us remember, as they
whelming rush of that great national
passion, obliterating all lines of party
division and levei;ng all the land
ititti NO vi httolOuti PoiioiCS' w NV eii'eo
saw it will ever forget that enthusiasm
of loyalty for the flag and for what the
flag symbolized which % years ago
swept all the country's forces of
thought and sentiment, of wrong and
hope into the rush of it's overmaster-
ing torrent2 Martial patriotism
touches the heart, kindles the magma
ton and rouses the noblest energies of
men as nothing else ever does or can.
Even love is Il paler emotion. That
image of our country with the flame of
battle in her eyes which every man then
saw, how beautiful it was, how potent
to inspire devotion! But these costa
cies of emotion are by their very ma
ture as transient us they are ennObling.
There is sedater kind of patriotism,
less picturesque, less inspiring, but
quite as admirably serviceable in the
prosy days of peace. 1t is the patient
patriotism which strives to enlighten
public opinion and to redress the bal
ance of party spirit, which lnculcates
civic courage and independence of
mind which refuses to accept clamOr as
argument, or to believe that phrases
become syllogisms by repetition. 1t
is the more modest and thoughtful pa
triotsm to the exemplifying and prac
tice of which we aspire, and the first
lesson it teaches us is that moderat-
ed and controlled enthusiasm is, like
stored electricity, the most powerful of
motive forces, and that the reformer of
practical abuses, springing from eco
nomic ignorance or mistake, then first
begins to be wise when he allows for
the obstinate vitality of human error
and human folly, and is willing to be-
lieve that those who cannot see as he
does are not therefore necessarily bad
men.
Walter Phelps Dodge, very youth