The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-07-04
THE LAST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
TCoNTrSTrFD FROM FIRST PAGE1


gratitude in every American heart, than that
OF the States south of the Potomac which,
after the fierce and wasting stress of four
years of war upon their soil, after the total
overthrow of their ancient industrial sys-
TEN, the destruction of their wealth. the
complete paralysis of their business energies
are rising together like brood of Titans,
and under the inspiration of liberty, peace
and assured union, are renewing the wonder
full tale of the earlier years of the century,
the progress and development of the great
WestP The power and resource of those
States in war seem to have revealed to them
their unsupported skill and force in peace
The vigOr, the tenacity, the ability that con-
tested victory upon this field for those three
famous days are now working the greater
miracles of industrial enterprise Never be-
fore was the sword beaten into so vast a
ploughshare nor the spear into so prodigious
pruning hook.
The worlds imperial deposit of iron has
lain dormant for ages between the coal
and the limestone of Alabama, but only n ow
has 1t proved more precious than gold
mine. From the war-desolated wilderness
cities have suddenly sprung, humming with
workshops and hundred trades, and star
tied pennsylvania hears and wonders, while
Alabama and Georgia smiled in rivalry, and
the fiaring furnaces of Tennessee challenge
the ancient fires of the Lehigh and the Ale
ghanies. South Carolina nearly doubles her
manufactured products in seven years, and
this year they will nearly equal in value all
the crops OF the State, including rice and
cotton. In seven years the assessed valua-
ton OF property in the twelve old Southern
States has advanced nearly, one-third
while the rate of taxation is dimished.
thousands of new industries, mining, manu-
featuring, commercial, and agricultural,
arise as in newly discovered or lately set
tied land. To facilitate every enterprise
the remotest valleys. The water courses are
richly burdened with freight hitherto un-
known, and with new industries greater skill
satisfies more various demands, open wider
commercial connections and more intimate
social relations and establishes higher and
more opulent civilization. In all this glitter
Ing panorama the happiest incident is due
directly to the war 1t is the blending of the
capital, the people, the energy, the expert
ence, the skill and conviction, of other States
which has produced this great result. Be-
fore the war this was impossible. Ever
deepening doubt and angrier divergence had
consumed the heart of Union and only its
form remained. This universal confidence
and cooperation, therefore are in the truest
sense the fruits of Union. But fairer than
all these, as this smile of prosperity broadens
over the awaking States, is the fact that
labor Itself becomes free, and slaves are
transformed TO citizens. Free labor produces
the great Southern staples as amply as before
ana is welcomed to the new industries. 1t
pays taxes on property Of its own valued at
nearly a hundred millions of dollars, while
for the children of former slaves there are
nearly twenty thousand schools of every de-
gree with an enrolment of more than mill
hon OF pupils, and everywhere demand for
education and public disposition to crafty
it hitherto unprecedented. This new birth
OF freedom is the noblest aspect of the spec
tacle. The splendor of material progress
may easily delude and betray with its fond
details alone that the promise of any people
is to be discerned. 1t is not great mines
only, and factories and farms, that make
great nations. The patriot looks to see
cnurcneS, and schools, and libraries, he stud
les the decreasing records of crime, he marks
the growing respect for common rights,
the evidences of public spirit, the moral
qualities, the progressive political tenden-
cies, and higher standards of life among a
people, before he counts the spindles and the
cotton bales, If he would cast Alright their
horoscope and f0retell their future. The ap-
pearance Of such signs under complicated
and unprecedented conditions, conditions
which no other States in history ever knew.
he sees with hope and pride amid this vast
industrial revival. The full fruition, indeed,
is not yet. But If some impatient observer
eager that the surely ripening harvest shall
be reaped before its golden prime, exclaims
angrily that nothing has been done because
SO much remains to do, let his answer be
that OF the wise general to his young lieu
tenant, who burned for victory and thought
the troops too slow, ""ris an aw-
fully rough road my boy, give them time,
give them timel"
Not easily nor rapidly can the passions
sprung from bitter local differences, and
cherished and strengthened for generation.
disappear. Often in hot and reckless pro-
testations those dying emotions will break
forth ike the distant muttering thunder of
retiring storm. But the central fact is bright
as fixed star. The line across the Union
drawn by the flaming sword of hostile social
ana lndustrlai institutions, and irrecOncile
able theories of the nature and powers of
the government itself, this latent revolution
and nascent civil war have disappeared for
ever. At the end of hundred years the
Union is the sacred seamless garment of
equal rights, of harmonious institutions, of
accordance in views of the government, in
which sixty millions of people in thirty-eight
States are invincibly arrayed.
The great question is settled. Other ques-
lions, indeed, remain which will sternly try
our patriotism and our wisdom. But they
Will be appealed to the ordeal of battle no
longer. They will be settled in those peace
full, popular and parliamentary contentious
which befit patriotic and republican peo-
pie. do not mean only that party poll
tics and measures will be so discussed. |
mean that great fundamental questions like
slavery in the last generation, questions of
immigration, of citizenship. Of administra-
tive reform, of the suffrage; questions of
local bearing and interest, but of national
import and consequence, can be, and hence-
forth will be, discussed everywhere in the
Union. Let me mention as Illustrations two
these questions, which are in the highest
sense questions Of the country and not of
party.
The dazzling statistics to which l have al
luded, 0utstrip all precedent, but they are
not limited to one part of the country. While
new Ohlos and Pennsylvania arise in the
South, larger, more fertile, more marvellous
New EDglands appear beyond the Mississippi
The old poets described teeming Sicily as the
UrQn 10 Of hn rlA nd
world they knew. But now for that old
world and the boundless new world that we
know combined, nothing less than our mighty
Northwest can be the granary Eighty years
ago Lewis and Clark toiled through the
western wilderness from the mouth of the
Missouri to the Great Falls in thirteen
months. Now that wilderness is trans
formed into farms Distance and time are
conquered by endless railroads, the channels
ofceaseless torrents of trade and intercourse,
pouring through an imperial realm of fabu-
lous fertility. The spectacle amazes and fas-
cinates the world. The fables of Ell Dorado
are told once more, and the new Atlantis
seems risen from the sea- That this land of
boundless opportunities is also the home of
universal freedom, and that the blessing is
to be enjoyed by every conner, begets in every
land hunger for America and the annals of
American immigration almost recall the mi
grations of ancient races.
The first settlement of the country two
S0n1utico anu q nail dSO, was Iaue IN gen6r-
al by tried and worthy pioneers. New Eng
land proudly quotes the words of the old
Puritan divine, William Stroughton: "GOd
sifted whole nation that he might send
grain over into the Wilderness" and the
great commonwealth in which we are now
assembled with equal pride, yenerates its
founder who won his domain by the arts of
peace and not of war. But, after the settle
ment of the country, the current of immigra-
ton almost stopped until recent years. Its
flood is now greater than ever, but it no
longer pours sifted grain upon this continent
but grain mixed with poxious weeds and
brambles. Our population is already more
heterogeneous than that of any other country
national festival, Yet half the population of
our greatest city, and vast numbers of the
people elsewhere, will have no knowledge of
the sublime significance Of the day, no kind
ling pride, no answering enthusiasm, as the
stars and stripes greet the suspicious morn
ing. This is a fact of profound significance.
Only the magic power of the lotus could dull
the longing of the Greek heart for Greece.
The soul of the German thrills everywhere
to the music of his fatherland. The Irish,
man is still the exile of Erin, The wander
ing Savoyard hears in his dreams the rdnz
des vdches among his native mountains.
mighty empire, is still true to Scotland, and
wherever he wanders bears in his yearning
memory every Scottish legend, song and hero
Patriotism feeds upon local traditions, his
torlc events, and the memories of famous
men. But miscellaneous multitude sprung
Of many nations, without common heart to
vibrate instinctively to common memories
and associations, would lack that supreme
patriotism which is the moral defense of a