The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1889-05-11

bining in very rare degree. What the
slump is which caused his recent utterances
before the president the phrenologists must
decide, but this is not the first time its pres
ence has been manifested; for in his many
addresses in 1857 and previously, calling for
church action upon the relations Of capital
and labor, he repeatedly said
''The growth of wealth among us has not
resulted in binding men together, but in
driving them apart. The rich are further
from the poor, the employer from his work
men, capital from labor, now than ever be-
fore. Too many know less and less how the
poor live. The manners of the poor, it is
said, are more insolent and ungracious than
of old to the rich, and this naturally dis
courages efforts to know and serve them"
Very naturally his conclusion was, and is,
that the solution must be furnished by the
church; and lest the conclusion should not be
drawn by all who heard him he took care to
administer some severe slaps at socialism,
"demagogism," 'leveling theories and the
"Henry George land theories" OF all these
he says;
"Now, as never before, there is in the air a
sentiment which teaches men to despse au-
thority, to disown restraint, to hate and re-
sent all social and material inequality,
but which with all its noisy championship of
the poor touches no one of their burdens with
so much as the tips of its fingers
The two passages in Bishop Potters sermon
of April so which are most severely crit
cised are these
We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity
for the JefIersonan simplicity, which was, in
truth only another name for the Jacksonian vul-
garity, and what have we got in exchange for it?
In the elder states and dynasties they had the
trappings of royalty and the pomp and splendor
Of the kings person to fill mems hearts with 10y.
atty Well we have dispensed with the old titular
dgnities. Let us take care that we do not part
with that tremendous force for which they stood!
If there be not titular royalty all the more need is
there for personal royalty.
Then, proceeding to rather pointed con-
trast between Washington and his successors,
he said:
The conception of the national government as q
huge machine, existing mainly for the purpose of
rewarding partisan service-this was copception
so alien to the character and conduct OF Washing
ton and his associates that it seems grotesque
even to speak of it. 1t would be interesting to
imagine the first president of the United States
confronted with some one who had ventured to
approach him upon the basis of what is now com
monty called practical politics."
Another enormous difference between this day
and that of which it is the anniversary is TO be
seen in the enormous difference in the nature and
influence of the forces that determine our ma
tional and political destiny Then, ideas ruled the
hour. Today there are indeed ideas that rule
our hour, but they must be merchantabe ideas
The growth Of wealth, the prevalence of luxury,
the massing of large material forces which by
their very existence are a standing menace to the
freedom and integrity of the individual the In
finite swagger of our American speech and man.
ners, installing bigness for greatness and sadly
confounding gain and godlness-all this is q con-
trast to the austere simplicity, the unpurchasable
integrity of the first days and the first men of our
republic, which makes 1t impossible to reproduce
today either the temper or the conduct Of our
fathers