The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1889-07-06
VOL. XXIV.-NO. 35.

people. At all hazard, stand with the people
and the States The choice may not be easily
made. Wise men may hesitate and patriotic
men divide. The culture, the strength, the
mightiness of the rich and the strong govern
ment-these will tempt and dazzle. But be
not misled. Beneath this splendor is the
canker of disturbed and oppressed people.
1t was from the golden age of Augustus that
the Roman empire staggered to its fate. The
States and the people Stand with them
there is safety-there is the broad and endur-
ing Brotherhood less of glory, but
more of honor! Put patriotism above parti-
sanship-and wherever the principle that
protects the States against the eentralists, and
the people against the plutocrats may lead
follow without fear or faltering-for there the
way of duty and of wisdom lies
ExALT THE CITIZEN.
Exalt the citizen. As the state is the unit
Of government he is the unit of the state
Teach him that his home is his castle, and his
sovereignty rests beneath his hat. Make
himself selfrespecting, selfreliant aud re-
sponsible. Let him lean on the state for
nothing that his own arm can do, and on the
government for nothing that his state can do.
Let him cultivate independence to the point
of sacrifice, and learn that humble things with
unbartered liberty are better than splendors
bought with its price. Let him neither sur
render his individuality to government nor
merge it with the mob. Let him stand upright
and fearless-a freeman born of freemen-
sturdy in his own strength-dowering his
family in the sweat of his brow-loying to his
state-loyal to his republic-earnest in his
allegiance, wherever it rests, but building his
altar in the midst of his household gods, and
shrining in his own heart the uttermost temple
of its liberty.
Go out determined to magnify the commu-
nifty in which your lot is cast. Cultivate its
small economies. Stand by its young indus
tries. Commercial dependence is a chain that
gals every day. A factory built at home,
book published, shoe or book made, these
are steps in that diffusion of thought and
interest that is needed. Teach your neigh.
bors to withdraw from the Yassalage of distant
capitalists, and pay, under any sacrifice, the
mortgage on the home or the land. By
simple and prudent lives stay within your own
resources and establish the freedom of your
community. Make every village and cross
roads as far as may be sovereign to its own
wants. Learn that thriving countrysides with
room for limbs, conscience aud liberty, are
better than great cities with congested wealth
and population. Preserve the straight and
simple homogeniety of our people. Welcome
emigrants, but see that they come as friends
and neighbors, TO mingle their blood with
ours, to build their houses in our field, and to
plant their Christian faith on our hills, and
honoring our constitution and revereneing our
God, to confirm the simple beliefs in which
we have been reared, and which we should
transmit unsullied to our children Stand by
these old fashioned beliefs. Science hath re-
vealed 40 better faith than that you learned
at your mothers knee-nor has knowledge
made a wiser and better book than the worn
old Bible, that, thumbed BY hands long since
still, and blurred with the tears Of eyes long
since closed, held the simple annals of your
family and the heart and conscience of your
homes.
Honor and emulate the virtues aud the
faith of your forefathers-who, learned, were
never wise above knowledge of God and His
Gospel-who, great, were never exalted
above an humble trust in God and His mercy.
Let me sum up what have sought to say
in this hurried address. Your republie-on
the glory of which depends all that men hold
dear-is menaeed with great dangers. Against
these dangers defend her, as you would de-
fend the most precious concerns of your
own life. Against the dangers of centraliz-
ing all political powers, but the approved
and imperishable principle of local self
government. Between the rich and the
poor, now drifting into separate camps,
build up the great middle class that, neither
drunk with wealth nor embittered by pow
erty, shall lift up the suffering and control
the strong. To the jangling of races and
creeds that threaten the courts of men and
the temples of God, oppose the home and the
citizen-homogeneous and honest people
and the simple faith that sustained your
fathers and mothers in their stainless lives
and led them serene aud smiling into the
valley Of the shadow.
THE PROVIDENCE OVER ALL
.. L l. i.