Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1889-05-02


can exercise the right of prohibiting a
man from working. or of threatening
| force if he disregards their prohibition.
! The strikers have the right to uSe peace
able arguments to persuade others not 70
accept reduced wages; but they should
understand that they can not usurp the
! power of fOrbidding work; this could not
/ be allowed in free land.
! OUR GROWING CENTENNIAL.
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, April 90.
One hundred years ago to-day is the
date of great event in the course of
civilization. A new government was set
in motion on the basis of written con-
stitution representing the will of the
people, and assuming their capacity to
rule themselves without the authority of
royalty and aristocracy. The event was
the elimination of struggle as old as
history. At length the human aspira-
tion for freer government led to the
birth of new republic in the new
world, and on April 30, 1889, the wheels
began to move.
The young Nation on that day first
had a presiding citizen clothed with
constitutional power, and definite Off
cial existence. The man was worthy of
the historical era, as all the world, for
once, was agreed. Looking back over
the century to that occasion the people
of the United States, with a true sense
of proportion, and with spontaneous
impulse, have set apart this centennial
day as a token of honor to the founders
of the Government, and to rejoice that
promise of hundred years ago is
still bright and unimpaired.
1t was in a tremulOus voice that
Washington, just invested with the SOW
ereignty of freemen, an office novel to
him and to mankind, pronounced the
words of his inaugural address. Its
opening sentences express a deep sense
of the responsibility, and show the hu-
mility that is the monitor of a great
soul. He spoke of the anXieties of the
| position, the magnitude and difficulty of
! the trust; and yet relied upon divine aid
which, as it seemed to him, had so often
been interposed in behalf of a people
struggling to be free. He referred to
the necessary union between virtue and
happiness, and to the order and right
which heaven has ordained, and the
weighty experiment in government in
trusted to the American people. Justice,
duty and honesty alone could point the
way to prosperity.
Washington felt on that day, as he
looked back and forward, that the civil
| life of every nation, even the freest, is
beset with dangers and complications.
| The American Revolution had been a
deep, vital movement, and not a wild
outburst. Yet victory had not brought
full harmony of views. Months of
labor had been required to frame a Con-
stitution, and when formed its adoption
had been hesitating. 1t still divided
the people into parties. Fortunately
there was only one man named to be
the first Executive under its provisions.
One fact to remember to-day with graf
ificatien is that Washington was twice
elected President by unanimous vote.
The question in every wise Americans
mind at the Inauguration of the first
President must have been, Will the peo-
pie be equal to this responsibility con-
corning which the past can teach little,
and that little not reassuring? Time
has run on, full century has been
rounded, and the problem is no longer
one of anxiety. The people have been
tested by political and financial storms,
by foreign and civil war, by every form
of party intensity, and yet the flag of
the fathers floats calmly and proudly
over the continent, changed only in its
blue field where now nearly half hun
dred stars are set. The people of the
United States have shown stability of
character. They have not been tickle
nor hasty, nor have they been forgetful
of the civic virtues that Washington
said must be in the foundation of every
lasting government.
No plummet has yet sounded the
depth of American patriotism. 1t has
met and surmounted every crisis, with
strength held in reserve.
The mighty change that has taken
place materially in the Nation far ex-
ceeds the conjectures of the best prophet
who saw Washington ilaugurated, clad
in suit of brown American cloth, with
his quiet, steel-hilted dress-sword, his
white silk stockings, silver shoe buckles,
and his powdered hair worn in a bag. We
can claim no higher manhood than was
gathered onthat historicalbalcony inNew
York City, but what heart can not be
glad that the Americans now are worthy
sons of those heroic sires! The whirl of
commerce in these times may contrast
with the industrial features of 1889, but
let the bugle sound in a just cause and
the response will not be uncertain. The
descendants of the minute men of the
Revolution were minute men in later
emergencies, and the phrase might well
be changed to the minute men of Amer
lea.
WAR VETERANS who are entitled to
communication for the loss of the use of
their limbs by disease, or injury, are now
filing their claims in vast numbers. It'll
is stated at the Office of the Surgeon Gen