Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-05-01

forth rivers of oil. The enterprise and industry
of man have descended into the earth and re
leased the elastic fluid that warns our hearth
stone and feeds the fires of workshop and
mill.
SOLO, ENCORE AND GRAFTON.
Herr Gustave Mueller so charmed the
audience next with cornet solo-"Young
America" that they made him reappeal
and play Yankee Doodle
The intellectual giant of the occasion.
President G. K. Adams, of Cornell Univer-
sity, of Ithaca, n. Y, was introduced by
Mr.. Gourley. DR.. Adams was on the pro-
gramme for the Centennial Grafton" He
stepped to the front of the platform slowly,
and the audience had chance to study
him. He has a massive head, iron gray
hair, beard and short side-whiskers. Heavy
gold glasses rested across his Roman nose.
DIR. Adams address was learned and ably
delivered. He spoke as follows:
PRESIDENT ADAMS SPEECH.
One hundred years ago this SOth of April the
crowning act performed which put into
operation the Constitution of our Government
and to-day, wherever on the land or on the sea
our flag is lifted by the winds of heaven, hearts
are moved with gratitude that a new child was
born into the family of nations.
Within this hundred years how has civiliza-
TOOK t1SI tbe oath Of oice Watt had inst prod9ced
that most wonderful of inventions, which not
only, as Lord Jeffrey said, could draw out
without breaking a thread as fine as gossamer.
and lift ship war like bauble in the air,
but was to thrust its myriad arms into the
varied activities of life, and so usurp the con-
OI a ns S01 Of s sns ear1
ing 70 read at night school,
while in the day time he was
assisting his father to earn living in colliery
in Northumberland. little dreaming. at that
time, of the curious machine with which, just
| Is years later. he was to sstonish the world by
| drawing the first train of railway cars at the
rate of four miles an hour. Arkwright had,
| three years before, been knighted by George
| the Third for his invention of the spinning
fruits Of his new invention Of the bower loom. S
! Ihls series OF inventions, unparalleled in the
history of industry, was Just ushering in a new
era; and when one thinks of the myriad forms
in which they have been applied one is tempted
| to say that the most dominant characteristic of
recent times has been the application, the de-
Velopment and the influence of the new discov-
| cries that were made about century ago.
POLITICAL LESSONS, TOO.
Indeed, what have not the inventions of the
last hundred years accomplished Grain is
now shipped from the Mississippi and the
| Ganges to Liverpool for less than the cost of
transportation hundred years ago from one of
the midland counties of England to London, or
from the center of Massachusetts, to Boston
and thus it has come about that the necessities
of one locality are so easily supplied from the
superabundance of another that famine and
want havo been thwarued; and the aggregate
population of the civilized portion of the globe,
which before for thousand years had been
nearly stationary now within hundred years
has more than doubled. Then, too, electricity,
that wondrous
Savage Of the Skies that men have caught,
And some scant use of language taught, 4"
has joined these other forces, not only as if to
bind them all together and make each helpful
to the other, but also as if to give them in some
sense a consciousness of independence as or
ganic parts of one stupendous whole.
What has been the political lesson of hun
dred years? When the Constitution was
adopted there were many misgivings as to its
permanency, 1t is not strange that the views
Of the trainers were very diverse. They had
come from communities that had been settled
under widely differing circumstances; and. as
yet, they were not bound together by those sys-
tens of interstate communications which two
generations later were to weld us into one ma
tionality. Some of the estimates of the Con-
stitution and of the results of its adoption are
to us as instructive as they are interesting Let
us transport ourselves back to the time, and
for few moments contemplate these opinions
One group of them, perhaps best represented
by Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry
neither of them in the convention, held that
far too great concessions had been made by the
individual States to the Federal Government
and that the States were consequently in great
danger of losing their proper authority over
local affairs. This danger. in the Judgment of
Jefferson, declared itself in several provisions
of the Constitution. 1t was found In the au-
thority given to the President; in the inde-
pendence given to the Senate; and especially
in the powers accorded to the Supreme Court
We find Jefferson using words which fall
strangely on our ears at the present oay For
example, Jefferson wrote in 17s7:
SOME STRANGE FEARS.
Reason and experience tell us that the first mag
istrate will always be reelected, If he may be re-
elected. He is then an officer tor life. This once
observed, it becomes Of so much consequence to
certain nations, to have friend or q foe at the
head Of our affairs, that they will interfere with
money and with arms. Galloman or an Anglo
man will be supported by the nation he defends.
Reflect on all the instances in history,
ancient and modern, Of elective monarchies. and
say say IF they DO not give foupdation for my fears
of any importance the German Emperors, tin
f9ey Deame ann n ar IN 26aGSe the Kings
Patrick Henry wrote:
The Constitution is said to have beautiful feat |
ures, but when come to examine these features,
sir, they appear to me horribly Irightful. Among |
other defoTmities 1t has an awful sSuintng f
dent may easily become King. Where are your
checks in this Government? Your strongholds
will be in the hands cf your enemies. - If
abilities, how easy is 1t for him to render himself
absolute. The army is in his hands, and if he be
It will be the subject OF long meditation with him
to seize the first suspicious moment to accomplish
his design.
i
discontents were confined to the Democratic,
or as it was then called sometimes the Anti
Federalist and sometimes the Republican,
party. On the contrary, the followers of Ham, |
iltun and Adams believed that the weaknesses
of the new Constitution consisted of too little
power on the part of the Federal Government
In comparison with the powers reserved to the
government of the respective StatesR
REAL MISTAKES OF THE FATHERS.
Nor were the errors of the fathers confined
and II ,;..----
Iarly enough, that while the goddess of his
tory, sitting in Judgment for hundred years on
their prediction, has sometimes convicted them
of having sounded alarms that were ground.
less she has also found them sometimes at
fault as to those parts of the Constitution that '
they regarded as especially worthy of COM
mendation 1t is noteworthy fact as Hamil-
ton once pointed out, that almost the only part
Of the Constitution which escaped witbout j
and indeed passed with what NAV be s
called universal approval, was that provision {
by which the President was to be chosen nv
the system of electors. This act seems to have | !
met with universal favor, 1t was everywbere |
as choosing of the President by
putting the choice into the hands of a college
0f able and independent electors, who should | ;
be chosen by the people for the pur-
pose. and then. removed from the tur- !
noil of party strife and the temptations
deliberate wisdom in determining who in ali
he country was the fittest man for the chief | q
nagistracy of the nation. In view of century a
If experience. how singular, how almost gro !
,esque even, now appears this universal com. O
of the fathers. And so. as if to Q
make it impossible that we should fall into the C
Oriental error of worshipping ancestors e
re find that as. on the one hand, the Supreme | v
Court, which was most vigorously denounced. | \
las emerged from the experience of century |
lmid the Nheartiest plaudits of the people so | c
IN the other, the college of electors which re. O
,eived the highest marks of appreciation from | 2
he fathers, has most completely failed to per- d
orm the part allotted to it, has withered into il
and is ready to be cast out into n
oblivion. d
And, while the fathers thus thought they s
oresaw evils which have never appeared. il Is v
Llso worthy of note that they failed to foresee d
ome of the most noteworthy causes of anx- u
ETY. that now confronts u.s. We have ceased
o fear that the President will usurp a crown .
The ghost of coming Caesar does not terrifv n
is. We no longer have any anxiety lest the
supreme Court will obhterate the State lines
md destroy local rights. We have ceased to
egard it misfortune that the Senate is one 9
tep more removed from popular ciamor than !
9 4ho Of faf ID.