Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-06-02

gent Englishrnen unite with all Intelligent
Americans in saying that it was the best
thing that the American colonies swung
off from the government of Great Britain
It would have been the worst absurdity Of
1900 years if this continent should have
continued in loyalty to throne on the
other side of the sea. No one would pro
pose a governor general for the United
States as there is a governor general fol
Canada, We have had splendid queens in
our American capital, but We could hardly
be brought to support a queen on the
other side of the Atlantic. lovely and good
as Victoria is. The only use we have fol-
earls and lords and dukes in this country
is to treat them well when they pass
through to their hunting grounds in the
far west, or, when their fortunes have
failed, reinforce them by wealthy matri-
monial alliance. Imagine this nation
yet part Of English possessions
The trouble the mother country has
today with Ireland would be O
paradisaic condition compared with the
trouble she would have with us. England
and the United States make excellent
neighbors, but the two families are too
large to live in the same house What q
godsend that we should have parted, and
parted long agoi But / can think of no
other way in which we could have possibly
achieved American independence. George
III, the half crazy king, would not have let
us go. Lord North, his prime minister,
would not have let us go. Gen. Lord Corn.
wallis would not have let us go, although
after Yorktown he was glad enough to
have us let him go. Lexington, and Bun
ker Hill and Monmouth, and Trenton, and
Valley Forge were proofs positive that
they were not willing to let us go. Any
committee of Americans going across the
ocean to see what could have been done
would have found no better accommoda-
tions than London Tower The only way
it could have been done was by the sword,
your eat-grandfather's sword Jeffer
sons pen could write the Declaration OF
Independence, but only Washington's
sword could have achieved it, and the other
swords bathed in heaven.
IT IS A sHEATHED SWORD.
So now the sword has its uses, although
it is sheathed sword There is not an
armory in Brooklyn, or New York, or
Philadelphia, or Chicago, or Charleston, or
New Orleans, or any American city, that
could be spared. We have in all our Ameri-
can cities ruffian population, who,
though they are small in number, com
pared with the good population, would
again and again make rough and stormy
times if, back of our mayors and common
councils and police, there were not in the
armories and arsenals some keen steel
which, if brought into play, would make
quick work with mobocracy. There are in
every great community unprincipled men,
who like a row on n large scale, and they
heat themselves with sour mash and old
rye and other decoctions, enriched with
blue vitriol, potash, turpentine, sugar of
lead, sulphuric acid, logwood, strychnine,
night shade and other precious ingredients,
and take down whole glass with re-
"Ahw of satisfaction, When
they get that stuff in them and the blue
vitriol collides with the potash, and the
with the sulphuric acid, the vic
tins are ready for anything but order and
decency and good government. Again and
again, in our American cities, has the ne
cessity of home guards been demonstrated.
You remember how, when the soldiers
were all away to the war in 1904, what
were kindled in the streets
of New York, and what negroes were hung
Some of you remember the great riots In
Philadelphia at fires, sometimes kindled
just for the opportunity of uproar and de-
spoliation In 1S49 hiss at theatre would
have resulted in New York city being de-
had it not been for the citizen |
soldiery. Because of an insult which the |
American actor, Edwin Forrest, had re-
ceived in England from the friends of Mr.. |
the English actor, when the lat |
ter appeared in New York, in Macbeth, the |
Englishmap was Kissed and
the walls of the city having been |
placarded with the announcements "Shall |
Americans or English rule In this city,"
Streets were filed with a crowd insane |
with passion. The riot act was read, but |
it only evoked louder yells and heavier vol
leys of stones, and the whole city was
threatened with violence and assassina-
ton.
But the Seventh regiment, under Gen.
Duryea, marched through Broadway, pre-
,eded by mounted troops, and at the COM
mand! "Firel Guardsl FIRE." the mob scat
erred, and New York was saved. What |
would have become of Chicago, two or
.hree years ago, when the police lay dead
~ the streets, had not the sharp command
Of military officers been given? Do not
,harge such scenes upon American institu.
ions. They are as old as the Ephesian mob
hat howled for two hours In Paul's time
lbout the theatre, amid the ruins of which
stood last January. They were witnessed
n 1876 in London, when the weavers pa
AIDED the streets and entered buildings to
lestroy the machinery of those who, be-
'ause of their new inventions, could under
ell the rest. They were witnessed in 1881
It tho trial of Lord George Gordon when
here was religious riot Again, in 1719,
when the rabble cried, "Down with the
Down with the meeting
iousesw There always have been, and al
Ways will be, in great communities, class
If people that cannot govern themselves
md which ordinary means cannot govern,
md there are exigencies which nothing but
he sword can meet Aye, the militia are
he very last regiments that it will be safe
o disSJand.
ARBITRANfENT WILL TAKE ITS PLACE,
Arbitrament will take the place of war
,etween nation and nation, and national
rmies will disband as a consequence, and
he time will c6me-God hasten it!-when
here will be no need of an American army
II navy, or a Russian army or navy But
ONE time after that cities will have to keep
heir armorieS, and arsenals, and well
rilled militia, because until the millennial
ay there will be populations with whom
rbitrament will be as impossible as treaty
With cavern of hyenas or jungle of
makes. These men who rob stores and
Two garroter's hug, and prowl about the
yharves at midnight, and rattle the dice in
ambling bells, and go armed with pistol
= dirk will refrain from disturbance Of
be public peace just in proportion as they
ealize that the militia of q city, instead of