Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-06-12

the pile. What power broke that sword
and stayed that red scourge of cruelty
that was rolling over Europe? The
sword of Theodore and Actius.
To come down TO later ages, all in
telligent Englishmen unite with all in
telligent Americans in saying that II
was the best thing that the American
colonies swung off from the Government
of Great Britain. 1t would be the worst
absurdity of 1000 years IL this continent
should have continued in loyalty to q
throne on the other side of the sea- Nc
one would propose a GoVernor-General
for the United States as there is Gov
ernor-General for Canada. We have had
splendid queens in our American capital
but We could hardly be brought to sup
port a queen on the other side of the
Atlantic, lovely and good as Victoria is.
The only use we have for 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
ia led, reinforce them by matrimonial
alliance. Imagine this Nat on yet a
part of English possessions! The
trouble the mother country has to-day
with Ireland would be paradisaic con-
dition compared with the trouble she
would have with US England and the
United States makes excellent neighbors
but the two families are too large TO
live in the same house. What a God
send that we should have parted, and
parted long ago! But | can think of no
other way in which we could have pos
sible achieved American independence
George the Third, the half crazy King,
would not let us go. Lord North, his
Prime Minister, would not have let us go.
General Lord CORVALLIS would not have
let US go, although after Yorktown he
was glad enough to have us let him 60.
Lexington and Bunker Hill, and Mon
mouth, 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 accommodations than
London tower. The only way it could
have been done was by the sword, your
great grandfather's sword. Jefferson's
pen could write the Declaration of In
but only Washington's
sword could have achieved it, and the
other swords bathed in Heaven.
So now the sword has its uses, al
though it is sheathed sword. There
is not an armory in Brooklyn, or New
York or Philadelphia, or Chicago, or
or New Orleans, or any
American city that could be spared. We
have in all our American cities a ruffian
pOpUlat on who, though they are small
in number, compared with the good pop
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
some keen steel which if
brought into play would make quick
work with the mobocracy. There are
in every great community unprincipled
men who like a row on large scale and
they heat themselves with sour mash
and old rye and other decoctions, en-
riched with blue vitriol, potash, turpen-
line, sugar of lead, sulphuric acid, log
wood, strychnine. night shade and other
precious ingredients, and take down
whole glass with resounding ''AhI" of
satisfaction. When they get that stuff
n them and the blue triOl collides
With the potash and the turpentine with
he sulphuric acid the victims are ready
or any thing but order and decency and |
'Ood government. Again and again in
'ur American cit es has the necessity of
Home Guards been demonstrated.
You remember how, when the soldiers |
we're all away to the war in 1S53-64, what |
were kindled in the |
treets of New York, and what negroes
we're hung. Some of you remember the |
reat riots in Philadelphia at fires, some |
ines kindled just for the opportunity |
f uproar and despoliation. IN 1S49 |
ISIS at a theater would have resulted /
n New York City being demolished had |
not been for the citizen soldiery. Be- |
ause of an insult which the American |
ctor. Edwin Forrest. had received in |
.ngland from the friends of Mr.. Ma
ready. the English, actor, when the
after appeared in New York, in "Mac-
eth" the distinguished Engl;shman
,as Kissed and mobbed, the walls of the
ity hav ,ng been placarded with the an
"Shall Americans or En-
lish rule in this typ" Streets were
He'd with crowd insane with passion.
he riot act was read, but it only evoked
,uder yells and heavier volleys of
tones, and the whole city was threat
ned with violence and assassination.
ut the Seventh regiment, under Gen
ral Duryea, marched through Broad
ay, preceded by mounted troops and at
lie command: Fire, Guards! FIRE. the
ob scattered, and New York was
wed. What would have become of
hicago two or three years ago, when
lie police lay dead in the streets, had
Dt the sharp command of military Off
RS been given?
Do not charge such scenes upon Amer
an institutions. They are as old
the Ephesian mob that howled
r two hours in Paul's time about the
Ieater, amid the ruins of which stood /
st January. They were witnessed in
as in London, when the weavers pa ]
ded the streets and entered the build !
gs to destroy the machinery of those :
no, because of their new inventions,
uld undersell the rest. They were ;
itnessed in 1881 at the trial of Lord
Gorge Gordon, when there was relig-
us riot. Again, in 119 when the rabble {
led: down W tn the PresbyteriansI
own with the meeting housesw There
ways have been, and always will be, c
great communities, a class of people {
no can not govern themselves and q
lich ordinary means can not govern t
d there are exigencies which nothing '
It the sword can meet. Ave- the