Mexico weekly ledger., 1890-04-17

derful document, announcing
truths that startled the world and
fashioned and flashed as by the
stroke OF his pen, a nation into ex-
istence-a nation which for more
than a century has stood the adj
miration and wonder of the world,
a harbor of refuge for the down
trodden and oppressed of every
nation and kindred and tribe on the
face of the globe. 1t is beautifully
and truthfully described as the
Gland of the free and the home
of the brave"
1t has been torn by internal
strife and internecine war; it has
been harrassed and imperiled by
the tanaticism of parties; it has
been sapped by the greed and cor
ruption of those in high places,
but it still lives and will continue
to live az long as the masses r
true to the doctrines of Mr.. Jefer-
son, and this I believe they will
do until the very stars fade from
the sky and night and chaos close
all earthly scenes.
In one century we have grown
from 10 sparsely settled colonies to
a great throbblng world of 48 indie
pendent sovereign States, with 80
millions of intelligent, thrifty hap
py people, who know their rights
and, by the eternal, will maintain
them.
We owe this happiness, this
greatness, this almost perfect and
unbridled freedom to the principles
advocated and taught by this great
commoner, the father of Democra-
cy-Thomas Jefferson.
Whenever the vile and unholy
hand of Capitalization has been
stretched out to throttle the rights
of the people, these glorious teach
ings, embodied in the fundamental
law, and ever alive in the great
Democratic heart of the people,
have risen, like Banquo's ghost,
and will not down.
Let the moneyed aristocracy, fos-
tered and fattened by Republican
rule, ape the customs of the elite
monarchies. Let them support
their coats of arms and ride in
liveried coaches; we can aferd to
smile. But let them not tread upon
the rights of the people; the light
ning's fash were not more swift,
the cyclones not more awful than
the fate that awaits him politically
who would trample upon the rights
OF the people.
They may for a time make the
burdens of government unjust and
unequal. We may for a time burn
our corn rs the sweet incense of
worship to eastern nabobs. They
may squander among favorites the
public domain, rightfully the
homes of the poor. They may
wantonly waste and rifle the public
treasury; yet a little while and the
places that know them now shall
know them no more forever.
What is the millionaire? If we
respect him, it is only because he
is an American citizen. What is
the highest official in this land7
Only our political servant. We
make them, and when they become
pulled with pride we will unmake
them.
We may be poor, our children
in rags, our homes huts, but
they shelter freeman, the peers of
the Astors, the Blalnes or the Har-
risons, and rs long as we maintain
the grand doctrines of Thomas
Jefferson we need not fear for our
liberties or blush for our manhood.
Fellow-oitizens, if there be one
name among all the great names in
the annals of time that should be
enshrined and held sacred in the
hearts of the laborer and the poor,
it is that of Jefferson. Although
himself of proud lineage, coming
from a distinguished ancestry,
reared in a slave-holding common
wealth, amidst all the Injuries that
wealth could insure, yet he was
ever the plain farmer gentleman
living without ostentation ON the
heights of Monticello, devoting his
great mind, not in devising
schemes to make the rich richer ;
not to build up a favored class. but
to guard the weak and defend the
oppressed and the helpless. He
stood by the rights of the masses,
q watchful sentinel to guard against
the Entertainments of wealth and
the oppressive power that wealth
enlists in its course.
I have stood at the home of this
great man, I have looked upon the
plain granite column that stood
over his sleeping dust and read
the simple inscription: t" Here
hes Thomas jefferson, the author