The record-union., 1891-07-04
THE DAY AND ITS LESSON.

THE DAY AND ITS LESSON.
It is evident that the commemoration of
the birth of the nation will be general
and hearty to-day throughout the land.
The studious observer discovers no de-
cline in the patriotic spirit among the
classes of people who have been counted
upon as loyal at heart to our free institu-
tions.
For it is true that there are two classes
in our midst in whom no patriotic faith
can be reposed. One of these is the pes
simistic group, which sees nothing but
menace, retrogression and failure in the
political activities of the time. These
people believe, or assume to believe, that
there are forces operating to the destruc
ton of this republican form of govern
ment; that personal rights are gradually
giving way before the demands of aggre
gated capital; that inordinate wealth is
building up class distinctions dangerous
70 the Republic; that corporate power,
official greed, official truculence, party
craft, political dishonesty, legislative
venality and corruption in office,
together with the, assaults of
churches upon the free school sys-
tenn; the Indifference of the people
concerning political methods; the rule of
the boss and the potency of money to buy
official honors; the discomfort of labor
and the impudence of alienism-that all
these indicate disintegration, relaxa-
ton of the bonds of union and drift
away from the doctrine that the people
are capable of choosing their own form
of government, and of administering it
for themselves.
These doubters and pessimistic prophets
of decline, who sometimes make bold to
say that we need stronger govern
ment, and that it will be monarchical
when it comes, are more annoying than
are the open enemies of our system, con-
stituting the second class, who faunt the
red flag in our faces, and shout "down
with the law" and "Iive anarchy"
But from neither class have we reason
to fear. The national heart is true, and
the great pulse-be of the nation is strong
in its loyalty to the institutions of the
Republic. The national structure was
not erected to be vulnerable to the pitiful
assaults of the anarchical, or to suffer
from the puny doubts of the faithful
The destiny of the American Republic
will not have been accomplished when
the last doubter shall have been forgot
ten and the insanity of the anarchist lin
gers only in tradition. The capacity of
man for self-goYernment is no longer ex-
perimental; it has been demonstrated; its
great purpose has been but fairly entered
upon.
The celebration to-day with blare of
trumpet and beat of drum, by the roar of
artillery mingling with the voices of or
ators paying tribute to the genius of
America, is not merely formal and con-
ventional. 1t is, on the contrary, repre-
sentative in all its outward forms of the
deep and unshaken conviction of the
masses of the people that this nation is
the rarest, richest heritage vouchsafed to
man, and that until its destiny in the or
der of nature is accomplished, neither
foreign hatred and jealousy, nor home
discomfort and doubling. shall impede its
onward movement and expansion.
That the nation is free from defects is
not claimed, since its people are not in
fallibie. To say that our institutions
have been assailed, is but to state that we
are not free from the assaults of envy.
tae jealousy of monarchs, nor the wick
edness of the vicious. To admit that
moral influences are in some directions
weak in our land, is but TO confess that
we are still in transition state, and that
the horizon of our view has not yet been
sufficiently broadened. To concede that
there are dangerous elements in our civ
ilization, is to bear testimony to the
breadth of charity under which we have
received with open arms all manner and
conditions of men, and have made our
land too accessible refuge.
That radical socialism and red-handed
anarchism have sought to work out in
our midst the problems arising out of the
despotism of the few and the wretched-
ness of the many in Europe, proves only
the amazing breadth of American free
dom and the marvellous fearlessness and
tolerance of our system, that knows
neither censorship nor surveillance, and
that recognizes no code of political crime.
So we have every reason to glory in
our country, and to shout her praises to-
day. Believing in the capacity of the
American people to meet every exigency
and prove equal to it, and while not in