The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-01

80 conservative an advocate OF Tue nun
extension of slavery as Lincoln.
The antl-slavery cause, when it needed
help, from 1895 to 1850, got nothing but
kicks. cuffs, jeers, sneers and curses from
the so-called culture of the New England
churches and colleges; when the fight was
over and the Republican party was sure
to carry the North in 1s60 the New Eng
land church and the New England col
lege began to swing into line and cheer tor
victory in which they never fred shot
for the anti-slavery cause and fired many
against it. The case of Wendell Phillips
gives the lie to the pretense that Harvard
college before the war was "anti-slavery.
Harvard college, the alma mater OF Phil
lips, hated him so bitterly that not until
fifty years after his graduation did 1t ever
pay him the slightest honor. In June, 1881,
PhiIlipsIwas the orator before the Phi Beta
Kappa, the first recognition Of his splen-
did talents, elegant scholarship and abso-
lutely pure and blameless life that his
college had ever given. In his address
on that occasion, "The Scholar in the
Republic" Phillips mercilessly dashed his
college for its faithlessness to freedom in
the past. It seemed as if he had been
calmly biding his time for fifty years to
score the TANKS Of Harvard for her devo-
ton to the pro-siavery party and her
derision of himself from 1881 to 1861
During all that thirty years Phillips, the
college mate and friend Of Motley and
Holmes, q man famous even in college
days for his scholarship, his culture and
his eloquence, was treated by his college
and by the vast majority of his college
mates and fellow alumni as political in
cendiary and social outcast. Sumner,
Emerson and Parker were about
the only Harvard college graduates
of distinction that welcomed him as . man
and brother, and they were ali like him.
self under the ban Of their college. Lowell
in his youth addressed beautiful sonnet
to Phillips, but the moment Lowell Joined
the Harvard clique he dropped Phillips.
Motley's letters mention Lowell, Long
fellow, Holmes, Whipple, FELTON,, Haw-
thorne and Dana meeting at dinner, but
Phillips. the playmate of Motley in boy
hood, his intimate college friend, the
cousin of Holmes, is never one ofthe circle.
1t was not because of any lack Of scholar
ship. or culture, or conversational wit and
humor, or charming manners. for Phillips
excelled all men of his day in the personal
gifts which enable man to shine either
before or after dinner. but it was because
he was under the ban Of what was termed
Boston's best culture whose top was Har-
ward college.
Finally Hsrvard's hereto became her
hero, and after fifty years Of unbroken
insult and neglect Harvard was proud,
in 1881, to ask the greatest orator that
was ever graduated from her halls; the
greatest orator of America after Daniel
Webster, to speak at her commencement
The great orator was nearly 70 years old,
and he closed his brilliant, unsparing
censure of the recreancy of Harvard col
lege and its so-called culture in the past
to political progress BY repeating these
lines of Lowell:
'New occasions bring new duties, time makes
ancient good uncouth.
They must upward still and onward who would
keep abreast Of truth.
Lol before Us gleam her camp-hres, We ourselves
must pilgrims be,
Launch our May flower and steer boldly through
the desperate winter sea.
Nor attempt the futures portal with the Past's
blood-rusted key"
The churches and the colleges of New
England are vastly better than they were
before the war, and yet Harvard is still
completely out of touch with the people.
1t teaches Stree trade" in political
economy, and its culture is 30 completely
out of touch still with the people that it,
scholars in politics" are Mugwumps like
President Eliot, DR.. William Everett and
Mr.. Lowell who looked askancs at the
majestic figure of Grant, damned him with
faint praise and threw up their hats for
that inflated lunkhead on pedestal; that
solemn chsrlatan, that unleavened dough-
head Of the New England Democracy,
Grover Cleveland.
There cannot be too much sound knowl-
edge and vivifying intelligence; there can
not be too much genuine culture that 10
instinct with truth, but colleges and cult
ure that are out of touch with the people,
that are behind the tide of the times, are
not blessing to this day and generation.