The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1892-05-11
WILL YOU DESERT?

WILL YOU DEsERT9
There are crises in the life of a
people, las there are in the life of each
of us. Times when we cease to be.
lieve the truths to which we have
held and turn for light-we scarcely
know to what. Happy are we if
then in that crucial era we may
come with deliberation to the study
of life's problem. These are not
times to indulge in prejudice or ca
price. Men are brought face to
face with questions which nothing
short of the God-given power of
thought can solve. To blindly shut
their eyes to reason, and their hearts
to candid thought at such time,
does i'll become a race to whose heri'
tage has come the treasure of our
free institutions. The man who in
his hour of peril comes to his friend
and says: "Let us reason together"
shows a wisdom not found in him
who will no longer take counsel of
those who have always been his
friends.
In the gloomy days of Valley
Forge, when his army were stiff with
cold and rife with mutiny; when
treason to his cause stalked like
gruesome spectre through his camp
and he no longer knew his friends,
Washington called a counsel to which
all were invited. To this body of
men, moved though many of them
were with feelings of revolt, he told
with earnest, patriotic candor, the
story of his army's struggles. To these
men who were on the eve of wreck
ing the cause for which he prayed
and battled, he told the touching
story of the fight. Fronting for
four long years a naughty and victo,
rious enemy, his band had stood like
a bulwark to repel the taxes AMI the
tyranny of the British crown. The
right to levy tax is vested with the
people, he had said, and no man
should be taxed to support class
who drew their sustenance from the
products of his toll. To these men
he stated again the incontrovertable
doctrine of equality before the law,
of equal rights to all and exclusive
privileges to none" This would
win, he said, though opposed by the
mighty power and wealth of Eng
lands King. He relied upon the ir.
resistible logic of facts which he sub.
mitted to a candid world; and upon
the God of battles, who is likewise
the God of Right, he relied for ulti-
mate triumph. The principles which
he espoused would win because they
were right, resting as they did upon
the highest instincts of the human
soul. From this appeal his soldiery
turned again to the unequal contest,
yet here and there a man was missed.
The Tories were strong in the neigh
borhood, and some of his veterans
had skunk away in despair. But de.
spite all this, he pOa, Won by the
Justice of his cause, and because the
principle upon which he relied was in
harmony with the highest right and
with the common instincts of man.
kind.
So, my friend, to-day there stands
upon the American battlefield an
army greater than Washington's,
who through thirty years of struggle
and defeat have repealed the agrees
sions of an enemy as aggressive and
as exacting as the English aristoc-
racy. They proclaim again the doc
.rine of equal rights to all and ex.
elusive privileges to none" and they |
nope to win for the justice of their
cause. Already the dawning of their
triumph appears, and they grid up
heir loins for a final struggle, and
again the voice of duty should call /
every soldier to his post. Are there
weak and respondent men? Who
says that right will not triumph at
asst? The people who ought now to
stand solidly together are going to
say, mo longer will we pay tribute
% Moloch; no longer will we give of
,ur substance to build up and sup,
port an aristocracy of men who are
themselves no better than we." This
righteous cry, like that which went
up at Lexington and Tarrytown, is
going to cin. 1t is right and it de-
serves to win, and it deserves your
lnswerving allegiance, and mine.
With or without us, it is going to
but may we not be found
ulking in our tents or numbered
among the deserters when the day of
is triumph shall appear. Let us
eason together, my brother, and if
Democracy is right in principle, as
We believe it is, it will win, and it
deserves what you can do, and what
can do, to hasten the day of its
'ictory.
OUR INVESTIGATORS,