The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1892-08-04
A SPEECH FOR REFORM
DELIVERED BY MIR. y ]. DUR
HAM IN THE INTER-COLLE-
GIATE CONTEST, DURING
THE TEACHERS Assem-
BLY, AT MOREHEAD
CITY.
THE WINNING SPEECH.

The following speech which we
print in this issue was The prize
speech in the Intercollegiate Con-
test at Morehead City this summer,
during the Teachers Assembly. Mr..
Durham spoke as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen Coming
to an occasion that doubtless prefers
The ornate, speaking in day that
demands direct truth and argument,
We stand this morning in perplexion
and bewilderment. The broad, busy
day, instinct with vital issue in eve
ry hour, and the present occasion,
full of pleasure and of leisure, make
heir demands in conflict, and to re-
concile them this morning we are
brought to the task. We shall en-
deavor to follow out of the difficulty,
however, behind our own Joseph +.
Johnson--God's blessing be in the
inspiration of that name who re-
conciled his fame as fighter With
what appeared to many his clean
running before Sherman by saying
that under The circumstances to re-
treat was war; and it was. We shall
trust that in his day-hurrying, busy,
convulsive-plain fact and argument
will be esteemed ornate.
For three decades, We have lived
amid the benignities of peace; and
under its contentmenc and is bless
ing, the genius of the American has
wrought a marvellous and prosper
Gus industry. 1t has capped earh
hill top with the emblematic spire.
1t has filed each home with a learn
ing and an impulse to higher life.
1t has stocked our barns with their
garnered fruits. It has set our lag
ging industry to the quickening mu-
sic of the loom, and the spindle
huns alOnd larger liberty in indus
| trial life and a greater prosperity
and promise. 1t has probed the still
heart of the earth, and has touched
to living organism, its iron muscle
and its liquid essence and it's electric
nerve, and has set them TO mans
bidding-the slave. 1t has set the
seas with our myriad sails, and in
creases our wonder while it cleaves
the air; and has corded the earth
with our commerce and our civiliza-
| ton. Withal, it has touched both
land and sea all over with beauty
and thrift that has given increased
worth and broader significance to
life.
FAILURE AMID SURROUNDING Sue
| CESS.
But this activity and success is not
as broad as our people. There is a
claSs-anp that class is our stay and
our hope-that has not shared in
such blessing. 1t has failed amid
surrounding success. 1t has tainted
among amid encircling strength.
The light that has lit the day, that
has made proverbial American thrif #
and in the esteem of the world, made
blessed and benign the privileges of
American citizenship, has but iltum-
ed near abysm, to which, pra. !
God may they never come, and
made hopeless a toiling life in the
certainty of impending failure at its
close, when its supreme efforts have
been expended aud its vital energies
have been exhausted. I tell you
that in this broad nation to-day and
| in this state that we love, there are
multiplied thousands of living,
breathing fyeemen, your peer and
mine in intellect and in essential ma,
ture, upon whom the light of success
has never dawned, and. whose very
meridian is to dig; and this lot, una.
voidable ana adverse, is not theirs
by their choicer responsibility, but
by force Of social organization. The
yeomanly of our land are suffering
as class an adversely aud poverty
that the uninitiative can never know
Want is their companion in the cot
| tage, and gaunt Poverty stalks be,
hind the tagging plough.
EDUCATION DOES NOT MEET THI
DEMAND.
AS can attest it here to-day by
. all observation extending through
one hundred miles by private trave
Through Piedmont North Carolina
in thirty per cent. Of the families
|, the mother and the daughter wer'
in the field with the father and tn,
hireling, and before God the hom,
!, was repu,sive, with no joy to enliveI
, it and no hope to illume it, ana fron
the exhaustion Of bitter and fruit
less toll, they have asked you fO
help, and you have said "educat
them" They have brought thei
children, starving and tattered, ant
, have begged you for aid, and yo'
! have answered ''educate Them
. Let the despairing wall of ten mil
lions of living, but fainting, free
men declare to day that that polio,
has failed. Let it declare that edU
q cation, in all the f'ullness of its ben
eficence has not met the demand, AM
= let the hoarse throats of hungerin
, thousands obtrude upon the concor'
of our peace the dissonalce of de
j, preston that is without parallel i
: the annals of our people, the charg
. of failure upon our policy and tn
n portent of our probable doom!
e "GIvE US RELIEF, FOR WE AR
f. SINKING"
IS We have tried education and "
have succeeded, and yet the cr
d rises hoarser and louder, aud in Ell
n lightenment to-day they are suffel
(. ing dependency that was nj
e known in ignorance. Not as n
g suit of education, but of condition
l. of contemporary and parallel deve
r opment; and from all over OF
broad land, that seems overfiowin
d with sunshine and Ileuty this bea'
a, tiful day, comes one universal cry
n too deep to have sprung from til
mind of demagogue, too earnest
is have come from his heart--but bea
1T ing the pathos and power of II
citizen, resolute in his conscio'
right, just, reasonable, and intens'
m ly, vitality in earnest, "Give us r
lief, for we are slnking"-a cry an