Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-10-28
DEPEW's EFFORT.
The Fanou New Yorker Delivers thu
III Grafton.

1nIs udy belongs not TO America, Dut TO tnS
world. The results of the event it commend
rates are the heritage Of the p>eol les of every
race and cline. We celebrate the %enancipa'
ton of man. The preparation was the work
Of almost countless centuries, the realization
was the revelation of one. The Cross on Cal
vary w~ashope; the cross raised on San Sal.
vador was opportunity. But f4. the first Col.
umbus would never have sailed, but for the
second, there would have been no place fol
the planting, the nurture and expansion OF
civil and religious liberty.
Ancient history is a dreary record of un.
! stable civilization. Each reached its zenith
of material spleI dor and persisted. The As.
syrian, Persian, Egyptian, Grecian and Ro-
man Empires, were proofs Of the possibilities
and limitations of man for conquest and intel.
lectual development. Their destruction in
volved q sum of misery and relapse which
made their creation rather a curse than a
blessing. Force was the factor in the govern
ment Of the world when Christ was born, and
force was the sole source and exercise of au-
thority both by church and state when Col
umbus sailed from Palos. The wise men
travelled from the East towards the West un-
der the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem.
The spirit of the equality Of all men before
God and the law, moved westward from CAL
varT with its revolutionary in1uen Q Upon old
institutions, to the Atlantic.
Columbus carried 1t westH ard across the
Seas. The en,igrants from. England, Ireland,
Scotland and Wales. from Germany and Hol-
land, from Sweden and Denmark, from France
and Italy, have, under it's guidance and in
SEPARATION, moved west, and again west. build
ing states and founding cities until the Pacific
limited their march,. The exhibition of arts
and sciences, of industries and inventions, of
education and civilization, which the Repub-
lie Of the United States will here present. and
to which, through it's chief magistrate, it in
vites all ma, ions, condenses and displays the
flower and ~fruitage of this transcendant mir
acle.
The anarchy and chaos which followed the
breaking up of the Roman empire, necessarily
produced the feudal system. The people pre-
ferring slavery to humiliation by robber
chiefs. became the vassals Of territorial lords.
Tn reign of physical force is one of perpetual
struggle for the mastery. Power which rests
upon he sword neither shares nor limits its
authority. The king destroyed the lords, and
the monarchy succeeded feudalism. Neither
of these institutions considerei or consulted
the people. They had no part. but to suffer or
die in this mighty strife of masters for the
mastery.
But tho throne, by its broader view and
greater resources, made possible the construc-
ton Of the highways of freedom. Under its
ann races could unite, and petty principal
lilies be merged, law substituted for Lrute
force, and right for might. 1t founded and
endowed universities, and encouraged COM
merce. 1t conceded no political privileges,
but unconsciously prepared its subjects to de-
mand them.
Absolutism in the state, and 5igoted int..ler-
ance in the church, shackled popular unrest,
and imprisoned thought and enterprise in the
fifteenth century. The divine right of kings
stamped out the faintes, glimmer of revolt
against tyranny; and the problems of science,
whether of the skies or of the earth, whether
astrono ny or geography. were solved or SUBJ
merged by ecclesiastical dec, ees. The dun
geon vas ready for the philosopher who pro-
claimed the truths of the solar system, or the
navigator who would prove the sphericity of
the earth.
An English Gladstone, or n French Gam
BETA, or a German Bismarck, or an Italian
Garibaldi, or d Spanish Castelar,, would have
been thought monsters, and thoir deaths at
the stake, or on the ,caffold, and under the
anathemas of the church, would have re-
ceived the praise and approval of kings and
MOBILES. of priests and peoples. ReasOa had no
seat in spiritual or temporal realms. Punish
men1 was the incentive TO patriotism, and
pioty was neld possible by torture Comics
s1ons OF faith eXtorteu from the writing VIC
tim on the rack. We're believed eficacious IN
saving his soul from fires eternal beyond the
grave. For all that humanity today cher
lshes as its best heritage and choicest gifts,
there was neither thought nor hope.
Fifty years before Columbus sailed frou, Pa
1OS' "uLteLueIs dnu IauSI hau IOr4eu Inc
hammer which was to break tae bonds of
superstition, and open the pr on doors Of the
mind. They had invented the printing Dress,
and movable types. Th prior adoption of q
cheap process for the manufacture Of paper
at once utilized the press. Its first service,
like all its succeeding efforts, was for tie peo-
pie. The universities and the schoolmen. the
privileged and the learned few Vt hat age,
were longing for the revelation and preserva-
ton OF the classic treasures of antiquity, hid
den. and yet insecure in monastic cells. nd
libraries. But the first born of the marvellous
creation of these primitive printers of May
ence, was the printed Bible.
.ba nriraless contributions of Greeca ane
tome to the intellectual training ana oeveIop-
ment Of the modern world came afterwards.
through the same wondrous machine, The
force, howeve,, which made possible America.
and its reflex influence upon Europe, was the
open Bible by The family Preside. And vet
neither the enlightenment of the new learn
i'g; nor the dynamic power of the spiritual
awakening could break through the crust Of
caste which had been forming for centuries.
Church ard state had so firmly and dexter.
ousiy the bars Of privilege and
authority that liberty was impossible from
within. Its uiercing light and fervent heat
must penetrate from without.
Civil and religious freedom are founded
upon the individual and his independence, his
worth, his rights and his equal status and on
portunity. For his planting and DEVELOPMENT.
a new land must be found, where limilless
areas for expansion, the avenues of progress
would have 40 bars of custom or heredity, of
social orders. or privileged classes. The time
had come for the emancipation of the mind
and soul of humanity. The factors wanting
for its fulflln,ent wore the new world and lis
discoverer.
God has always In training some command.
ing genius for the control of great crises in the
affairs OF nations and peoples. The number
OF these leaders are less than the centuries,
but their lives arc the history of human prog
ress. Though Cesar. and C~harlemagne. and,
Hildebrand, and Luther, and William the
conqueror, and ell the epoch makers prepared
Europe for the event and contributed to the
result, the light. which illume our armament
today are Columbus the discoverer, Washing
ton the founder, and Lincoln the saviour.
Neither realism nor romance furnishes 4
more strikfng and picturesque figure than that
of Christopher Columbus. The mystery about
his origin heightens the charms of his story.
That he came from among the toilers of his
time Is in harmony with tho struggles of our
period. Forty-four authentic portraits of him
have descended to US, and no two Of them are
the counterfeits Of the same person.
Each represents character as distinct az
Its canvas. Strength and weakness, intellec-
tuality and stupidity. high moral purpose and