The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1892-07-16

wide domain. We number over the pro-
ducts of our many attitudes. We weigh
the force of our mighty waters. We de-
claim upon the possibilities of our limitless
seaboard. We conjecture the treasures of
our mineral deposits. We feel secure in
our vast possessions. No famine can enter
where such white harvests gleam in the
sunlight, begging the world to come and
garner them.
And the world is accepting the invitation.
Not its wealthy and titled and effeminate,
but its producers, its toiling millions, has
ten to our shores armed with their energy
and skill. Here is practical democracy.
Here is the human race poured out upon
the continent to do itself justice
in its shirt sleeves at work where work will
pay. The result is, that although poor
people in the main, we have attained sub
stantial comfort and consequent careless
ness.
THE RISK OF SUPINENESS.
Our political affinities too, are mobile,
like the waters, and give chance for easy
changes. Tidal waves ofparty success ebb
and flow ever on the bosom of the political
sea.
New ideas are eagerly, often jestingly,
tried and as lightly abandoned. We feel
strong and have no fear of being seriously
caught in meshes of legislation. What we
enact, if it do not suit us, we think we can
easily repeal. This expansive confidence
steals away our vigilance. We leave the
selection of candidates and the announce
ment of principles to those who make
trade of it, nor bother ourselves to revise
their work. No blood-red field, no enslave-
ment of mind, social earthquake follows no
our misdeed, and our lethargy is not bro
ken until we are sometimes startled by the
almost unanimous choice of the worst men
possible. We do not seem to realize that
we may run this risk once too often, that
while we sleep like Polyphemus, drunk
with the sweet wine of our material pros
perity, some cunning Ulysses and his fol-
lowers may burn out our eye Now the
remedies are neither distant nor difficult.
They exist in our institutions themselves,
which are all educational, for they are full
of responsibility, and responsibility educates
rapidly. We have the district meeting, the
caucus, the primaries, the county conven =
ton. 1t is only necessary that we attend
to them, guard them carefully, let them
bring forth nothing but the best results.
The evil is not in party discipline so-called.
No. Far back of that 1t turks where
we seldom seek tin the ease with which
we commit the first choice to knaves and
brawlers. If we should look we'll to the
beginnings of the work, the subsequent
fruitage would be both palatable and nu-
tritious. Attention to her interests where
they are most in danger, is the first claim
of our government upon us. Wherever
the public opinion seeks expression, where
ever the public interest is at stake, where
ever the public welfare is endangered, there
is the post of the good citizen, and to desert
it is sin against humanity. No one can
| h,p,oo1e f-n,,, fl,a hinb
involve his age. 1t is not by heads turned
reverently backward to the dusty splendor
of the past, but by performing the duties
put upon us here and now, by graphing
with today that we shall be able to over
come the dragon at our Caesars throat.
EDUCATION ABOVE ALL.
Meanwhile, what is this word "to-day? p
In the early days of the republic there was
the New Worlds rough face to smooth
to WOO by the carcsses of AK, and hoe and
harrow into smiles. The race was busy
planting itself in the new soil. But the
question is no longer whether we shall be
multitude of people and rich and strong
That has been magnifcently answered al
ready. What half century ago was hope
fully prophesied for our far future, goes oil
to its fulfillment
As the sun rises on Sabbath morning
and travels westward from Newfoundland
to the Oregon, he will behold the countless
millions assembling, as by common i'm
pulse, in the temples with which every val
ley, and mountain, and plain will be adorned
The morning psalm and the evening an
them will commence with the multitudes OF
the Atlantic coast, be sustained by the lOut
chorus of ten thousand times ten Thousand
in the valley of the Mississippi, and be pro
longed by the thousands of thousands oil
the shores of the Pacific
Our conquest over nature is established
We may leave the question of our physica
progress, and pass, as it were, from prepar
atory growth to the responsible develop
ment of character and the steady perform
ance of duty. This is the meaning, this
the stirring invocation of "to-day."
when man hath tanned nature asserted his plac
And dominion behold, he is brought face to face
With a new foe-himselfl
The questions of Society, of Labor, o
Adaptation, of Ethics, ofSufrage-all phase
II Il
selves upon us, and more than all, the ques
tion of education as thepreparation for all
Let us heed o voice from the grave a
Concord "The form of government which
prevails is the expression of what cultiva
tion exists in the population which permits
it. The law is only memorandum. s.
much life as it has is in the character
, oe l;y;no, man ~ The residence of fhF