The Portland daily press., 1892-06-30

Nation with all that nationality implies
that decision was and is forever Binding
upon all. am glad to believe that it has
brave and honorable men the whole Be
public over.
This fourth and last period, that OF the
establishment of the Nation, ended with
the surrender at Appomattox, and with
the adoption of the latest amendments to
the constitution Those amendments
fixed the results of. the WARM the organic
law of the land, and then the nation,
based and founded ON manhood suffrage,
freed forever from the stain and weak
ness of human slavery, recognizing the
State as an integral and enduring part OF
its national life,
Started Finally upon its Full Career.
Thus has come the America of today.
What is this America whose past
achievements, whose present conditions,
whose future we bid the world come
hither that the world may study and
judge? ~
What this, our America, is in present
territorial extent we know by actual
measurement; and yet the most hopeful
and enthusiastic hardly realize and COM
prehend its physical meaning. Measured
sessions on the coast of Maine to the ut
termost of the Aleutian Islands, the
physical center is on the same parallel of
longitude with San Francisco. Measured
| from northwest to southeast, from those
Aleutian Islands to the capeS of Florida,
that center is about at Portland, in Ore
gon. Measured by average of acres, the
center of the Republic is near the heart
of Kansas, far west of the Mississippi and
the Missouri. Measured by population,
| the center is near the city of Columbus,
| in Indiana.
1t is certainly an interesting eoinci-
dence that this Columbian anniversary
year should find city bearing the name
| OF the great discoverer at the very heart
! of our American population.
| What this, our America, is and is to
be in material growth and development
| and in physical resources we know only
| in part, and even that but dimly. I
| never go to that marvellous city of
| Chicago by the inland seas without be-
| ing more and more deeply impressed
with its phenomenal progress and ire
mendous possibilities. The America of
| which Columbus dreamed, and for which
I Washington counseled and fought, is
there; there within sight of eye and touch
of hand; there at the core of this north
ern continent, a continent which Column
| bus never saw and to whose center Wash
| ington never came. But let us reverent-
ly thank God that there, at the very
heart of the Republic, beneath the
grasses of the prairie, sleeps the dust of
that tender, patient and heroic man who
saved the republic in it's deadliest strug-
| gle, the dust of Abraham Lincoln.
might repeat statistics of population
! md r s~k% all
telegraphs and railways that could be
| bound thrice, yea, four times around the
world, an imperial girdle of civilization.
might tell you of factories and mines,
and of corn and cotton that could feed
and clothe the world; but all these
figures of stupendous actual results and
more stupendous possibilities would
only bewilder and confuse.
/ What this, our America, is in oppor-
tunity for each citizen to grow to the
full stature of individual manhood we
always know in theory and we some
times realize in fact. Here
Every Man Is Free and Equal
to every other man in his legal right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness. Here is no slave. Here is no noble.
Here, in the midst of all these possible
| ties of material growth and wealth, every
man stands before the law and at the
| ballot box all uncrowned king.
To what shall this, our America, grow?
Rest is impossible. In all this vast
creation, in plant, in earth, in every
stone, there is no final rest So is there
none in man, in social system. OF in state.
We grow. to better or we lapse to worse.
| more manly, or it shall sink backward
through sickening change of weakness,
| vice and degradation to unmanly loss of
| liberty and unmanly submission to the
slavery, first of the mob, and then of the
despot,
am no pessimist. | do not believe
that these days are worse than those far
| days when Columbus sailed first upon
unknown seas. know that they are
| better; as much better as the dawn is
brighter than the first hour after the
midnight. / do not believe that these
days are worse than when the Mayhower
| landed at Plymouth. / know that they
are better; better in their broader charity
and in their larger acceptance of the
great truths of that historic COM
pact in the cabin of the Mayf1ower. do
not believe that these days are worse than
when Washington stood with hand on
| the Bible and face uplifted to heaven and
l.
stitution of the young Republic and the
liberties of the people. | know that
there is no slave this day beneath our
| flag, and that the Constitution is at last
a Constitution consistent with itself, a
guarantee of freedom to all the people
| and pledge of enduring union between
| all the States.
| 1t is no flight of fancy, but cold and
mathematical truth, when we say that
more men are well fed, well clothed
and we'll housed this day than on any day
since the first man had birth. These are
the physical needs of living. More men
can read and write this day, more can
thus learn the story of the past and tell
for future times the story Of the present
than in any year of all ages. These are
the intellectual needs of living. More
men to-day worship God freely without
compulsion by other men, obedient alone
to their own consciences, than in all the
centuries and this is what Roger Will
liams called ''soul liberty" There are
no racks, no stake fires, no gibbets, and
no inquisitions that the sun looks down
I