Birmingham age-herald., 1895-06-13

Competition is becoming greater every year, and in the century to come 1t Is to be the sharper and keener still. Educa- tion more generally diffused is bringing into the liberal professions and into all occupations more intelligence and more ability. common schools are rendering la hor everywhere more effective, and the stress of earnest endeavOr is to be greater as the years roll on. Our country is, however stiIl the must promising field of human effort: it has still vast re- sources undeveloped; population is not yet treading upon the heels of subsist- ence, as in Europe; the genius of nven- tion, quickened by our free institutions, Is daily opening up and is yet to find countless industries never dreamed of by our fathers; human avidity may be counted on to always keep pace with eV- cry supply of devices that can add to thS comfort of mankind, and there will be ev- cry incentive in the new and wonderful conditions of life that confronts us to beckon you forward and onward. Let me add, young gentlemen, that if the task oi success for you is to be more arduous than for your fathers, the conditions are broader, life is more intense and the prizes when captured will be mere bril- liant even than those that were won by your fathers. l congratulate you upon your youth and strength and health, and upon the opportunities you have enjoyed In this noble institution of preparing yobi seINCS lp go 1OTln ana contend Tor the glorious prizes offered by the ri- pened civilization of the twentieth cen tuTy. Agriculture, mechanics, engineers, commerce, the arts, the sciences educa- tion, the liberal professions, all invite you to al choice. In any of these you can succeed If you are fitted and determined 10 do 1t. Oh, how enviable is your posi- tion! The government that is to protect you IS the freest in the world. The citizens of all the forty-four st ltes. through their state organiza tions enjoy the blessings of local self-government over these states is a general govern ment strong, stable able to keeD and keeping the peace between these states and all the citizens thereof; mighty among the nations of the earth, reioic- ing in the proven prowess of it's soldiers and sailors; ready willing and able to defend the rights of its humblest citi- zens on any portion of the globe, it's flag noatlng in all waters as the emblem of liberty, regulated by law. and yet pur- suing, as 1t does, under Grover Cleve- land, the paths of peace, with it's mot toes: Equal and exact justice to eV ry American citizen, under whatever flag he may be-" and equal and exact jus tice from this nation to all nations of the earth great and small"-this is the government that is to protect you and all others of our citizens, while in the century that is dawning upon us, you work out the great problems of the flu, ture This government of ours was all experiment when the present century be- gan. Monarchists in the old world pre- dicted that it would fall. Written con stitutions set over themselves by a peo- pie as fundamental laws, these critics said, the people would never regard.
 There were, gentlemen. two problems that gave great concern to our earlier statesmen. The first eand Fundamental question was as to the relative power of Iae md tota the general government have the right to decide for itself what was the meaning of the federal constitution; could it say to what was the extent of it's own pow CTS, or had the states the right each for itself. to say how much power it had granted to the general government and consequently the right, as a sovereign state, to withdraw or secede from the compact of union? This question was fundamental. It could not be settled in the convention that framed the consti- tuition, because some of the states would never have joined the union if it had been plainly written down that the federal government could judge of it's own powers. As both parties, the states and the federal government, claimed to be sovereign nothing but war could decide the question. The great civil war settled it forever
 Another question that divided the sections, north and south, was slavery That question too, was settled by the war.Thirty years of peace between the sections and of peace with all nations, have passed away, and recently in the city of Chicago, near which nearly coco Confederates died in a federal prison, a monument was erected to their memory by eX-Confederate and ex-federal sol dierS, who joined in eXtOlling the cour- age and the virtues of the two great armies that, confronting each other on the field of battle, had settled the only unsettled fundamental question affecting the power of the government founded by our fathers. In that government today the relative powers of the executive, of the legislative and of the judicial branches remain substantially as they were when the government was founded; functions, each independently of the others as in the days of Washington The power of this government no citi- zen dareS to dispute except in it's courts When last year a mob in the name or labor laid violent hands on property used in interests of commerce. the judicial de- partment of the government raised its hand and the mob fell away. When re- gently, after much angry discussion in congress and the public prints about the income tax, the supreme court de- cided by the vote of only one judge that the law was void. the country ac- Quescod. There was never a thought or threat of resistance. Never were more convincing proofs of the power the majesty of human government. Men may question. and they are free to ques- ton. the wisdom of congress. or of the president, or the justice or correctness of the decisions of the supreme court. That govrnnent, nevertheless, stands supreme. You are fortunate, my young friends. that your fathers have not left to you, as their fathers did to them, any unsettled fundamentl questions pregnant with civil war. You and your children are, I firmly believe, to enjoy the blessings of peace, possibly not all ways peace with foreign nations, but that internal peace which Is a sure guarantee of prosperity It is true that grave problems will confront you. pJt they are not fundamental We boast that ours Is a Christian country, that our free institutions are founded on that grand code of Christian ethics which has been the chief agency in the upilft- ing of humanity and in the civilization of the world. In the principles of that code, and those alone, believe the diff cult problems of the future are 10 find their solution
 Permit me to express the hope, young