New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1895-07-10

oAS1 ~ yOt11 AofaIty ~
day. 1t is the National idea. 1t ?.
Anler1canis1n. IL IS CON secrQtiom Il
Ameracamisns. It is in Il study of what
the national idea has been, what it has
wrought in the destiny Of the United
States, what it has yet to accomplish fol
this Nation, that believe the hours OF
this day may best be spent. We have
drawn little too far away from it for
safety. In the ease and comfort and
pride of liberty achieved and greatness
acknowledged, we have not always kept
trimmed and burning the lamp of Amer
lcanism. would place the national
idea to day upon the altar of your patri-
otism and have you pledge your allegi-
ance to it so that no public or private
issue can ever induce you to forget your
foremost duty or forswear your faith.
What is it that we have to celebrate
to-day besides the first formal announce
ment to the world that the people of the
American Colonies had seen the great
light and beauty Of national existence
for themselves: They were just as in
dustrious. just as energetic, just as pros
porous before that venerated bell pealed
forth from the tower of the old State
House in Philadelphia the message that
was to "proclaim liberty throughout the
land and to all the inhabitants thereof.'' ~
But they lacked the fire of inspiration.
They might have gone on following the
pillow, delving in the mine, building up
great centers Of industry, carrying their
commerce over the seas to every quarter
of the globe; but they would never have
become the American people of this day.
Is Canada a nation? Is India Nation
Is Australia a nation Great and enter
prising as some of these countries have
become, they have no national life. They
are peoples whose thoughts have 'snever
learned to stray far as the solar walk or
milky way.' They have not the proud
feeling of ownership and of protection
that fills the man who can gaze upon the
flag of his country as it waves in the
breeze above him. They are, when COM
pared to the people over whom the stars
and stripes float, like the tenant of a
house who knows that lac occupies it by
his landlords pleasure. Would you not
rather cross poor threshold and be able
to say to all the world as you close the
door behind you, "This is mine. alone
! am lord and master here" That is the
change that vas wrought by the Ameri-
can Revolution. That is the spirit which
we must conserve. intensity and perpetu-
| ate,
Before the people of the Colonies took
up arms, they knew not the inspiration
of the national feeling which bid you
to-day clasp to your breasts as the dear
est and most precious possession of an
American citizen. 1t did not come to
them first as an inspiration. Busy with
their labors, engaged in an unconscious
laying of foundations for the mighty
state that was to come, no thought for
independent existence had stirred their
peaceful breasts. Nor was it until after
repeated acts of willful oppression had
shown them how Impossible it is for any
man or any people to achieve it's true
stature until it is lord of its own desires
that the divine spark was kindled There
were years of resistance when their trou-
bles might at any time have been COM
posed by few concessions on the part
OF the mother country. Thank God for
the men in England who, IN those bitter
days, stood firm in their opposition to
the reasonable demands of the people of
America. For it was by the friction of
that resistance that the holy fire was
lighted which swept from the land the
last vestige of foreign control. 1t wa.
by that refusal of justice that the sturdy
men who had crossed the western seas
were constrained to look toward a high
er aim and a nobler destiny, Il was
when they found justice and the rights
of freemen denied to them, that they first
dared to think of throwing off the yoke
and standing not for the redress of griev-
ances. but for independence and nation
hood. 1t was in that supreme moment
that the national idea was born. Through
the mighty throes of the Revolutionary
struggle it was brought into the world,
a young Hercules that, even in its cradle,
strangled the serpents of tyranny and
monarchy and the divine right of kings.
Had the thought of national existence
never been thus brought to the birth, it
would have been as we'll if the North
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