The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-12-02
WHAT WILL WE Do?
Our Debt to the Past.-Our Duty
to the Future.
WHY WE SHOULD BE PATRIOTS.
BY Hon. T. E Watson, of Georgia.

By Hon. T. E Watson of Georgia.
l sit here by a warm hearth, sur
rounded by the comforts of home,-a
citizen secure in many inestimable
rights.
How did 1 get them? Scholars con-
ceived them, poets sang them, orators
spoke them, warriors fought for them,
martyrs died for them:-and at length
the statesman wrote them into laws.
l can worship God as l choose-not
as some other man chooses there
is no wheel to break me on as there
used to be, if my conscience varies from
the kings.
l can vote as l please, and claim a
voice in the making of laws and the
choosing of rulers, and there is no block
to behead me On'-as there used to be
for those who could see no''divine right
in the One-man power.
I can put forth the strength of my
hand in any field of industry, and what
sover I earn is mine, mine,-and is not
carted up to an embattled castle to feed
some lazy lOut of robber who calls
himself my feudal chief.
l can think anything that comes into
my head, and, having thought it, can
speak it,-nay, speak it vocigerously to
any assemblage of human brethren who
choose to hear; and l can attack the
government and everybody connected
with it for it's sins of omission and COM
mission, without the slightest fear of
being hanged for treason, or of having
the dragons disperse the meeting, or
of being shut up in prison as a riotous
and seditious person: all of which hap
penings would have occurred to me a
few generations ago, unless perchance, l
had turned my tongue to the chant of
the priest and the batteries of the king
1t has not been long since it was a
crime to talk for the rights of the COM
mon people! crime to assemble and
discuss grievances; crime to say that
the governed should have voice in the
government; a crime to claim liberty of
speech and of conscience.
When | think of the awful punish
ments wreaked upon those who dared to
denounced wrongs in the olden days,
when nearly everything was wrong,
seek in vain for words to express my
profound admiration for the courage Of
those who gave their lives to the Cause
of the Right!
No such heroism has ever been shown
on fields of battle as has been shown by
the martyrs of civil liberty. The frown
of kings could not silence them, nor the
curses of popes turn them. Prisons
could not Quench their fires, nor could
the rack break ought but their bones.
AS they marched to the block, they
stepped lightly-as pioneers leading the
free of a great future. AS they mount
ed the scaffold, they rose, step by step,
proudly, like conquerors leading men
upward and onward.
Their names are lost-nearly all of
them,- but here in my quiet home
sit, the legatee of their heroic work.
l lay my hand on the code of my
country, and every great leading law in
it cost some brave man his life. l am
guarded round about with guarantees
and -guards-all consecrated with
the blood of human sacrifice.
And do owe nothing to anybody for
all this?
Am l to nurse the slippered foot, by
my own fireside, in selfish ease, and
never stir forth to inquire how fares it
with my brother?
Am l to be deaf to the cry of human
suffering, blind to the havoc wrought
by bad laws, cold-hearted to the plea
of the helpless weak against the tyranny
of the oppressive strong?
Am 1 to bask in the blessings brought
me by the heroes of the past, and care
nought for the miseries that may come
upon the children who follow us?
God forbid!
No man holds his life for himself
alone, but holds it's splendid gifts at trus-
tea trustee who must come to an ac-
count, some day, with the Most High.
Shall be cast down because our eff
forts seem to result in so little? Shall
NOPE and fret because the world decides
against us at the ballot box?
Not unless history shows me that ma
jorities are always right, and ballot
boxes infallible.
The man who strives merely to run
with the biggest crowd is at best a sor-
ry creature. The man who strives to be
right, and to do right, is after all the
only citizen who can rest under the in
finite comfort of an approving consci-
ence.
AS legatees of the patriots of the past
and trustees for the present and future,
let us stand firm in defense of the right.
Let us preach it's gospel to whosoever
will hear. And, as a mere matter of
honesty and patriotic duty let us speak
as we believe, vote as we speak, and
hold aloft, always, the higher and bet
ter ideals to which the human race must
ever strive if it would move onward and
upward.