The record-union., 1896-07-05
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
BY MEMO.

BY MEMO.
(Copyrighted)
(These Thoughts represent the utili-
zation of the spare moments in the life
of a busy layman. The aim is to lead in
an optimistic way to a better under
standing of life, it's grandeur and re-
sponsiblities)
Strange though it may seem to the un-
tutOred sense, yet it is nevertheless true,
that not every day is equally pleasing to
an artist. He looks for that Intangible,
indescribable something which he calls
atmosphere. | am oftentimes inclined
to think that writers also must be sub
ject to some such imponderable infiu-
ence for it will happen that the mind
gropeS hither and thither for suggestive
| thought and utterly fails to find it, until
change of scene or of duty distracts
the attention. Then without conscious
action OF the mind the needed sugges-
ton comes into being. Thus it has been
, with me this week. The burden was to
rite something seriously suited to the
week of the glorious Fourth. 1t was
clear that the intelligence of the vast
army of quiet readers of these
L 1HOuSIt NtS iiOL " pN AA49tlSNN NhStA
easily written, adjectival fol-de-rol-
such as greeted the ear yesterday,
when the average rocketty speech SCARED
| upward in flaming streak, only to
end in an explosion, darkness, the smell
of smoke and a dangerous returning
stick; but the right thing was still lack
| ing and remained so.
The catch-words of Republic are apt
| to become, like the catch words of a
religious denomination, on the lines of
a familiar hymn, or the routine express
| sions of many prayer, simply a
matter of form that We rattle them off
| as unconsciously as we turn the cor
| nerS on our homeward way, or as
| though mind and mouth had no con-
| irection. The word Republic" itself,
| like charity, covers a multitude of sins,
| and has such magic charm about it
that without any conscious line of rea-
| soning, or sympathies and moral sup
| pert go forth unreserVedly to every
country that names the name" and
| our announcements are apt to begin
with equal Unreserve to every country
| that retains even so much as puppet
vestige of monarchism. We class Switz-
erland, where each individual has not a
| theoretical, but an actual political
| freedom and religious liberty, with the
| Transvaal where political rights are
denied to the taxpayers. We have
tacit condemnation for Belgium and
England, where the interference of the
| monarchy with the personal liberty OF
the Individual is of the slightest, while
| there is strong lurking sense of kim
ship for the bloody Spanish-American
Republics where tyranny holds sway
and a party can scarcely record an op-
| posing vote without precipttating an
appeal from liberty and ballots to Ii
cense and bullets.
| If we fashion liberty into one huge,
unchanging, unprogressive, everlasting
statue of fixed conditions, we are idol
aters and castaways and no freemen.
Freedom is a condition of life, chang
| ing as our ideas change, growing with
our growth, or fading away with our
unworthiness. Imagine you that the
"Signers" as a whole had any concep-
| ton of our nd-of-the-century idea of
| freedom? When they declared in
courageous phalanx for the freedom
and equality of all men, and enforced
their opinion at the point of the sword,
with a heart back of it, there was after
all the mental reservation that neither
freedom nor anything else belonged to
the children of Ham. And because the
| world moves and a nation that lives
must also move or perish, we have had
| to pay in blood and fratricidal strife
and sorrow untold in order to measure
l 20 1ff 60, ;,,. Ilx-
of the practical humbuggery of the
original declaration.
Yet these men whose work yesterday
| was celebrated laid a foundation broad
and deep for an empire of freemen. With
an astuteness that seems marvellous
when we remember how STEPPED in po-
| litical darkness many other countries
were at the time, they tried to foresee
and prepare for the problems of all fu-
| ture time. But that of course was i'm
possible. They legislated and planned
| for a nation of farmers, and we are fast
| becoming a nation of artisans; they
planned on the supposition of political
| honesty, and could never have dreamed
of the possibilities for political manip-
| ulation that exist in our crowded cities
| They planned for an equal representa-
| tion of all the States in the Senate by a.
| body of men independent of the vote of
the general people, and their belief in
| the continued high minded patriotism
| of these Senator's was i'll founded Yet
| we admit that the original plans of
Washington and his cOmpeers were
wonderfully far-reaching.
The one essential thought at this an
| nual season when their work is celebra-
| ted with some degree of considerate self
examination by the few, and by the
many with buncombe and fireworks
| is that ruling by the "dead-hand" is
out of place in a free country We are
not living in the acknowledgements
| but in the energetic, moving present
The men of a hundred years to come
| will look back to us much as we look
| to the past and their question will be
whether We measured up the needs of
our times as fully as the "signers''
| measured up to theirs. If we look not
| to it, the woods of 1896 will ring with a
| tremendous No"
| We are not living under perfect condi-
| fact. If we dream that everythin is
| we'll, we are political opium-eaters, who
| would sacrifice for ourselves the
| plaudits of the coming ages, rather than
| forego the leisure and comfort and