The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-07-04
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
Written for the Democratic Advocate.
BY MEMO.
[ooPYRIGHrED.l

(These Thoughts represent the utii-
zation of the spare moments in the life of
busy layman The aim is to lead in an
optimistic way to a better understanding
Of life, its grandeur and responsibilities. }
Strange though it may seem to the un-
tutored sense, yet it nevertheless true that
not every day is equally pleasing to an
artist He looks for that intangible, in
describable something which he calls sat
mosphere | am oftentimes inclined to
think that writers also must be subject to
some such imponderable influence, 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 suggestion comes into being.
Thus has it been with me this week. The
burden was to write 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
Thoughts was not to be insulted with
easily written, adjectival folde- e-rol-such
as will greet the ear next Saturday when
the average locketty speech will soar up
ward in flamiug streak only to end in an
explosion, darkness, the smell Of smoke
and a dangerous returning stick; but the
right thing was still lacking and remained
so until the writer spert a few hours on
Bedloe's Island, inspecting Bartholdi's s
great statue of Liberty Enlightening the
World"
The catch-words of a Republic are apt
to become, like the catch-words of relig-
ious denomination, or the lines of famil-
lar hymn, or the routine expressions of
many prayer, so purely matter of form
that we rattle them off as unconsciously as
we turn the corners on our homeward way,
or as though mind and mouth had no con-
nection. The word Republic itself, like
charity, covers multitude Of sins, and
has such magic charm about it that, with
out any conscious line of reasoning, our
sympathies and moral support go forth un-
reservedly to every country that names
the name, and our announcements are
apt to be given with equal unreserve to
every country that retains even so much
as puppet vestige of monarchism. We
class Switzerland, where each individual
has, not theoretical but an actual politi-
cal freedom and religious liberty with the
Transvaal, where political rights are denied
to the taxpayers. We have tacit con-
demnation 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 kinship for the bloody Spanish
American republics, where tyranny holds
sway and party can scarcely record an
opposing vote without precipitating an ap-
peal from liberty and ballots to license and
bullets
if we fashion Liberty into one huge,
uncnanging, unprogressive, everlasting
statue Of fixed conditions we are idolaters
and castaways and no freemen. Freedom
is condition of life, changing as our ideas
change, growing with our growth, or fad
ing away with our unworthiness. Imagine
you that the "Signers, as whole, had
any conception of our end-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
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 nation that lives must also move or
perish, we have had to pay in blood and
fratricidal strife and sorr6w untold in order
TO measure up to an idea Of Freedom far
in advance Of the practical humbuggery Of
the origf1al declaration
Yet these men whose work this week
celebrates laid foundation broad and deep
for an Empire of Freemen. With an
astuteness that seems marvellous, when we
remember how stepped in political darkness
many other countries were at the time,
they tried to foresee and prepare for the
problems Of all future time, But that of
course was impossible. They legislated'
and planned for nation of farmers, and
we are fast becoming nation Of artisans;
they planned on the supposition Of pohti-