Oakes weekly Republican. (Oakes, Dickey County, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1883-1898, 1896-03-06

lngs OF Washington perpetually fresh
In the minds of the American youth,
and to foster q spirit of patriotism
and stimulate American manhood
and womanhood, 1 would shrink
from an attempt to portray the char
acter of one of the most august men
in American history and one of the
grandest in the history of the world.
Every nation and every epoch has
its intellectual giants and ideal pa
triots whom it never ceases to wor
ship. Greece never ceases to wor-
ship her Plato, Socrates and Aristo-
tie. Rome points with pride to I'M
perial Caesar and her Cicero; Ger
many her Goethe and Schiller; Rus
sia will rehearse to you with justifia-
ble pride the patriotic utterances and
accomplishments of Peter the Great;
the British Empire will point you to
her House of Tudor, her Stuarts and
Hanovers, her Pitt and her Grand
Old VIM. Gladstone, while America
lays her homage at the feet of her
Washington and Lincoln.
This is an age of hero worship,
and if an impetus can be given to
civilization, if patriotism and deep
interest in American institutions and
principles can be awakened, if the
manhood and womanhood of the pres
ent and coming generations can be
elevated to high standard of nation
al honor and intelligence and patri-
otism, then, let us never cease to in
vite them to study with us, the char
aoters that accomplished SO much in
the establishment and perpetuation
of this nation.
Tonight we are more than a centu-
ry and half removed from the birth
of Washin gton; Turn the pages of
history that has been written i'll this
period, and what an epoch it has
been. An age of crumbling despot-
isms and monarchies, and for every
menarch's crown that has been cast
aside, Goddess of Liberty has been
erected and our common people en-
throned.
Washington is the exponent of a
new age as we'll as the exponent of a
new world. Born in an age of decay
ing Imperialism and struggling liber-
ty, he was as truly the eliminating
product of his ago as was Cyrus and
Alexander of the Greeco-Persian
epoehs, The United States of Amer
ica has been the stage on which at
least two of the greatestquestioas OF.
history have been solved, and Wash
ington and Lincoln are the principal
agents by which these problems have
been made to yield their principles.
Time, and the familiarity of the
American people with the details of
history, forbids me to deal with the
historical side of Washington's char
acter.
Washington had reached his ma
jority when the despotism of the
House of Hanover had struck out TIE
liberty of his country and ours. That
liberty once restored in all it's full
ness; that spirit of human freedom
and elevation Of the individual man
in his social, moral and political
character has given riso to new era
in civilization, in which the social
principles has triumphed over the
feudal, when the common people
have maintained their rights against
military power, and demonstrated as
was never demonstrated before, their
ability TO govern themselves.
A new step in civilization was to
be taken; great leader was required
to lead the armies to ctory, and the
Ged of battles had raised up another
David to execute his plans; and VIII at
was that new step? A government
was to be established without
throne, without feudalism, without
castles and special privileges. Unlike
the government of Imperial Rome,
whose government was administered
behind the walls of a single city, it
was to be bounded only by the waves
of the ocean and the blus dome of
heaven; It was to tolerate different
sects, interests aud custom, and
sentiment and finally, in the distant
future, to weave them into one Amer
ican character, with one language,
one country, one flag and one God.
The great rulers of the world seem
to be raised up by the Almighty
Power, through peculiar training to
peculiar fitness of the accomplish
ment of certain ends which they
themselves do not foreseo.
In 1775 Washington found himself
commander-in-chief of the forces of
the American colonies. With hand
full of barefooted, ragged, hungry
men he was to combat the English
and Hessian armies, With divided
sentiment and support of the thirteen
colouies, he was to rescue Liberty
from the tyranny of George Ill.
Without money and ammunition and
arms, and with conspirators and trail
tors in the heart of his forces, he was
to snatch victory from the jaws of
Defeat. With mutiuy in his camp,
with no means to provide for the ne
cessities of his starving and bleeding
and frost-btten soldiers and their
suffering wives and babes, he dis
paired not. He compelled tho Brit
ish to evacuate Boston; he planned
the defeat of Burgoyne and by SO do
ing gained the assistance and reoog-
milton of France for his country; and
four years later after siege Of two
weeksYcrktown was captured, Corn.
wallis capitulated and the British
rule in America was overthrown for.
ever. Washington had conquered
His patient, patriotic, resistless and
conquering spirit would not do vn
but rising over every obstacle and
trsumphing over every foe, he paveo
the way for the American Republic
and erected, for himself, monu
ment in the heasts of tho American
people forever.
When Caesar had conquered al
the eastern world aud made it into {
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