The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-04-30
JUDGE CLARK SPEAKS
He 50 eliw ers Commencement
Address in Richmond
NO uNCER TAIN SOUND
HE DECLARES THAT THE ISSUE
Is MONEY VS.. MEN.
CAN A MAN WILL PROPERTY?
Justice 3xown Advances Radica Pro-
posixoa Cleveland Quoted on Per-
finest Topics That the world
Must I mink About.

ainent Topics that the world
Must hink About.
Richmond. Va, April 29.-(SpeciaD-
Tonight. upon the commencement occa-
sion of the Medical College, Justice Wal
ter Clark, of the Supreme court bench
of North Carolina, delivered the annual
Grafton Judge Clark said:
Young Gentlemen of the Graduating
Class, Mr. President, Ladies and
Gentlemen:
The poet Burns declared that in heaven
itself he would TASK no more than just
a Hieland welcome and no invited
speaker can ever have a handsomer in
PRODUCTION or kinder welcome than he
will always receive at the hands of a
Virginia audience. The growth of this
magnificent city is pride to the whole
South, of which for four long and ever
memorable years it was the capital and
the centre. OF the many evidences of
rapid progress to be seen on all sides,
it is not my purpose to speak 1t is pro-
which should be shared by ev-
cry Southerner that here in
our ancient capital. this institution for
the education Of physicians and surgeons
has taken already so high stand and
that there is no need of going farther
North to secure a medical diploma. whose
value is recognized throughout the I'm
iOn.
When / first saw the city of Rich
mOnd it was under vastly different au-
spices and amid other surroundings than
those that greet us tonight 1t was
thirty-six years ago. Virginia had called
for aid, and across her southern border
North Carolina poured her troops like an
Alpine torrent. At that time l was a
lad of fourteen, cadet at military in
stitute. The troops needing such in
ktruction as it was thought we could give
/ was Ike many others, assigned to duty
by the Governor, and entered this State
attached to one of the North Carolina
regiments. 1t was then that my feet first
trod the soil of this heroic and historic
city. Remaining in the service it was my
fortune again and again, during those
four eventful years, the memory Of which
should never be forgotten, to pass through
Richmond when men from Maine to Min
nesOta on the one side and men from
Maryland to the Mexican border on the
other, were contending for the possession
OF the Confederate capital. Hinged with
IRE, the city grew accustomed to the
dull heavy booming of cannon, and as at
Saragossa, people bought and sold, mar
ried and We're given in marriage, danced
or wept, as occasion served. while the
work of war went on at the gates.
To-day it is hard to realize that the
scene rs the same. Lee and jackson are
glorious memories now Another flag
floats from the flag staff on your capital.
From yon river, 1.-The fleets Of iron have
He'd and where the long lines of infantry
stood the green grave grass grows
where asleep are the ranks of the dead"
Peace, sweet bosomed peace, broods
above a city which numbers four-fold the
population of the one that withstood Nc
Clellan and Meade and Burnside and
Hooker and Grant in the brave days of
old" Looking upon the surface of this
peaceful scene one would murmur, 'other
times, other men,"
Yet l must say to you, my young
friends, that not in 1861, when the steady
tread OF the old Confederate regiments
first echoed along these streets and the
artillery and wagons came rumbling by
along your yalies, was there greater I'M
rest in the minds of the masses of your
fellow citizens, North and South, East
and West, than there is at this moment
OF deep, dreamless apparent peace. The
hearts of men are strangely moved with
in them for the masses are not satisfied
with existing conditions No one con-
templates that the present unrest Will
,1,,,;p 10 tha4 Of 1891 i'm,
strife, but all the signs that history has
ever given of great impending changes
are with US. None are lacking. Condi-
fions will not, cannot remain as they are.
BE assured Of that If you are men
worthy of the revolutionary race of he
roes who won our liberties. and equal to
the generation which faced the perils Of
the great civil war, without shrinking,
you should read and understand the sig
mails of the coming storm. There are
men to whom the present status is very
comfortable. They denounce any state
ment that all others are not as fully salts
fed as themselves.
1t was your own great orator, who
quoting the inspired seer of Israel, cried
out in prophetic language: "nhey say
peace, peace, but there is no peace" The
conflict Of ideas, the conflict of interests
is more intense and more real at every
point of contact than that which Mr.
Seward proclaimed an 'irrepressible con-
fiict' in 1860. At Cooper Institute Mr..
Lincoln truly declared to startled gen.
GRAFTON that the Union could not remain
half bond and half free. 1t is equally
true now that this government cannot be
dominated partly by freemen and partly
by an oligarchy Of wealth. One or the
other must be sole masters OF the Repub-
aic. The generation OF 1860 had not, like
ahis. the benefit of the lessons taught by
-four terrible years of war and hence the
issue Of this day can be settled by ballots
not by bullets. But it is well for us
to comprehend the intensity of the ques-
ton now to be settled and to understand,
once for all, that it will not and can not
be settled till there is a complete triumph
for one side and crushing, hopeless de-