San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-07-04
A BIG BIRTHDAY.

Birthdays are strange things. We
keep them, We know not why; cele-
brate them, we care not how; make
a fuss over them, by way of atonement
for the oft repeated wish that they
We're out of date. Like Christmas,
they are largely reserved for the child
rem, for the girls of larger growth do
not care for the yearly return of the
day that reminds them of the passing
of time and the inevitable growing
older, while the married folks are no
whit more ready to record their passing
into the period of the sere and yellow
leaf Birthdays have always been,
and as long as man continues to mar
ry, multiply and replenish the earth,
there is little danger of their being out
lawed, but it is astonishing how muck
more they mean to some people and
some families, and some nations, and
some races than to others. There is
fashion in all this.
Birthdays are popularity supposed to
mark the beginning of life, but that is
a mistake, whether it be the birthday
of a human or a brute beast, or a ma
ton or an epoch. We talk Of the be-
ginning and set date to it. but it is
only fiction, the real beginning may
have been days, months, years, ages
before. Still it is not on the whole
stupid custom, albeit there are no end
of absurdities in keeping as a memoir
ial day one that we have regretted al
most every time that it has come
around in the yearly repetitions of it.
self. Birthdays are for those who look
forward not for those who look
backward. and thus it is that to the
children really belong the celebration
of birthdays. But most of us are only
children, and therefore the birthday is
as much ours after we are grown as
when yet in our swaddling clothes.
There are some birthdays in which
every one seems to rejoice. These days
natal belong to those who are not their
own so much as they belong to the
Universal Such were Shakespeare,
Goethe, Jesus, Confucius, Columbus.
Michael Angelo, Socrates, and in our
own day Abraham Lincoln, Grant,
Gladstone, Garibaldi, and host of les
ser lights. Then there are those in
which one nation only takes real pleas
ure, as that so lately celebrated in
London, of Queen Victoria. But in all
these there is an inner and an outer
circle of interest and influence, so to
speak, so that the two are married in
bonds that it is difficult to separate
or individualize. The celebrations of
natal days, no matter of what charac-
ter, are always more or less localized.
This day we celebrate, all over this
broad land, and in every quarter of the
habitat globe where American citizens
are found even by twos or threes, an
other kind of a birthday. 1t is a cele-
bration that is peculiarly American.
In it only the American citizen has a
birthright. 1t is birthday that COM
memorates at once a great idea and a
great fact. The world, almost from
the hour that it began to grow great
and nations to grow powerful, tacitly
accepted the caste idea. 1t accepted
and generally taught the divine rights
of kings and the superior orders of GER
tain classes. 1t preached the duty of
obedience to the higher orders. 1t in
culcated a respect and demanded an
homage rom the lower to be paid the
higher. This was general.
There always, had been a few royal
WIN the prevailing Jog
ma of the divine right of Glass" but
these were largely in the minority and
were themselves accepted as belonging
to the uncrowned royalty Of Mind"
These were accorded the privilege of
being a law unto themselves and Of
denying the universal law as applicable
to themselves, but the exception went
no farther. 1t was restricted to these
of the royal house of superior intelli-
gence, where Art, Science, Sculpture,
Poetry, Painting, were accepted as
kings and priests by their own right.
This day that we celebrate, this
4th Day of July, saw another idea
born into being. Not that it really be-
gan to be on that day, for it was not.
All things grow slowly in the womb
of their creation to the day of their be-
ing ushered into the public eye and
notice. Then we say another birth has
occurred. In a sense, that Of bringing
forth to view, this is correct. This
Fourth day Of July commentaries the
bringing to view of the new idea for
which the great American Republic
stands sponsor. That idea, that all
men are created equal An idea that
the world has denied from the begin
ming and never more generally than
now. An idea that 1t is hard to preach