The record-union., 1897-07-06

Juliet, so stand l now before our coun-
| try, her grand history, her incompara
bic present greatness, her inviting fu-
ture. l Lift my hands in astonishment;
1 bow my head in awe.
/ A Frenchman once asked an Ameri-
can, Vat you sink off Victor Hugo?"
"Oh, grand old man." responded the
American. cheerfully. You sink, he
/ ferry releegeous?" ''Oh, yes; fairly So"
Vat? vairly so? Victor Hugo? Ze
grand Victor Hugo He perspire relee-
geon" My friends. on this Fourth of
July Of blessed memory and great as
sociations, We are justified in ''perspir
ing patriotism.
When our revolutionary war closed
we were three millions of people, most
| ly poor, scattered up and down the At
lantic seaboard, in log huts, in rude
cabins, or at best in shabby villages
and small cities Roads were eXecra-
bic and transportation difficult, news
papers were few, wretched and little
read, books We're luxury, schools dis
pensed only the rudiments of knowl
edge, churches We're i'll supported. pub
lie institutions of charity insufficient,
jails and prisons disgracefully foul and
/ \
manufacturing uncommon, food coarse
and all the conditions of the average
/ life extremely hard.
And now We are seventy millions. the
richest nation on earth, our land gar
den from ocean to ocean, covered with
splendid cities, netted with railroad and
| telegraph lines-at once the producers,
| the manufacturers and the transport
1 oIrf,
] life pleasant The best system OF COM
mon schools the world has ever seen,
and academies colleges and universi-
ties of high merit have sprung up on
| foundations of enormous private and
public wealth, to represent amazing
personal munificence and public spirit.
and to make us a nation of readers,
thinkers and orators Newspapers,
magazines, libraries and museums are
everywhere. Authorship, personal cul-
ture, scientific tastes and broadening
thought are no longer the gifts of the
very few. Good taste begins to appear
in the rudest architecture, the adorn
ment of cottages and the dress of even
the very poor. AS for religion, if we
may trust the ever expanding ratio of
I converts totals of communicates and
millions expended in home or mission
ary work, this, too takes a stronger
hold on the people. In theological out
| look there has been a sharpening of
vision and a widening horizon while in
| theological temper no one will deny
rare growth in charity. James Bryce
| in his great book, THE American Com
monwealth," uses these words: That
America marks the highest level not
only of material we'll being, but of intel
lgence and happiness which the race
has yet attained. will be the judgment
of those who look not at the favored
few, for whose benefit the world seems
| hitherto to have framed its institu-
| tions, but as the whole body of the
people
| All this has resulted primarily from
natural advantages. On the whole face
of the earth. excepting Europe and
China, these United States have no rival
in natural resources. Our shores are
inGented by fine harbors and enriched
| by priceless fisheries; our land is stored
with iron, coal, oil. gas and gold, and
traversed by natural water ways; and
| 50 blessed in climate and fertility is a
| large proportion of our area, that Doug
lass Jerrod's witticism describes exact
ly it's boundless productiveness. You
have but to tickle the soil with hoe
and it will laugh with a harvest"
But this broad, beautiful and bounti-
fu! domain needed worthy masters to
subject it to civilization. The fat val
leys, the rolling pastures, the fiowery
prairies, the broad rivers, the veins of
gold-bearing quartz and the golden
sand, the coal, the iron mines and the
fisheries all were here before our fathers
came and the lovely land from time i'm
memorial had been but the hunting
ground and battlefield of less than half
a million of naked savages. The ANA
zon Valley is rich beyond estimate in
resources and remains a swamp, dotted
here and there by pitiful hamlets of en-
ervated and indolent settlers. Mexico,
Central America, Java, Egypt and many
another garden of paradise abound in
possibilities-at waste. A great inheri-
tance is only squandered unless it fall
to heirs worthy of the blessing. Our
splendid domain came into the hands of
81 no less splendid race of men and wo
men. Doubtless a few profigate lord
lings of broken fortune. a few despera-
does, few tramps, drifted across the
Atlant1c, Dut, IN the MAIN, the lm1nl-
grants were of the middle class. and of
these the most hardy, adventurous and
resolute. Especially was this true of
the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the plan
ters of the Old Dominion, the Dutch of
New Amsterdam and the Puritans of
New England.
I am not unmindful of the humorous
side of that ancient simplicity. The
Quaker and his broadbrimmed hat, the
Knickerbocker and his knee breeqhes
and the Pilgrim Father praying through
his nose in a northeaster, have all suf-
fered at the hands of caricaturists.
Perhaps you have heard Of that fore
fathers day dinner in Boston some years
since, when one of the speakers COM
planned that too much had been said
about the Pilgrim Fathers. Quoth he,
II celebrate the Pilgrim Mothers; for
they had to stand, not only all tn hard
ships and sorrows the fathers under
went, they had also to endure the Pill
grim Fathers themselves"
The generations which succeeded
those brave and supplemented settlers,