The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-01-21

ting his second wind, and reminded of
his younger days, should turn over the
pages of his American Songster and
read or chant the familiar refrain:
Sound th e bold anthem-war dogs are
howling-
Proud bird of liberty screams through the
air ~
Forgive the seeming levlty. 1 do not
mean to be flippant, or to deal lightly
with serious things. My carbine is not
loaded. 1t is merely an old flint-lock.
If I cling with a kind of affectionate
tenacity to that which was rude in ma
ture and crude in art, and is somewhat
out of touch with the refinements of
modern life, I do not fail to mark the
progress of events.
1t is for you gentlemen, to set the
pace. If the intellect and the aspiration
of the country insist upon placing the
amassing of riches above all other con-
siderations, leaving the administration
of the public business in the hands of
icharacterless or incompetent men, who,
though ill-paid, are overpaid, you need
not be surprised if the dregs of society
should begin to say, ''Since statesmen
come so cheap, why not we?" If the
wealth of the country contents itself
with buying immunity from it's share of
responsibility in public affairs, relegat-
| ing it's political interests to mere at
| torneys in and out of congress, where
shall it look for security, when-having
| destroyed the popular conscience and
broken down in the popular mind the
partition separating right from wrong
-agrarianism rises in its might, and in
| turn tempting your attorneys with still
greater bribes demands it's share of the
1 Dillage?
| The characteristic virtues of the cor
poration are obliterated by the occa-
sional vices of the corporation in the
warped minds of the Disconnected.
The ostentatious display of wealth,
which no law can reach, tends greatly
| to augment both the discomfort and the
lcommunistic theories in which it is
1 laid. The ready access to legislation
| held by the rich and strong, and their
constant and fiagrant use of this, serve
as fuel to the flame of moral perversity.
| If the better elements of society are so
careless of moral obligations and public
appearances, why should we wonder
| that the worse elements--the morally
4
claim that what is sauce for the goose
must be sauce for the gander, and that,
having organized a raid of their own
upon the national capitol. they should
be justly indignant at being both
warned and forced to "keep off the
grass"
1t is your own fault, gentlemen, if
the government, falling in with your
own standards, fails to attain the ideal.
l am no Cassandra.
4 On the contrary, | believe that we
are upon the ascending, not the de-
scending, scale of national development
and that there are yet glories in store
for us as a nation and as a people But
1T requires no seer to predict that If
you do not set and keep your house in
order--if the custodians of the nations
accretions, not only of wealth, but of
culture, and these moulders of public
opinion, whose position gives them so
great an authority, do not take from
the long-haired demagogue every Illus
tration of his claim of class distinction
If they do not stop mo king money
long enough to consider as wise econo-
mists just systems of taxation--if they
; go on nuSSlflS, dloIlS WIN tIielF TlcHes,
the delusion that when the danger line
is reached, they can buy the election
it is only question of time when the
hordes of diorder, taking advantage of
some one of the years of famine which
periodically visit u.s. and sufficiently or,
ganized and capably led, will sweep
over the conservative barriers that now
restrain them.
Then we shalt see done ruthlessly by
the hands of the mob-perhaps at the
ultimate cost of free institutions-wha
had been better done if committed in
time to the hands of statesmen.
Just policies, directed by wise men,
never yet failed of their mark, the glo-
ry of nations and the good Of human
kind, and they never will. 1t is for
this noble city to lead the way; it is for
you, gentlemen, who represent so great
a part of its wealth and worth, to say
the word: and as surely as the night
follows the day, the rest of us will fol-
low after.