The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1897-04-08
the CRUSADE OF the AGES.
A Eik6ik6. THRILLING ADDRESS eV A
, YOUNG WAKE FOREST STUDENT.
Isidsse& That some Coming N~s Are
.
G~siIag Kssdy to M-.t the Great Prob.
i~ms Belief 1hss tho sp'r,i Of Jassir-
Lives and W iii Prevat.

lena beitef hss tho spirit OF ash~~
Lives aud win Prevail.
90 February 2and, Mr. Robert \.
Simms, a student of wake Forest Col
Iege, delivered an anniversary orAtion'
the subject being, THE Crusace of the
Ages" was As fellows:
LADIES ASD GESTLENEs w hen my
friend. in announcing my subject
mentioned the name crusade. your
nit ds. of course, instantly reverted 10
what are known IN history as the cru
sades. Those magnificent movements
of console nt,ous men against The inf
del Turk originated, and therefore
have u prior claim Upon, the name cru
sade. But in the nine hundred years
intervening since that time, the name
has been gwen TO many move, and
sometimes. alas has been detased. A
worldwide movement for political
liberty was crusade: so WAS no move
ment for the publication IL the one
city of New York, led bS "our Tom"
Of course. and incidentally. DR.. Park
hurst, The buster in behalf oI the
imagi cary right Of woman ID be 10
better than man, and To paddle with
him 10 the mud-puddle OF politics. was
called crusade: while the heaven
born movement against human slavery
received but the same name. OF the
many movements that have been thus
called, some have ended badly, Others
have had noble results. The accom-
plishments range all Of the way from
the realization of human liberty down,
down to the creation of the new wo-
man"-that thing that belongs neither
n N ho aaPt IA
beneath-remainder waters under the
earth: that ls, of neither the mascu-
line, the feminine, nor yet the neuter
gender--having neither the gentl-ness
| of a woman, por the manliness of a
man. and being utterly devoid OF the
passivity of a neutef; that is neverthe-
| less so pardon the wOrda and let me use
it, devilish worldly wis., that, knowing
the advantage which a good name
gives, it has seized urOn and appropri-
ated to its besmirched self that name
which, when not thus defiled, tokens
what is purest and nOblest in Gods
creation--the name woman.
| | believe it was Abraham Lincoln
who once said that God must love the
common people; that he was sure that
God loved the common people, because
He made so many of them. Now am
not sure that it was Lincoln who said
that, but it doesn't matter as to that
fact now. The logic of the staten INT
is invincible, and so tonight am GO
ing to speak to you of those great COM
mon people whom God loves.
| Those of us who are young men now
have to face the coming of mighty
crisis. We shall have to live the lives
of men amid conditions to which our
: fathers were never subjected. And |
might add, that those who are young
women now will have 20 take very
vital part in this same crisis. The time
IS now upon US when women, if they
would fill the sphere which their Gre
atOr has ordained they should, even
though they be of the blessed type of
: home women. must know something at
) least of the political, the social. and
the economic conditions which sur
round them. North Carolina has not
: produced, and will not produce, a
:, Belvy Lockwood, or Mrs. Lease-and
= am glad of it; but the time ever has
, been. and now is, when her women
dared do all that doth become theiI
kind, when they were content with nc
smaller sphere--because they recognize
! that there is no greater, noble one
4 than that of being helps meet for mer
, in their struggle for the right. A
9 every period Of her history--all of th'
way from the time of those noble wO
- men of Edenton who pledged them
! selves to drink no more of England1
g tea, whose buying made their husband
d slaves, down to the times of the heroic
o ness of the Revolutionary and Civi
t Wars. who, even though they stayed b.
the firesides (where, alas! there was 81
% often no fire to burn), suffered yet ia
more at the homesteads than did tn
y men upon the fields of gOre-NOrtl
. Carolina has ever had daughters in he
Q quiet homes who were ready and ab'
n to hold up the hands of her sons il
It every noble work. And this, by th
n way, is the reason she has given NOR
i men to die the noble soldiers deaf
than any other State in the L nion. Tn
:: question now is, How will her wOme
% respond today?
Strarge forces are at work arOun
m US. Ours is period of intense unrest.
s. perhaps the unrest Of coming daw,
il but certainly the unrest of an imme
!, diate storm. What is there beneath
- - all? There is the great movement {
- the mass of humanity after better ei
" tate. That is the crusade ages-old, an
q is the one of which speak. Men hay
lp termed it at times the crusade of POI
ID erty against wealth, aud to the super
Id fetal observer the name has perbaI
s. seemed justifiable. Oftenest in its hi
IL tory the movement has displayed
- self, to the usual observer, on the pa
- of the humble, poorer class, in an
'ie tack on those who possessed mu(
IN wealth. But to him who studies VII
nd heart as we'll as head, it must ever ha
nit been evident that all of this tumG
.er has not been caused by mere strugg
us between the more fortunate and q
+o less favored followers of MammO
Down beneath it all, and mingled wi
it all, there has been the myria
'o- tongued voice of human suffering; a
ire behind it all, and urging it all on, the
has been, on the side of humanity,
so response to its cry of distress, the gre
so hand of Him who cannot be served
Nv gether with Mammon.
no Let's notice two or three of the ml
- lifestations of this movement in Q
own land, in order best TO catch
-, Lno central truth.
Ill, l need not elaborate to you I
Wn causes of the birth of our labor Orgs
it izatioDs. You know how our great
dustries began to fall into the clu,
ent of that demon born thing, monOpo
len Ou KNOW now TIE Steog st1pies
necessafies of life found themsef
caught in its all-embracing grasp. y
So know how it ever widened the reach
utn its power until 1t had its hs
We upon everything that God had pla'
We in the wOrM to minister to hun
ats. want. And then you know how ca
rab tai went on. with its aggressions q
,re. having prostituted our judiciary, b
we dicapped our political system, 1
ach n ;n,stnro ~ " tt;n~ ~ mocLerr for
the worId II .entre5ched itself behind
deepening powers aud privile
'ays which government gave it, and
countless ramparts of its mOney-b,
rom and opposed to the vague but carr
the onset OF the people, tne power OF
and tfalneo pn1iAnA ahu 'ae consc.ence .