New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1897-09-29
m, ,WEDNEsDAY,s 1897 WHoIENUl1BER oa7.

E,MBER 29, 1897 VII
break down all tyranny and destroy all
letters that bind or restrict men from
achieving their very best. But Hermann,
when he formed the German confeder-
.acy and broke the Roman power On the
farther side Of the Rhine, was an expon-
ent of the modern idea Of freedom. He;
organized ana led the free commoners
among his countrymen against aristo-
cratic oppression. He conceived the.
great idea Of ehecting the unity Of all
German nations on q democratic founda-
ton Of body of free citizens. To him
this dream of unity and freedom for his
people was vastly more than place or
power-yea more than home or wife or
kindred. Our hearts grow warm to him
as we read the story Of his unselfsh love
for his wife, the beautiful and unfortu-
nate Thesnelda. Those hearts are also
touched with pity for him and for her
when the treachery Of her father conl4
pelled him to choose between love of
wife and child and love for fatherland-
for the liberty and unity Of his German
kindred and nation. Because Hermann
grasped the great idea Of the unity of
the German race or the democratic idea
Fof free body Of citizens, he was able to
accomplish much '.He freed Germany"
as our historian has expressed it, .sfrom
external enemies, and preserved from de-
struction German speech, German GUS
toms, German laws, which. without him
would have vanished, absorbed in the
nationality Of Rome. Without him, peo-
pie and country would have been Roman
lied, like SO many other countries and
nations"
This fact, thus recorded, doubtless
means much to every man il this land,
whether he calls Germany or ,,,,land or
other nation his original fatherlaad. The
preservation by Hermann of the free in
stitutione of Germany and the language
of the people from Roman influence,
preserved the spark Of liberty which the
Angles and Saxons and Jutes and the
other Teutonic trlbesmen later took with
them to light their altar fires in Great
Britain. Hence, it is that the free In
stitutions and the love of liberty which
our fathers bore hither from Great Brit
ian, from Germany or from Holland, is
in some way the embodiment of the free
dom for which Hermann struggled in
his conflict with Rome and with the
aristocratic elements of his own people.
Here, then, is one reason why that old
victory of Hermann has its lessons to be
fostered and preserved in the United
States. s.
Every man should learn how liberty
and freedom had to be fought for and
won on other battieields than those To-
Gated in the United States. Our free in
stitutions are plants Of slow growth.
We are a free people, not merely. nor
mainly because our fathers were ready
to dare and to to die at Bunker Hill and
Monmouth, in Valley Forge and before
Yorktown, but also because their fathers
in their turn were ready to resist the ag-
gressions of Charles and John on Mars
ton Moor and at Runymede; yes, furth-
er, because those with Hermann could
fight for unity of race and language and
free institutions in the old forests where
Varus and the Roman legion were swept
to destruction before united and free
people.
The story Of one brave deed for lber-
Ity does not suffice to feed the hunger Of
the human race for freedom. We must
tell our children and our children's chill
dren the story of the heroes Of every
land and every time who have given their
lives, that liberty and fraternity and
equality might survive among meny mo
better story Of liberty loving can be found
than that OF old Hermann whose victory
over the arms Of tyranny is commemo-
rated BY this monument that stands be-
fore US.
The common people are coming more
and more into the control Of the desti-
nies Of the nations. The plain farmers,
the lumbermen, the city toilers, sll aliks
are looking for somelhing better, and
ask that the government shall be admin
istered a their Interests and NOT ID that
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