The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-03-20

NEW YORK. March 19.-Ths is the
anniversary of the downfall of Lord
North's ministry, and tonight, mark
ing the occasion, the Empire State So
clety OF the Sons Of the American Rev.
oiutlon sat at their annual banquet in
this city.H Il
casion was the address Of the president
OF the society,", Chauncey M. Depew.
VINO took occasion to make reference
TO Spain and her methods of colonial
government. Mr.. Depew's address was
opened by reference to modern criti-
clsm OF ancestral trees upon American
soil. and with a defense of the honest
pride which he felt should be MAIN
tanned by every American whose an
cestors for generations had not only
escaped being hung, or jailed, or men,
Dersh1p In any poorhOuse, but who had,
In their several periods. done their part
as self-supporting citizens for their
nelghborhood, their colony, their state
and their country.
Mr.. Depew then said
IN lfS2 two boys were born, who were
of fS' ther to influence beyond any other men
world and the happiness ' Of the - human IAN
race; One had al the advantages that birth,
SuuCdLlON anu position would give
him in Great Britain. and the other had
the same opportunities in tho new world.
one. by education. habits of mind and as
s s embodes, the spirit Of the past,
the ether. the awakened spirit of the age
Inc one was Lord North, the other George
Washington.
Lord North was believer in the au:ccratIc
authority of the middle ages. Washington
Dreathed the air Of freedom in the fields and
the Forests of the new world. In the order
ing OF the great events of the period. Lord
ID
yves, become the most dangerous of reyolu-
t!onists while Washington, the leader of
the revolution, became the embodiment of
conservatism.
SPANS Error.
One power alone in Europe sympathized
with Lord North and George III. in their
attack upon the rights of the American
people, one power alone in Europe held off
TILL the last-until long after Great Britain
hersef had acted-in the recognition Of the
independence of the United States.
That power was Spain. She had at that
time the most magnificent Of colonial en-
pires; she possessed nearly one-half, and
the most productive half, of the continent
OF North America, the whole Of the 18TH
mus OF Darien, the whole of South Amer
ica and nearly all the islands of the ad-
Joining seas She feared that the example
or the American Revolution would sDread
to her own colonies.
Had she learned the lesson of the Amer
lean revolution she might still have been
an imperial power That lesson Of he
American Revolution in colonial empire
was nome rule and self-government for the
people OF the colonies and the working of
tneir own destinies according to the con-
dltlons OF the country in which they lived
and the surroundings
Spain has persistently chung to the ideas
OF LORD North. and, worse than that, to
the Roman pro-cQpsular system, which
reeQgn!zsd prosperous colonies only as 6p-
portunities for the rapacity of imperial
rulers. The spirit of the age has broken
her power, has wrested from her her mar
Vicious possessions. and has reduced the
empire OF quarter of the globe to a few
Islands in the Atlantic and the Pacific
Too late she recognizes, when all is lost
in Cuba, the folly of her past and of her
present. With the independence of Cuba
VIII disappear from the face of the earth
the last remnant of that kind of power
which was represented by Lord North and
fell with his ministry