St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1898-10-05
Depew at His Best.

~PSW at lib DecLs
In nominating Col. Theodore Roose.
velt for governor of New York last week
Tuesday Chauncey M. Depew made one
ofhis most eloquent and patriotic address
ses. We give the opening words OF the
speech.
Not since 1868 has the republican par
~ metin convention when the conditions
OF the country were so interesting or so
critical. Then the Emancipation Pro-
clamation OF President Lincoln, giving
freedom and citizenship to four million
OF slaves, brought about revolution in
the internal policy of our government
which seemed to multitudes of patriotic
men iull OF the gravest dangers to the
republic. The effect of the situation was
the sudden and violent sundering of the
ties which bound the past to the present
and the future. New problems were pre-
cipitated upon our statesmen to solve,
winch were not to be found in the text
books of the schools nor in the manuals
or traditions of Congress. The one
courageous, constructive party which
our politics has known for half CEN
fury solved those problems so success
fully that the regenerated and Olsen.
thraled republic has grown and pros.
pered under this new birth OF liberty be-
yond all precedent and every prediction.
We gather fresh inspiration and hope
from our tasks when the assembled rep
resentatives of this splendid and historic
organization recall the names and vener-
ate the memory of the brilliant republi-
can statesmen Of the war, of reconstruc-
ton and OF national Development. Lin
coin and Grant, Seward and Chase
Thaddeus Stevens and James G. Blaine
though dead, yet speak most eloquently
in measures which have made our coun-
try prosperous and in policies which
have given it worldwide power.
Now, as then, the unexpected has hap
pened. The widest dream ever born of
the imagination of the most optimistic
believer in our destiny could not forsee
when Mckinley was elected two years
ago the onrushing torrent of events of
the last three months. We are either to
be submerged by this break in the dykes
erected by Washington about our gov.
eminent, or we are to find by the wise
utilization OF the conditions forced upon
us how to be safer and stronger within
our boundaries, and to add intellectually
to American enterprise and opportunity
by becoming masters of the sea and en-
tering with the surplus of our manufac-
lures the markets OF the world. We can
not retreat or hide. We must ride the
xxrc f1,a A
has been fought and won, and vast pos
sessions, new and far away, have been
acquired. In the short space OF one hun
dred and thirteen days politicians and
parties have been forced to meet new
questions and to take sides upon start
ling issues. The face OF the world has
been changed. The maps of yesterday
are obsolete. Columbus, looking for the
Orient and its tabled treasures, sailed
four hundred years ago into the land
locked harbor of Santiago, and today
his spirit sees his bones resting under the
flag of a new and great country which
has found the way and conquered the
outposts, and is knocking at the door OIL
the further east.
The times require constructive states.
men. As in 1776 and 1865, we need
architects and builders. We have but
one school for their training and educa
ton, and that school is the republican
party. Our republican administration
upon which tremendous responsibility
rests, must have republican congress.
for its support in the next two years
two years OF transcendent Importance tc
our future. New York. imperial among
her sister states in all which makes @
great commonwealth, is still the pivota
state in our national contests. We, the
delegates here assembled, have very
serious duty in so acting as to keep tht
old state and her congressional delega
ton in the republican column. Our
thought, and our absorbing anxiety, is
with whom as standard bearer can we
most favorably present to the people
these new and vital issues, the position
of the republican party and the necessity
of the country that it should receive the
approval of the country. Friends and
enemies alike join in the general satisfac
tion with the wisdom, sagacity and
craftsmanship of President Mckinley.
Until three months ago to succeed we
would have had to satisfy the voters o
the soundness and wisdom OF our posi-
ton on these questions. The carolina
principles OF the republican policy will b.
the platform of this canvass and of fu
ture ones. But at this juncture thu
people have temporarily put everything
else aside and are applying their whole
thought to the war with Spain aud it.
consequences. We believe that they
think and will vote that our war with
Spain was just and righteous. We can
not yet say that American constituencies
have settled convictions on territorial
expansion and the government of dis
tant islands and alien races. We, car
say that republican opinion glories ii
| our yict ories and follows the flag.