The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1899-07-04

greatest U m D +,
making government the engine rather than
the lash and terror of the people, was
nourished in those dim Teutonic forests
where ,ur ancestors hurled defiance at the
Roman legions, and died for the preserva-
ton of their ancient privileges. In its fee
BILE childhood it needed isolation for its de-
velopment, and was transplanted by the
hand that guides history to that mist-girdled
island, where institutional government had
an unbroken growth until the rights of the
people at last came into conflict with an
alien kingly authority, and upon the field of
Runnymede the vindication of the claim of
the common man to life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness was maintained by sturdy
blows and doughty deeds.
In this crucial year of our nations his
tory, a year that marks the departure from
the policy that for century has guided our
lawmakers and statesmen, our thoughts re-
cur more and more to the history of liberty,
and we draw lessons from the progress of
free government in the civilization of the
world. Our banner has been planted upon
the far-away islands of the Pacific and upon
the beautiful tropic lands of the southern
seas, as message to the world that the
rights of man shall triumph over the wrongs
of tyranny, and that iberty's circle is not
complete until the world is girdled
Those who stand in the way of civilization
must go down before the forces of progress.
This is the dictum of the ages, and cruel
though it may sound to those whose view Of
history is blinded by the white light Of our
own day, the survival Of the fittest is ma
lures law.
In reviewing Americas share in the
worlds civilization, the coolest heart must
ho hill Cd he rxi1 ho,~ loo Il
the grandeur of the position achieved by
adherence to exalted ideals. While carving
out for themselves homes in the wilderness,
the American colonists laid deep and broad
the foundations of nation whose princi-
Piles of individual right are almost identical
with those of our Teutonic ancestors, and
may thus justly claim to be the fruit Of
Anglo-Saxon ideas.
1t was this spirit of individualism that
brought forth the soldiers and statesmen of
the war of independence. The democracy
that strove for the recognition of the right
of the common man at Runnymede found
worthy successors in men who fought at
Bunker Hill to preserve liberty. Transplant
ed to American soil, the seed of freedom
sent out hopes that took root in the worlds
consciousness, and European constitution
alism, as well as American liberty, was the
fruition.
In its infancy, democracy was content to
maintain the integrity of the territory of the
western continent, and to assert that Eu-
ropean monarchy should be denied the
privilege of aggression thereon. In its
manhood this same democracy recognizes its
duty and responsibility in the moral uplift
of mankind and the dissemination of that
Christian civilization, in which its own
strength rests.
The brain of democracy evolved the
myriad devices that have enfranchised labor
by procuring for it leisure for self-cultiva-
ton. 1t brought forth the telegraph and
the applications of steam, and has made all
men brothers by thus bringing them into
close communion. 1t has swept the cob
webs of tradition from church and state, and
has made itself the recognized power in
commerce and science. In little more than
hundred years it has become the leader of
the worlds wealth, but conscious of its great
destiny it is not content to rest upon its
laurels nor pause in its endeavor.
Sensible of its solemn obligation to its
own people and to those new peoples whose
fate is within its keeping, conscious Of the
loyalty of its great thinking effective masses,
America faces the future fearlessly and with
an unfaltering trust in the Most High God
who holds the nations in His hand and has
allotted each, since time began, their work
in perfecting man and making him worthy
of an immortal soul. LOU v. CHAPLIN.