The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-11

and loss, the blackness of sorrow and
despair. were unflinchingly faced, and
the years of strife endured: for in the
end the slave was freed. the union re-
stored and the mighty American repub-
lie placed once more as a helmeted
queen among nations.
We Have Our Tasks.
1--WE of this generation do not have
to face task such as that our faith
ers faced, but we have our tasks, and
woe to us If we fail to perform them.
we cannot, If we would play the part
of China, and be content to rot by
inches in isnoble ease within our Dor
ders, taking no interest in what goes
on beyond them sunk in a scrambling
commercialism needless of the higher
life. the life of aspiration, of toll and
risk; busying ourselves only with the
wants of our bodies for the day: until
suddenly we find, beyond shadow of
question, what China has already
found. that in this world the nation
that has trained itself to career of
unwarlike and isolated case is bound in
the end to go down before other nations
which have not lost the manly and adj
venturous qualities. If we are to be a
really great people, we must strive in
good faith to play a great part in the
world. We cannot avoid meeting great
issues. All that we can determine for
ourselves is, whether we snail meet
them we'll or ill., Last year we could
not help being brought face to face
with the problem of war with Spain.
All we could decide was whether we
should shrink like towards from the
contest. or enter into it as beseemed
brave and high-spirited people, and,
once in, whether failure or success
.1rt1 Ia Ns,.. In, "a
We cannot avoid the responsibilities
that confront us in Hawaii, Cuba. Por-
to Rico and the Philippines. All we
can divine is whether we shall meet
them in way that will rebound to the
national credit. or whether we shall
make Of our dealings with these new
problems dark and shameful page in
our history. To refuse to deal with
them at all merely amounts to dealing
with them badly. We have given
problem to solve If we under
take the solution, there is of course.
always danger that we may not
solve it Alright; but to refuse to under
take the solution simply renders it GER
tain that we cannot possible solve it
Alright The timid man, the lazy man,
the man who distrusts his country, the
over-civiized man who has lost the
great fighting, masterful virtues, the
ignorant man and the man of dull
mind. whose soul is incapable of feel
ing the mighty lift that thrills stern
men with empires in their brains-all
these of course shrink from seeing the
nation undertakes its new duties:
shrink from seeing us build navy and
army adequate to our needs; shrink
from seeing us do our share of the
worlds work, by bringing order out of
chaos in the great, fair tropic islands
from which the valor of our soldiers
These are the men who fear the siren
uous. life, who fear the only national
life which is really worth leading. They
believe in that cloistered life which saps
the hardy virtues in nation, as it saps
them in the Individual: or else they are
welded to that base spirit of gain and
greed which recognizes in commercial
ism the be-all and end-all of national
life, instead of realizing that though
an Indispensable element. 1T is after all
but one of the many elements that go
to make up true national greatness. No
country can long endure if it's fOunda-
tons are not laid deep in the material
prosperity which comes from thrift,
from business y energy and enter
prise, from hard unsparing effort
in the field of industrial activity: but
neither was any nation ever vet truly
great if it relied upon material pros
pe1-ity alone. All honor must be paid
to the architects of our material pros
perity: to the great captains of indus
try who have built our factories and
our railroads; to the strong men who
toll for wealth with brain or hand; for
great is the debt of the nation to these
and their kind. But our debt is yet
greater to the men whose highest type
is TO be found in statesman like Lin
coin, a soldier like Grant. They showed
by their lives that they recognized the
law of work, the law of strife; they
toiled to win a competence for them
selves and those dependent upon them,
but they recognized that there We're yet
other and even loftier ,dutes-duties to
the nation and duties to the race.
I'VE cannot sit huddled within our
borders and aVow ourselves merely an
assembage of well-to-do hucksters who
care nothing for what happens beyond.
Such a policy would defeat even its
own end; for as the nations grow to
have ever wider and wider interests
and are brought into closer and closer
contact, If we are to. hold our own in
the struggle for naval and commercial
supremacy, we must build up our pow
er without our own borders. We must
build the isthmian canal, and we must
grasp the points of vantage which will
enable US to have our say in deciding
the destiny of the oceans of the east
and the west.
international Honor.
$50 much for the commercial side
From the standpoint of International
honor, the argument is even stronger
The guns that Numbered off Manila
and Santiago left us echoes of glory,
but they also left us a legacy of duty.
IF we drove out a medieval tyranny
only to make room for savage anarchy,
we had better not have begun the task
at all. 1t is worse than idle to say
that we have no duty ito perform ana
can leave to their fates the islands we
have conquered. Such a course would
be the course of infamy. 1t would be
followed at once by utter chaos in the
wretched islands themselves. Some
stronger, manler power would have to
step in and do the work; and we would
have shown ourselves weaklings, I'M
able to carry to successful completion
the labors that great and highs spirited
nations are eager to undertake.
THE work must be done. We cannot
escape our responsibility, and if We are
worth our salt we shall be glad of the