Omaha daily bee., 1899-03-10
CHANGE PARIS TREATY YET
Senator 0afery's Strong Speech Before Mas
saohusetts Reform Club.
STAR OF EMPIRE LURES TO UTTER RUIN
Better Sense of American Republic
May Come to Rescue of Imper-
lied Nation Before IL is
Too Late.

! BOSTON. March 9-The members of the
Massachusetts Reform club had as their
guest at the regular monthly banquet to-
night Donelson Caffcry, senator from
Louisiana. The meeting was well attended.
Moorfeld Storey presided, Many portions
Of Senator CafTery's speech were loudly ap-
| plauded.
Senator Caffery spoke to the toast. "The
Duty of a Public Man--to Himself, to His
District or State and to His Country"
In part he said:
Duty and truth are synonymous in the
sense that Shakespeare uses them. Every
man erects an ideal standard to be guide
in the affairs of this world. When he s
true to that standard ho is true to himself.
If he is true to himself, true to the stand
ard of duty, he cannot be false to a private
trust or a public obligation. Our simple
minded ancestors left the shores of the old
world with the set purpose of living in
new world of freedom. They builded in
! the course of time a corner stone which
rests on the consent OF the governed. They
have into every state government erected
/ beneath the folds of their starry banner in
corporated this living principle Of self-Sov
eminent. They have widened their borders
so as TO embrace vast extent of practi-
cally Co-terminous territory, and erected 1t
into sovereign states where this sef-gov-
erning principle is recognized and enforced.
Principle of seIf-Government.
Not until the fires of liberty cease to burn,
not until our race forgets its inheritance of
freedom, not until that eternal vigilance,
which is its price, sleeps on its post and be
drugged with Imperialism and expansion
and all the parasites and crawling things of
| tyranny and empire, will this energizing
essential vital principle leave our breast
and cease O he the guiding principle of
republic
When that time comes. Mr. Chairman. let
the destiny that overtakes the degenerate,
the power loving, the worshippers Of Mann
mon. the followers of Moloch Overtake us
as surely 1t will oyertake us. The princi-
pie of self government is our coliseum.
While it stands our republic shall stand,
when it falls liberty shall! perish from the
earth.
1t is left sir, in the closing hours of the
Nineteenth century, to clothe tyranny and
criminal aggression in the cast-off clothes
of Asiatic and Egyptian fatalism.
Are we to take for the guide of our ma
tional life the enlightened factor of a living
human conscience or the dark counsel of
dead fatalism? Shall censure and free will
both be bound in the chain of destiny?
All, sir. the star of empire has lured con-
querors and states to ruin. 1t is not too
late to repair the wrong of the treaty OF
Paris. The better sense of the American
people, not the promoters, the jobbers, the
franchise hunters, the plaCemen, the search
ers after glory may come to the rescue of
our imperiled institutions. God grant they
may come soon.
The duty of the legislator to his state
and to his country consists, first in squaIing
every act and vote with the oonst.. .dLion
which he is sworn to support. Second, in
performing every duty, giving every vote in
national legislation under the sanction and
approval of an honest conviction Of right.
Neither fattery nor threats, nor censure
must swerve him from the right-his party
may condemn, conventions may secure,
friends and enemies alike may try to per-
suade, but conscience and judgment must
rule.
Moral Cowardice n Curse.
The curse of any free country is moral
cowardice in its representatives. sign of
evil portent on the part of constituencies
ruled by machines and bosses is a DISPOSE
tion TO make cheats and hypocrites of their
representatives Instead of striking out
boldly for principle and right, many basely
pander to error and the doctrine for place
and pelf. The power of the machine is
smothering the voice of the people and
claiming the representative to the chariot
of the boss as slave to do his bidding.
Not long can representative hold posi-
tion against the public disapproval of his
views. The remedy is in the hands of the
constituencies. An honest constituency will
have an honest representative. His duty
to it and to himself is to follow his con-
yictions.
Parties have no more right to coerce po-
litCal conscience than hierarchy of bish-
ops has to coerce the religious conscience.
Luther did not become an outcast when he
defed Rome. Nor can democrat or a re-
publican or a populist be read out of his po-
litcal creed by the anathema of a political
organization.
Independence OF judgment and courage to
follow conscience are the shadow of great
rock in wilderness Of servlity to party
diCtation.
Imperialst expansion and other like fol-
lies and crimes may come and go, but the
republic Will survive. Let the demands Of
duty fall on public men unheeded and dis
regarded and the republic is gone forever.
Charles Francis Adams followed in the
same vein and in the course OF his remarks
spoke feelingly of the tribute recently paid
to Carl Schurz at the banquet in honor of
his birthday at New York.
A number of other members of the club
discussed the future policy of the govern