The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-05

Nearly every struggle III Hu1lldli lllsloiS
has Involved the principle of freedom.
| Men have been ready to lay down their
lives for it, though having often the
most imperfect notion of what true
freedom meant. In search of it, they
have left home and country, Drawing
the dangers of unknown seas. There
are no mountains too high, no seas too
wide. if beyond hem the human heart
can find freedom.
I'VE may look back to-day over al
most 10 centuries since the Christ pro-
claimed the source of true liberty and
yet men are not agreed as to what the
basis of liberty is. In His day there
We're many theories, but history fails
to show any instance before His time
in which ruler of people had any true
notion of liberty Ever and anon, from
behind the thick clouds of tyranny
and oppression, there came flash of
sunlight as some great spirit spoke his
message to an age that comprehended
it not. Oh, how black the shadows
that have fallen upon the centuries as
man has struggled from savagery and
barbarism to civilization! Wherever
liberty has found a standing place, you
may find the skulking form of tyranny
shadoWins every step of human prog
Tess.
"A flash of the sunlight fell upon an
through the power of a great ideal. She
recognized in some degree the truth
regarding human liberty and the worth
of the man and her great men were
more to her than the greatest triumph
of genius. During those centuries the
achievements of Greece in science,
philosophy, literature and art must ever
command the admiration of men. But,
above all else. it was manhood in
Nir-nI INV Is yrht
Greece immortal. She fell from her
high estate-the ideal that ennobled her
had vanished. Her skies are as blue
and her crags as wild; her groves are
as sweet and her fields as green as when
Byron sang. Nature is still as fair
as of old, but her ideals of art and
glory and freedom have failed. 1t is a
law of life that higher attainments
must be reached through struggle and
conflict. and, having attained them,
they must be held in the same way.
Vigilance is the price that must be paid
for liberty and everything that is worth
having or keeping.
THE fitful, uncertain progress of hui
mainly to higher degrees of life has
been the outcome of a struggle to reach
some ideal. With what anxiety we
watched the struggle of the last year
with Spain. It was a part of the ire
pressible conflict which has been going
on through the centuries. Spain has
never known the meaning of liberty.
Three centuries ago she stood in the
forefront among the nations. The new
world, with its boundless resources, lay
at her feet. Her galleons poured
streams of gold and silver into her
treasury but it debauched her kings
and mobiles and clergy. Ignorance, pow
erty and superstition joined together TO
| degrade the people. Spain has dreamed
away centuries of great opportunity.
IInslaved and paralyzed by sordid greed
| and base ideals, she is Keeling into re-
! pudiation and chaos. She conquered to
| plumber and not to coloniZe and when
| the cup of her iniquity was full the God
of battles chose America to deliver the
oppressed people from her incarnate
| cruelty
The time was when cruelty and OPP
preston We're the rule and not the eX-
| ception. but a brighter era has dawned
| and the spirit of the Christ is making
itself felt in the intercourse of nations
There is a God in history; there are
| great ethical forces and principles: and
| tragedy in national or individual life is
| inevitable when the nation or the man
comes into conflict with them. When
Christ said I bring not peace but a
| sword, He meant just that thing Ris-
| ing to great and noble ideals, living in
harmony with the ethical laws which
pervade the universe, the nation or the
| man is free; but base ideals and con-
| fiict with those ethical laws. and the
nation or the man is enslaved. Let us
not imagine that we can escape the
law of gravitaton. Can you stop the
| currents of life that are sweeping
| through the universe? Can you change
| a single law of nature? When there is
a conflict with moral or natural law
there is tragedy and the might of
| Drawn or brain cannot ward it off for a
| single moment.
Let us understand what the strug-
gle means nor imagine we can shirk or
| evade the responsibility which high
| heaven imposes. Further, let US rot
| imagine, because we have become the
| advocate of the weak and the cppres sc
that our own liberties are absolutely
! safe. The same causes Whir,.I brought
| Spain from her place If i'oWer ami do
| miniOn on land and sea are at work
| among us. only in a less degree. Cor
| ruption has eaten the heart out Of
| Spanish administration. 1t will do the
| same in American administration. 1t
| has bred among Spaniards incompe-
| tency, weakness, moral paralysis-it
| will do the same among US. We have
| come to an epoch in our national his
tory. We are coming face to face with
new conditions. If we would be faith
full to our trust we must give to the
nation men and women strong and noble
and pure. We believe in education. but
how often we have seen it combined
with base and sordid desires and appe-
titles, making the possessor a curse tC
society Every such citizen is a menace
to our social life. We rejoice in the
fact that education is so free in this
land that the poorest may enjoy its
benefits, but it must fail of its object
if it be not consecrated to high anC
holy ideals and purposes.
"A late writer believes that men have
discussed social questions with preju
dice. ignoring too much the religious
element in social and individual life
and it may be true in education. L
the ethical and religious elements art
lost sight of it may defeat the very pur
pose for which it was designed A rea
danger threatens us always. 1t invade:
the home and the school and the
church 1t permeates the state likt
| leprOSy. 1t consumes the real life of re
ligion like a cancer. 1t stretches it:
roots and tendrils around the vitals .