Marshall County independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1897-1902, 1899-01-20

Inc Indianapolis S6DtlDel or w eOnoS
day stated that resolution was intro
duced in the State senate urging the
United States senators to vote for the
ratification of the Spanish treaty. 1t
then added that Senator DrummOnd of
Marshall county continued the outpour
of hot shot into the republican ranks
as follows:
alt is not at all likely that the adOp-
tion of this resolution by this assembly
will settle all the grave questions pre-
sented TO the American people as the
outcome of the war with Spain; but it
is challenge to every American patriot
here to speak.
ave are living in critical period of
our history. No graver questions have
arisen since the formation of our gov
ernment. We are standing at the forks
of the road. We may take the tried,
known and beaten path, travelled and
explored by patriotic feet from Y York-
town to Santiago; or we may take the
one unknown, untrled, unexpiored,
which leads somewhere, but whittier no
man knows.
"rhe ensign which we may clearly
descry is one OF invasion, lust of gain
and conquest, shrouded and mystified
by that elusive and capacious term Sex
psnsion.' Are We to be nation of
splnners and weavers, tlllers and hus-
bandmen, the champions of individual
sovereignty, or are We to beat plowshares
and pruning hooks in swords and spears
and hoist our grim visaged gOnfalOn to
the sky as challenge to the world and
march to war, conquest and Imperial
ism? Is the civil government to be lost
in the more alluring but fatal one of
military prestige and power? Are we
ln the end to repeat the scenes in Cam
pus Martius, where pretOrian guards
made and unmade rulers by lifting their
favOrite general upon shield and de-
claring him emperor?
"Emboldened by the easy defeat of
weak nation and careless of ultimate,
far reaching results, there are many
who would enter upon a pyrOtechnic
age of flash and fire and skyrockets, in
vasion, conquest and expansion abroad,
with monetary monopoly and cOntrac-
sO-called age OF prOgress-a business
mans era which in truth means an ex-
panded opportunity for syndicated mill
ions to enter new fields of conquest and
cupidity. And 1t is they who cry with
lungs of leather and throats of brass
that commerce must follow the flag,
and where the flag has rested its stand
ard there, also, must forever rest and
abide the heavy and greedy hand of all
the imperial strength and majesty of
these United States.
| "And, lending encouragement and
hope to this cry, the chief magistrate
of the United States recently asked the
grandlloquent question: Who will haul
down the flag?' What, may L ask, is
the flag?
"In its material parts it may be of
cotton, wool, satin or silk, barred in
stripes of red and white, set off with
stars. When first made by that patriotic
daughter of the revolution in every
stitch and hem it was the emblem of
the love of patriots for mans freedom
from the rule of kings, his humanity
to man and the cardinal principle that
government derives all its just powers
from the consent of the governed.
| There was not one thread of conquest
in bar or stripe or star. 1t was not
made as a banner OF war, with five
breathing dragons, but as symbol of
peace.
THAT IT MIGHT BE FREE.
"The young nation lifted it aloft to
the world that it might look upon it
and tie free. 1t was an announcement
| in red, white and blue, puDctuated with
thirteen stars, that in our quarter of
the globe the divine right of kings, des-
potism, civil and religious, were forever
dead, and that any attempt Dy any
king, despOt, prince or principality of
Europe to denOmiDate any free people
anywhere i'm the new world should be
deemed an act of hostility.
at is proposed in this age of progress
to convert the old flag into the new,
which shall bear a double symbol-the
one symbol that we are a warlike ma
tion, strutting the land and plOwing the
sea ready to quarrel any time anywhere;
the other symbol of commerce and
greed and spolistion. 1t is proposed to
blot out the Monroe doctrine, the policy
| and unwritten law of the republic recog-