The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-05-17
A GROWING NATION.


The Outlook
/ suppose some Of you, at least, may
smile If / suggest that our politics afford
some very encourag ing indications of up
ward tendencies in American life. 1t is true
that If we were to trust the party press
We should believe that the Nation is di-
vided into two parties nearly equally
matched and equally bad; the Republican
papers are sure that the Democrats are
fools or knaves. and the Democratic papers
are sure that the Republicans are fools or
knaves. Nevertheless, what splendid
educational effect great political cam
paign producesi There are hundreds of
thousands of men who scarcely knew what
the word currency" meant ten years
ago, who know more about bimetallism
to-day that some bankers knew ten years
ago. The very fact that this question.
whether we should have gold or silver or
gold and silver. was thrown upon the
country and made a subject on which the
country must itself pass it's own judy
ment. compelled us to study. All through
the West there were night schools organ
lied by both parties; not very scientific.
grant you, not very wisely organized, not
very well taught. Nevertheless, the way to
develop judgment is to exercise Judgment
and men who had not much financial
judgment, by the exercising of it, grew in
wisdom.
Let us not think that the American peo-
pie are to be measured by the careless or
the passionate or the hysterical utterances
which now and then are thrown out.
do not think We really do make that mis-
take. We take our paper and We read on
one page some man afrirming that the Tit
tie Napoleon who is in the presidential
chair is undertaking 10 wreck the Ameri-
can Republic and rear upon 1T the ruins
of a Roman empire, and then we turn to
the next column and We find another man
accusing the honored senator of this State
of treason because he does not hold the
opinions of his young censor; and We shrug
our shoulders. partly with amusement,
partly with Indignation, at this hysteria,
which is not one of the encouraging signs
of American life, and turn over to read
something better worth reading. For, gen.
tlemen, these are not the utterances that
appeal to the conscience or to the intelli-
gence or to the thought Of America. Thou
sands of Americans have been looking
into the Constitution, and into the Declara-
ton of Independence, and into the history
OF the past, and have been relearning the
principles of America, and have been
relearning how to apply those principles
in the future course of this Nation. We
weary of the perpetual recurrence of
these problems; We sometimes long for
peaceful and quiet time; but, gentle
men, you in your profession do for your
pupils what God does for us--when your
boy does a sum, and gets 1t right, you rub
1t out and give him harder one to do
next time.
/ do not see how any man can look
back over the history of the last hundred
years and not see that this Nation not
only has made progress, but has made
progress absolutely without parallel, ex-
cept possibly it be in the history of Great
Britain, which is well-nigh as democratic
as we are. There is still corruption, still
d.shonor, still many a shameful deed, but,
none the less, look at the history! Have
We made no progress in civfl-service re-
form since the days of Abraham Lincoln?
No progress in public education within the
last quarter century? Have we solved no
the slave, and yet preserved our Consti-
tuition unbroken; we have widened our Ma
ton until 1t extends from ocean to ocean;
and now already our flag flies over distant
lands, to carry. If we are true to our Amer
lean principles, our American traditions,
and our American life, the liberty which
that flag has carried wherever ii has gone.
We are not decaying nation, we are a
living and growing nation. Compare Amer
lea with England, with Germany, with
France, with Austria. with Italy, and tell
me what nation has produced greater
constellation of statesmen than this coun-
try. with Washington, and Jefferson. and
Hamilton, and Madison, and Webster. and
Clay, and Lincoln, and Sumner, and Sew
ard, and Chase-I will not come down to
present time lest 1 might arouse partisan
feelings.