The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-06-19

because it is in a land which was u1-
known to the culture of Attica- If Amer
lea is a new world, the four centuries
since Columbus steered his storm-tossed |
caravels in quest of far Cathay, have been /
cies. The American scholar can not be
deaf to them; and under the constraint
OF duty whose voice is never silent, he |
must strive without ceasing to make his |
countrymen heed them. Can any intelli- |
see mat the 1nexorable power Whlch the |
Greeks named fate and which the sweet /
er and wiser philosophy of the Christian |
calls ProNldence has ordained that mere |
in our own country, is the widest oppOr- |
ity ever given for the high-souled effort |
We have followed the western star of |
which Bishop Berkely sang; that star |
which leads to cOnsummations not dream |
ed of by Bradford and Carver when their |
Plymouth: or bv John Smifh when his |
little ship lowered along the coast of Vir- |
ginia, or by Oglethorpe when, all uncon-
scious of the future, he brought his coll |
planted there the English-speaking race
These great voyagers bringing with them
letters, arts and arms, and, better even
than these, the plastic germ of tnstitu-
uonal government, gave proof which the
world at first was slow to understand,
that through the ages one increasing
purpose runs" The offspring of these
various migrations. faring as best they
could, knowing the pangs of hunger and
dread1ng the Stealthy attacks of savage
foes, watchful by night and by day, held
fast to the promises which had come to
them in visions, or been given in the IN
changeable assurances of revelation
1t is not for me to now trace their slow
but eVentful colonial history. Dotting the
coast with settlements, reaching out into
the wilderness planting the seed of a
naScent civilization in isolated commune
ties, growing in strength as the years roll
ed by, they came to feel the yearning for
national life. If you ask for ancestral
honors,-which, after all, count for less
than most of US think-you will find them
abundantly in the story of Georgia, of the
Carolinas, of Virginia and OF New Eng
land. You, of Georgia, had in those form
alive days the thrilling eloquence of a
Whitfield and a Wesley, while we of New
England had the harsher but still potent
voice of Cotton Mather, the gentle appeals
of Roger Williams for liberty of
science and, later, the keen, pitiless logic
of Jonathan Edwards, the Calvin of the
New World the subtIest intellect theol-
ogy has ever known. And so, gentlemen,
we grew and all our early growth was
toward each other and not apart If you
is found partly in common interests, out
more, I think, in the persuasive influence
mine belonged to that race which has ever
been fated to lead and not to follow; the
race with iron in its blood; the race that
can suffer, but can not yield
I'VE must be free or die who speaks the
tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and
Which Milton held"
And thus it happened that when an
English ministry forgot the sanctions of
South and the Puritan of the North found
themselves standing shoulder to shoulder
in the defense of rights which they felt
were unalienable long before Thomas JEFF
ferson wrote that great sentence which is
still the truest gospel of human rights in
all this world.
How in the course Of years, we drifted
apart, IS told in history, and is fresh in
| the memory of those who yet survive. 1t
! is a sorrowful story, filled with mistakes,
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. and blindness We who
were born to love came to hate. In that
| nODl6SI
mona he touches in his manly, artless
way, the whole philosophy of human af-
| lection, when he says:
"she loved me for the dangers I had
And / loved her that she did pity them"
The common dangers which north and
| south had passed. the hard v1c1ss1tudeS
their heroism, should have drawn them
| together for veal or for woe. 1t would
! serve no useful purpose now to discuss the
unhappy differences that made us enc
mics and filled with the roar of hostile
guns the fields and valleys which ought
! to have heard only the songs OF pros or
i the hum of contented industry. should
| think myself unworthy to address you If
I did not exult with you in the return,
! not simply of peace-which is often only a
| formal Word-but of that understanding
which alone is peace, and which is pos
! sible only when men come to know each
other even as they are known
AS alumni of the university, you are IN
Z f~1-e-
/ traditions of this commonwealth. Kene-
/ saw and Peach Tree answer each other
and a hundred fields where your vaLlor
| was attested swell the chorus of proud
and solemn memories. Georgia, more
| than any other state, except, perhaps,
/ Virginia, felt the deep and deadly mean
| ing of war, its desolation, its horrors and
! its woe. And yet, 1t was Georgia CLAD
in her widows weeds, that first lifted
| up her eyes to the radiant future, and first
| moved forward to the shining gates of
| Gentlemen. l
| smouldering ruin; but 1 saw her again
! in her regal splendor the mistress of an
| of that undying faith which meets disas-
| ter with a smile and greets affliction with
| a kiss. This state is, in more senses than
one, the Empire State of the South, and
this university is doing a great and useful
forcement to Georgia which will be for
good in all her history.
From Georgia the clearest voices have
come for a true reconciliation between
North and South. It is not for me a
| northern man, a Union soldier and your
guest to put the unsearchable question
T9ri1C vs. r. blaroa9 XVIareve1- Won ma !
think, or I may think, let US remember
that this is the year Nineteen Hundred,
Shall 1 not be happy with you, when
recall the words of a. great son of Geor-
gia. then a member of congress from Mis-
soldier, statesman. jurist? It was In 1874
only nine years after AppomattOx, that
speaking or the occasion OF Charles Sum,
ners death, he pronounced that great
grafton which for elevated thought, fol-
eloquence and profound philosophy was
never surpassed by Edmund Burke. Lis
ten to his solemn words which, like q
deep organ appeal thrilled every ear stnC
every heart that heard them:
Let US hope" he, said, that future
generations, when they remember the
deeds of heroism and devotion done OF
both sides, will speak not of northern
prOwess and southern courage, but of the
heroism, fortitude and courage of Ameri
cans in war of ideas; a. war in which
each section signalized its conservation tC
the principles, as each understood them
of American liberty, and of the cOnstitu-
ton received from their fathers.
Charles Sumner, in life, believed thai
all occasion for strife and distrust be-
tween the north and south had passed
away, and there no longer remained any
/ cause for continued enlargement be-
tween these two section of our common
: country. Are there not many of who
believe the same thing? Is not that the
common sentiment-or if it is not, ought
: it not to be-of the great mass of our PEG
| pie. north and south2 Bound TO eacf