The Redwood gazette., 1900-07-11
MR.. HOWARD'S ADDRESS.
Twenty Minutes of Patriotic Talk
Before 5000 People.

1 ] " City tutlhluNVS VI F0St1 1VStS oAn
Before 5000 People.
It was big crowd that listened
to the oration of Chas. T. Howard
at the Falls park last Wednesday,
Hefwas,introduced by H. A. Bald
VIII, and the speech was preluded
by an expression of regret that the
committee was unable to obtain ]
Adam Bede, or Dolliver, or Bryan,
or Donnelly, or Morgan, or Bob,
Evans or Towne. He then stated
that it would be admitted that we
lived in the freest, the greatest and
the best country on earth. He then
proceeded to trace some of the
causes for the abounding blessings
of education, liberty and govern
melt which are the common herit-
age of every citizen OF the great
Republic.
I'VE have liberty because we de-
serve it," he said. II have been
often amused. sometimes provoked,
to hear or read an orator or au-
thor calmly reasoning that we owe
our liberty to our form of govern
ment. Never! We owe our institu-
tions to our liberty. The best gov
ernment in the world would be an
idle gift to people who knew not
how to useit. Grantto the Persians
every law and every constitution
which we use and enjoy, and cor
ruption, ignorance and tyranny
would still continue in Persia. I'm
pose, if possible, the worst govern
ment imaginable upon the citizens
of this nation and they would still
manage to wrest from it some de-
gree of freedom of thought and ac-
tion. Like Sampson of old liberty
loving nation will burst the bonds
which restrain their powers and
demanding, will obtain for them
selves freedom and power.
II plead guilty to believing that
there is more honesty, more wis
dom and more freedom in the ranks
of the people than in the public
officers of the people; that the voice
of the people, once fully declared, is
safer and better than the utterance
of a president, the opinion of a
Judge or the belief of a congress-
man; that we have excellent officers
because we insist on having such
that our laws are good because we
compel them; that our institutions
are wise because we order them:
and that it is presumptious in a
public servant to assume that he
knows more than his constituents
do. This may be slightly unpopu-
lar in official circles but it is the
truth, the gospel truth, unto the
salvation Of all the people,. y From
this we reason that our growth,
safety and prosperity are in the
keeping Of the people.
We come to a second cOnsidera-
ton OF national prosperity. That
nation which seeks to live without
development or growth is, sooner
or later, doomed to lag behind in the
onward march of the age. Stagna-
tion is dangerous to national health
and deadly to national morals. Just
as standing water loses lis virtue
so will the nation which shirks re-
sponsibilities, which dares not
measure up the demands of new
conditions and fails to grasp new
opportunities, perish from dry rot
within and aggression without.
Why is it that China disturbs the
peace of the world? Simply because
the wall within which she sought to
fence herself of old has become the
type of her civilization. She refus-
es the light without; she looks ever
back ward for her standard of law,
of education, OF life. Just as the
feet of her noble danes were
cramped and bound her thought
was cramped and stunted by the
iron bands of dead conservatism
And China is dying nation, only
to be saved by cruel surgery to GU
off the the gangrene which curses
and poisons her whole political an6
social system,
| ''My former friend, Senator Petit
grew of South Dakota, has evolved
a solution as remarkable as its au