The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-09-08
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
The Chicago Times Herald, operated
by Fl. II. Kohlsaat, one of the trio
who took up William McKinley's notes
when he became IL bankrupt, voices
the sentiments Of all imperialists
when it unblushingly says: I'VE
would inform Senator Vest that the
idea that all men are created equal is
not the fundamental law of this coun,
try. The fathers had better sense
than to put that phrase in the Consti-
tuition. They wrote it in the Declara-
ton, which was simply their manifes-
to to European powers, and is not
law"
Who would have thought before
Dewey bombarded Manila that any
American newspaper would ever dare
to deny that call men are born equal,'
as enunciated by the fifty-six signcrs
Of the Declaration of American In
dependence? Kohlsaat is Teuton,
but he is rapidly developing into an
| Anglo-Saxon of the most offensive
type.
Listen to him: "The Declaration of
Independence was the greatest cam
paign document that was ever written.
but when the colonial representatives
argued the assertion that all men were
created equal, what they meant was
that they were just as good as Eng
lishmen."
Another Chicagoan of the imperial
istic school, one Franklin McVeagh,
entertains the same views as H. H.
Kohlsaat, though like the editor of
the Times-Herald, he Ia not an Anglo,
Saxon by birth or descent. Recently
he said: "a constitution or national
policy adopted by thirteen half-con-
solidated, weak, rescued colonies, glad
to belable to call their life their own,
cannot be expected to hamper the
greatest nation in the world"
Commenting on the strange Ian
guage used by the Times Herald, n
talented Irish priest named Father
Judge writes as follows in the editor
ial columns of the Chicago New
World:
In this age of sophistry nothing is
more common than for man to claim
that he did not mean just what he
said. We have not time in this hust-
ling age to weigh our words. or to
exercise any foresight in wedding
language to thought. But that the
fathers of the republic and most OF
all Jefferson. who had such predi-
lection for accurate definitions. could
have maintained what logicians OF
the old school would call the 'aeuuip.
pollence" of the two propositions "all
men are created equal" and "Ameri-
cans are just as good as Englishmen"
is sufficient to make history. patriot
ism. and logic enter into triple al
lance for the emancipation of Flip.
Pine and Porto Rican and for the tri-
umph of Jeffersonian democracy.
The declaration that all men are
born equal requires certain limita-
tions, but certainly no such limita-
tions as the Times Herald has affixed
to it. Long before Jefferson wrote
the Declaration of Independence, be-
fore Columbus discovered America,
or Hengist and Horsa had swooped
down upon Great Britain, liberty,
equality and fraternity had been
proclaimed by the Savior of the hu-
man race and promulgated by the
church which He had established to
represent Him on the earth. All men
are not equal by birth in stature, mus.
cular energy, or intellectual power
But there are certain native rights
that attach to men by reason of their
personality on which the Divine image
has been stamped, and which are
the same for all men irrespective OF
race, nationality, or color. Pre-
eminent among them are the right to
liberty and the right to the opportun.
ity of self-improvement. These are
as old us humanity itself, but they
were denied by all the nations OF
heathendom until they were pro.
claimed in trumpet tones by the
Gospel Of Christ and constituted the