The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-06-10

and practical force of this great body
instead of wasting itself in memories and
boaStings and amenities or bewailingS
should find itself, and know itself as
weapon in every community, well-knit
to alma mater and clear Of purpose to
beat down opposition and cause this
great, noble State to sustain and
strengthen the institution that gave them
their intellectual liberty. Thousands OF
men who do not call it mother, but who
have got the religion of public spirit and
State pride will lend a hand. And there
is no despair in the task or in my heart,
dear friends, as to the final results. 1t
is absurd to say that this State Will not
do the large, just thing by it's institu-
tions when it knows just what that thing
is, and our people have a good, old-fash-
ioned way of submitting to being talked
to- The State is too great and sagacious
not to do right and the University is too
worthy not to deserve right treatment.
There is needed boldness but kindness of
speech and an end forever to the apollo
getic manner. The State has a right to
build up it's University The man that
says that it has not this right is speak
ing puny words against spirit as strong
as common sense, as solemn as the in
less as the winds of nature. And it has
the wealth to do it too. new State
has been born in these twenty five years.
This is not the State that lay barely con-
valescent from the fever of war, strug-
Cling to endure, without energy in law
or order in society, when Graham and
Steele and Cameron and Battle and Saun-
ders and Phillips and Winston and Graves
and Manning and hundred others pluck
ed these buildings from grass and weeds.
and with hope and Self-denal as their
comrade sought to make a University
with an income of seventy-five hundred
dollars a year. North Carolina has be-
come a great industrial community. The
frenzy and fever of accumulation has got
ten into it's blood 1t has learned the
hang of industrial success stolen from
it's fathers while they slept under the
deadenng touch of slavery. From count
less thousands of looms and SpindleS and
whirring saws and clacking machinery
come the shouts and songs OF power ana
success. Wealth has come, and If this
State with its central position and breed
of strong men, permit States to the
North of it and States to the South of 1t
to develop their institutions, while this
stragctic possibility with its beauty with
it's heroic past is left to starve in medi-
ocrity and is not turned into great act
uality with a splendid present, this neg
lect will be the saddest instance in the
history of democratic countries, of fail
ure to use a great, God-given opportu-
nifty.
1t has seemed to me to be my duty to
set my hand to work elsewhere in this
Southern land. With what sadness and
regret / have elected to do this thing, |
may not speak, but | may believe that
every good man sympathizes. nave
come to know afresh dear friends, that
this is quite the pleasantest spot on earth
to me- Here | first learned the secret
of love and here | have made acquain-
tance with grief. Here the scholars life
first showed itself admirable and fair
to my eyes. Here in company OF unself-
ish men and ardent youth | have done
the days work as the days went by, |
60 to wide and honorable labor, but all
the fine aspirations of my heart shall at,
all times, stretch their hands hither-
ward and lift up their eyes to these hills
for help--in the grim winter when the
sun blazes against the panes of the severe
old buildings; in the soft spring, when
greenness and blooming fall like magic
about the campus byways in the autumn
time when the maple leaves fame red.
like fire. in the eager air. May God put
it into the brain and purpose of our peo-
pie to cherish this great school, 80 that
their honorable men may not be famished
and their multitudes dried up with
thirst"
May this noble people hold up high the
strong hands of our new president to
whom | make obeisance ana proner my
allegiance to him personally. The dying
king shouts with the loudest viVe le
roi," and for the dear mother wnom ne
must guard and strengthen ne cries WIN
the love of son, may she always pros
per-.
EDWIN A. ALDERMAN.