The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-06-14
FAT ACCOMPLI."


men have aimed at what today has
been consummated? How many men
have hoped to see this day. When one
looks back there are many shades
which rise from the grave and show
a shadowy interest in the present.
Alas, many big-brained, able men,
many brilliant able Drained women,
who dreamed of this day, have gone
to their long home with their aspira-
tiOns untitled.
The air is full of ghosts but what
kindly ghosts they are They are the
ghosts which approve of what has been
done, the ghosts of those who
hoped to reach what we have reached
but finished their earthly career unful-
filed And now the fulfllment has
come, and is there any wonder at the
fact that their ghosts take an interest
in it. Many timid and fluttering heart
is satisfied today 1t knows that the
end has come; that the irrevocable
step has been taken, and that once for
all we are citizens of the greatest re-
public that the world has ever seen.
Few people appreciate what those last
words mean. People read history, learn
of the Greek republics, which were eth
er in a state of anarchy or held in check
by a one-man power which has given
us our word tyrant, though we use it in
a very different sense.
The Roman gave a republic. From
its very inception it was a class repub-
lie. Take all the recessions of the pop
ulace from the city, garbled as the ac-
counts come down to u.s. we appreciate
the struggle; we see the same ideas
which urge us now; we sympathize with
the fallen in the struggle. They fell,
but they earned undying fame, and
what is very much better, they i'm
planted their ideas upon civilization
and civilization has followed it to the
present day; some ill; some well.
The Roman republic fell. Why?
Through the selfishness and degeneracy
of it's people. The poor thing became
venal, lost it's vitality, hired men to
fight for it; hired men to write for it;
hired men and many women to please
it, and it went on a hollow shell, dis
reputable for centuries, till it ended its
life in the fifth.
One must apologize for calling up the
very unsavory "reminiscences of the
Roman republic to draw any COMPARE
son with a modern republic. In the mo-
dern republic there are few of those
terrible moral sores which eat in as
canker in Rome, which Slapped the vi
tails of the very leading sons of the re-
Where there are sue hsores, they re-
coil upon themselves.
There is no grander episode in history
than the foundation of the American
republic. There is nothing grander
than the history of it's gradual rise and
extension. It's rise from a population
of barely three millions to over seventy
millions Of inhabitants in a century and
a quarter. Its irresistible march from
the narrow strip along the Atlantic sea-
board, across the continent till the blue
waters of the Pacific gladdened the
eyes of the pioneer. Who can think
without wonder of the great agricul-
tural resources developed. The millions
of acres of corn land, the vineyards,
the orchards, the cotton fields, the SUI
gar estates and the vast rolling prairies
upon which roam countless herds of
cattle. sfEiA1
Then there are the manufactures, ever
increasing. The iron industry, the
mighty steel works, the cotton spinning
mills, with all the different varieties of
textile fabrics. The immense shipbuild-
ing yards, which rival the establish
ments of the older countries of the
world. The coal mines developed, the
oil fields yielding their millions of gall
Ions which nightly give light to people
from Europe to Cathay. We might go
on caUaloging this mighty expansion
into columns. But it is only necessary
TO take the thought and to follow it out
10 its almost limitless extent.
But ii is not its natural progress and
prosperity which strikes the onlooker
so much. 1t is its political system,
founded by the far-seeing fathers of
the republic. What grand names are
those which were appended to the Dec
laration Of Independence. True gem
tlemen and true patriots were they.
They risked their all for liberty and
they won. They set an example to the
world, and they taught a lesson which
can never be forgotten. A lesson which
the parent country has taken to heart,
and which every country has felt the
moral Of and has its disciples among
the foremost of its citizens.
What spirit stirring names in the
history of human advancement are
those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson,
Lincoln, and host of equally able and
equally fearless men. Men to whom
country was everything and self moth
ing. Upon the scroll of fame there are
no brighter names than these. Wash
ington, the brilliant soldier who led his |