The age-herald., 1901-01-18
REVERENCE RELAXED Citizens of America Have For gotten Old Traditions WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN fThe Question is Not What Shall We Do With the Philippines, But What
 Shall the Philippines Do
 With Us.
WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN

New York January 17.-The Holland So- cety held its sixteenth annual dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria tonight. Among the speakers were Grover Cleveland, who said:
 The cordial welcome you extend to me Is exceedingly grateful and comforting, for 1t gives me grain of satisfaction in the ordeal that confronts me. I am convinced that the art of making an after-dinner speech without distress is for me a sealed book, and as the years pass I only saved from complete wretchedness in my efforts in that direction by the knowledge and federation of those who are good enough to listen to me. I cannot resent hhe charge that I ann apt to preach a ser mon on occasions of this kind, for I am afraid this accusation is justified. At any rate, I quite willing to take an humble place among the sermonizers in this time of headlong national heedlessness and to invoke tine cultivation and saving grace of Dutch conservatism. In thfs5 assemblage tlhe question is suggested whether i'm pres enlt conditions this conservatism character izes the conduct guides the sentiment of our people. There can be but one an- swer to this question. Conservatism has in a great degree been jauntly cast aside, or condemned opposed to our country's welfare and glory. A strange voyage has been entered upon without count of cost, and without chart or compass. The tried and sure foundations of our liberty and national happiness have been discredlted.
 Reverence Has Been Relaxed.
 Reverence for our national traditions has been relaxed, and satisfaction with our ccuntry's mission has been undermined The restraints and limitations of constitu- tion have become galling and irksome under the temptations of national greed and ag- grandizement. Our old love of peace, honor and justice has been weakened and ffugalfty and contentment are not now traits insep- arabic from American character.
 War, even with the worlds advanced civ ilization, may still be sometimes necessary and justifable; but whether necessary and justifable or not, the demoraization that Follows in it's train can never be evaded. It teaches bloody instructions which, in country whose citizens do the fighting can not fail to leave their impress for time at least upon public and private life in time of peace.
 Thirty years after the close of the war for the preservation of the union, a treaty of arbitration was formulated between the United States and Great Britain, which, if completed would have gone far towards removing every preteXt of war between the two countries. Thus these two great Eng lish-speaking nations then assumed leader ship in the path of peace, and in advocacy of the abolition of war, with the hope and expectation that the example would be fol- lowed by other nations, and that more general adoption of arbitration as means of settling international disputes would re- suit in a great advance towards the aband- onment of war throughout the world.
 Treaty Not Confirmed.
 This treaty failed of confirmation in the Senate of the United States. Less than five years passed, and these English speak ing champions of peace and arbitration are still oper ating in parallel lines-one In the hut no longer for peace and arbitration. Both are killing natives in an effort to possess their lands. This indicates a sad relapse; and in our case it is most seri-