The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1901-01-24
On Dangerous Ground.

StOur country will never be the same
again. For veal or woe we have al
ready irrevocably passed beyond the
old lines" said Grover Cleveland in
recent New York speech, in which he
predicted woe for the nation because of
the American policy in the Philippines.
Whenever a man of Grover C1eve-
lands stamp talks the people are sure
to listen. The great ex-President and
ex-1eader of the Democratic party is
known as a man made in the proper
tons of statesman. Therefore, when
he sounds a note of warning, it is we'll
to look to the source from which he
predicts the danger is to arise.
But we are forced to the belief that
the warnings of Cleveland in this par
ticu1ar instance are lacking in force.
The dangers of which he would have
us beware seem altogether too abstract
to assume definite shape in the mind of
the average citizen. He tells us that
we have, for veal or for woe, already
passed the old lines, and quite broadly
hints that it is for woe. He says the
nation has entered upon strange
voyage, without chart or compass;
that the tried and sure foundations of
our liberty and national happiness
have been discredited; that reverence
for our national traditions has been re-
Taxed; that the restraints and linita-
tions of our constitution have become
CALLING under temptations to national
greed and ggrandizement, and that
our love of peace, honor and justice
have been weakened. If all that Mr.. |
Cleveland alleges of the United States
at the beginning of the twentieth CEN
fury were so beyond dispute, then in
deed would we have cause to lament
our degenerate condition. But is it?
Mr.. Cleveland genera1izes in the
most vague'sort'of way when he says
we have crossed the old line. We have
been doing that steadily with every |
inch of progress since the election of
the first President and the first amend |
ment of the constitution. tits difficult
to understand2where the tried and true
foundations of our national liberty |
and happiness have been discredited,
or wherein the restraints and 1imita-
tons of our constitution have become
particularly CALLING. Our constitu-
ton, though "the greatest thing ever
struck off by the hand of man., had
been in force but little over decade,
when, i'll the administration of Jefer-
son, the enexorab1e logic of events
made it necessary to strain it to a
point where it was feared it would fall
to pieces. Progress and rapidly chang
ing conditions make and have made
throughout our history an immutable
policy impossible. But, that national
safety, national happiness, love of
peace, honor and justice, all lay behind
the old indefinab1e line of which Mr..
Cleveland speaks, it would be as hard
for Mr.. Cleveland to finally demon
strate as it was for tin1id ones to prove
that the Republic was an impractical
thing, or for Josiah Quincy to convince
that the admission of Louisiana
would be the destruction of the nation.
A temporary policy or expedient has
never determined the fate of a nation.
1t is not even to the constitution that
the Republic of the United States owes
it's greatness. The strength of that
institution, or the wisdom of its found
ers could not have preserved it to the
present day. II is the people, their
love of liberty, of justice and peace
that has made the Republic of the
United States the wonder and the fear
of the world, and the prophet who
charges the people of the United States
today with lack of these things is
treading on dangerous ground.