The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-06-16


 to digest the signs of the times? With these helps. why should he not be able to reach intelligent and just conclusions?
 It Is largely that all men do not think alike. The same fact will receive diff ferent interpretations from differing minds. There are conflicts of statement Even the press is not infallible. We group ourselves in parties; and, as with our watches, each believes his own. Thus the ship of state Is blown hither and yon by the trade-winds of public opinion. Yet, somehow, 1t has sailed triumphant the struggle for freedom; the struggle for union; the foreign war; the domestic war; the disputed succession, these 1t has survived; until at last. 1t has to face the most serious peril of all in that ex- cess of grandeur and power which crowns a century of marvellous achiev- ment
 We have become a nation of merchant princes. Money is so abundant that men are giving it away in sums of startling magnitude. It seems so easy to get that men are on system putting 1t In the way of kind of redistribution back to the sources whence 1t originally came. Shall we see the day when it will no longer corrupt? If familiarity breeds contempt, we surely shall. The earths surface ap- pears to be but an incrustation over one vast mine of gold and silver and precious stones. Life Is a lottery with more prizes than blanks. But In a land where there are no titles or patents of nobility, money Is bound to serve as the standard of measurement: and, precisely as Consti- tutional Government, political and reli- gious freedom, were uppermost in the minds and hearts of the pioneers who sleep here, is the acquisition of wealth uppermost in the minds and hearts of their sons and grandsons. Tn other words. as have elsewhere put 1t. the idiosyn- crasy of the Nineteenth century was Liberty; the idiosyncrasy of the Twen- tieth century is markets. The problem before us therefore, involves the adjust ment of these two; the reconciliation of capital and labor, of morality and dollars, the concurrent expansion of the princi- pIes of the constitution and the require ments of commerce. It is of good augury that both our two great parties claim the same objective point, and, as I do not doubt that we are on the ascending. not the descending scale of national develop ment with centuries of greatness ana glory before us. I shall continue as Is my duty to discuss my own particular horn of the dilemma sure that in the end, truth will be vindicated and the flag of our country exalted.
 Party Spirit a Goa ninD'
 To these ends, whatever our political belongings and affiliations, let each or us here today resolve faithfully to ad- dress himself. Party spirit held within the bounds of reason, restrained by good sense and good feeling, Is an ex- oellent thing. It Is of the essence of our Republican being. I can truly say that I have never loved any man less because he did not agree with me; and. though I chide him for his perversity. l respect his right The bedrock of civil and re- ligtous liberty Is the law; the bell-tower of freedom Is tolerance. The mute ln- habitants of these swelling mounds could they speak, would tell us that 1t were little worth the tofl and travail endur- ed by them when. amid these green wood shades, they sought and found emancipation from ages of feudal wrong, if, overfowng with prosperity, bustling with pride we should forget the lesson and dtssipate the heritage; repeating un- der the pretentious nomenclature of De- mocracy, the dismal story of Greece and Rome It can never be. We live In the twentieth, not in the first Of the cen- turies Though human nature be ever the same, the tale Is told by human en- yironment, by mortal conditions, and we shall the rather go forward than back ward; the constitution in one hand the flag over head carrying to all lands and all peoples the message alike of civiliza- tion and religion, the Ark and the Co., venant of American freedom along with the word of God!
 The hunters of Kentucky. the pioneers of Indiana, united as brothers in the bonds of liberty, fought the battle or Tippecanoe. It was not great battle as battles go, but 1t proved mighty In it's consequences; the winning and the peo- bling of the west; the ultimate rescue of the Union from dissolution; the blazing of the way to the Pacific. They were simple. hardy men. They set us good ex- amples. They loved their country and were loyal to it's institutions. They were comrades in hearts and comrades in arms. Be 1t ours to bless and preserve their memory and to perpetuate their brotherhood!