The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-07-13

earth. He would even threaten to change
this magnificent condition would be as
inimieal to us as he youth who fired the
Ephesian temple and like that youth,
his name would live in future only be-
cause of his wickedness.
Conditions and surrounding needs have
been and are now very different from the
time when Clay, the author of the Amer
lean system, passed from this life. They
are broader, more expansive and more
complex. But civilization and progress
are but the advancement from the single
to the complex; from the spinning jenny
to the spindle and loom propelled by
machinery; from the oxcart to the mag
nificent palace car; from the hoe and
scythe to the peerless cultivator and reap
er; from the howell of the feudatory to
the home of the free laborer, with it's
furnaces, bathrooms and closets, with
perfect sanitary arrangements; from the
searching diligence to the commodious
street car; from the horse mail to the
telegraph and telephone; from the steam
boat and stage-coach to the magnificent
trains that speed over this continent on
wings of the wind, are accomplishments
of factors that have produced complex
ity of affairs that demand the highest or
der of craftsmanship and patriotism to
control and direct
The combination and union of the
working men of this county for their pro-
lection, arising from the combination of
capital are pending and series factors
that calls for an exercise of that philan-
thropy and religious inspiration that
springs from the words of the Master,
Love thy neighbor myself"
This is the most intricate of the COM
pick questions that now confront us. This
lion ,,,,lxr obi
rect and permanent basis by giving full
force to that pure altruism that is the
very essence of the Christian religion.
/ will not enlarge upon the question Of
trusts. This is another serious factor
that has been evolved from our general
and complex civilization. Trusts are an
evolution, not creation, arising from the
financial necessities of our stupendous
growth and advancement. Some years
ago great cry went up against railroad
corporations combining under systems
that controlled transportation on one line,
as 1t were, from the Atlantic to the Pa
cific, from the lakes to he gulf. Direful
consequences were predicted from these.
The fact was overlooked, If understood
that rapid transportation was a main
factor in the march of civilization. Had
1t. not been for the rapid locomotion of
thet horse, European or western civiliza-
ton would have moved on the slow plane
of the dromedary facilities of the East
Now no one would destroy the railroad
combinations, but all good men insist
that they shall be controlled and regu-
lated by a commission elected by the
people of the State to secure and protect
the general welfare So 1t Is with the
trusts; they are factors evolved by our
industrial development, the result of
economic laws and they must be and will
be subjected and controlled by the people
of this country, and made subservient to
the public interests.
Much is said about the Philippine ques-
ton. Destruction of constitutional liber-
ty, over throw of free institutions and
the establishment of Imperialism is the
picture of desolation drawn by the oppo-
nents of acquisition of those islands
The acquisition of those islands and the
assumption of their government by the
United States could not have been avert
ed by any political party Such acquisi-
ton was the destiny of this republic; it
was a submission to the carrying out of
that spirit of altruism that Is the soul of
western civilization.
God prohibited the preaching of the
Christian religion to the eastward The
Macedonian call was but the command
of the holy spirit to extend 1t to the west.
The moral ideas. bigotry and conceit of
Confucius and Mohamed were a more
formidable resistance to the teachings of
Christ than the paganism of the west,
or the mythology of Olympus.
The gospel marching to the west, was
handed over from Europe to this free
and independent country of the United
States, and the responsibility was i'm
posed by the God of Nations upon US to
accelerate it's march, until now 1t has
girded the world.
And when on May day of 1898 Dewy's
order. "Gridley, you can commence fir
ing If you are ready" and In obedience
to that order the American guns com
menced to roar in the far eastern waters
carrying destruction to the pride and
possessions of Spain, it was but human
smile to that holy proclamation of the
angels to the human race of the birth of
our Saviour. The reverberations of the
guns carried the information to the world
that Shiloh had come and the Christian
religion had girdled the earth, and these
United States--the young giant of the
west the Amounted of Cod for this pur-
pose--was the instrument of the spread
and defender of the religion of Christ In
he eastern world. Religious liberty, free
1om of conscience. is the basis of all civ
il liberty; without religious liberty, the
-hought of civil liberty is a mockery.
1t may be true that mistakes have been
aade in the administration of this Phil
spine question. But such are attendant
pom all human affairs and institutions