Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1902-07-05


the spirit of those times; the aspects,
the very familiar features of those
valiants; the atmosphere, the form and
body Of an epoch, when, from Faneuil
Hall, in Boston, from Raleigh Tavern,
in Virginia, to Fort Wayne and old
Vincennes upon the confines of this
coat alike stirred to it's depths the
heart Of the young republic.
There We're giants in those days, and
there was need that there should be.
No vestibuled trains, nor palace coach
es waited to fetch them hither; no
noisy procession, with banners waving
and brass bands playing, marched
forth to honor their arrival They jour
neyed for the most part afoot. They
picked their way through trackless
canebrake and wooded waste, across
swift-running, bridgeless streams, their
fintlocks their commissariat.
Liberty in Their Hearts.
They had quilted what they regard
ed as the over-crowded centers of the
populous east to seek the lonely but
roomier Wilds Of the far West, keenly
alive to the idea Of lettering their con-
dition, having a fine sense Of pure air
and arabic land; it may be for town
sites; but their hearts beat true to the
principles Of civil and religious liberty,
and they brought with them two accou-
trements Of priceless value, the new
made Constitution of their country and
the well-worn family Bible; for they
were God-fearing, Christian soldiers;
heroes in homespun as chivalric and
undoubting as mailed knights of the
cross; hating with holy hate the In
dams and the British revering the
memory Of the patriots and sages who
had made the Declaration of Independ-
ence, warm with the blood of the revo-
luton, the echoes of Lexington and
Bunker Hill, of Kings Mountain and
Yorktown still ringing in their ears.
Our lot has been cast in easier times,
has been laid on broader, larger lines.
We live in an age of miracles. We
gather the fruit Of the tree which
these, our forefathers planted. From
the ashes of their camp fires rise the
school house and the court house. The
church marks the spot where the block
house stood.
Marvellous Metamorphosis.
Opportunity and peace and order and
law are the portion of the poorest
Struck by the wizard hand Of Progress,
the sleeping beauty, Solitude, has
awakened a metropolis; touched by the
finger of modern invention, the prairie
and the forest, as by enchantment,
have revealed their secrets and poured
their riches into the lap of labor. Upon
the loose cobble stones Of what was
but huddle of small provinces, each
claiming for itself squalid sovereign
ty, and held together by a rope of sand,
rises proudly, grandly, securely a ma
ton built upon the firm foundations
of an indissoluble compact of States, |
cemented forever by the blood Of a pat |
riotic, brave, homogeneous people.
We have become a nation of mer-
chant 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 re-
back to the sources whence
it originally came. Shall we see the |
day when it will no longer corrupt? |
If familiarity breeds contempt, we
surely shall. The earth's surface ap-
pears to be but an incrustation over
one vast mine of gold and silver and |
precious stones. Life is 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 |
and precisely as consti-
tutonal government, political and re-
ligious 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. In other