The Savannah morning news., 1902-06-16
HEROES IN HOMESPUN
HENRY WATTERSON's ADDRESS on
MEN OF TIPPECANOE.
IMMENSE CROWD ATTENDED.
GRAVES OF OLD INDIAN FIGHTERS
DECORATED.

The Memory of william Henry Har-
rsOn and His FrOntiersmen, Who
Vanquished Tecumseh and His
Brother the Prophet, Fittingly
HOnOred-The Remarkable Con-
trast Between the simple COnll-
tion of Those Early Days and the
Present Dwell UpOn-Then the
Ideal Was Liberty, Now 1t Is
Wealth.
Lafayette, Ind, June 15.-The Tippe-
canoe Battlefield Association held its
annual exercises in the tabernacle at
the battle-ground to-day. An immense
crowd attended. The graves of the
men who fell at the battle of Tippe-
canoe were beautifully decorated. An
address was delivered by Hon. Henry
Watterson, editor of the Louisville
Courier-Journal. his subject being He
roes in Homespun.'
MIR. WattcrsOn's Address.
Col watterson spoke in part as fol-
lows:
Travelling from out the twilight OF
the past into the radiance of the pres
ent, and tracing as we go the history
of the country along the glorious, but
rugged route of battle fields by the
glare of fagot-fiame and rifle flash,
it seems ages since Tippecanoe; sine.
Harrison and his hunting shirts met
and vanquished the hordes of the two
Tecumsehs; yet are there men still
living and here day who, If they
were not contemporary with the event
and its valiants, can distinctly recall
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
borderland, the redskin and the red
coat alike stirred to it's depths the
heart of the young republic.
Giants in Those Days.
There were giants in those days,
and there was need that there should
be. No vestibuled trains, nor palace
coaches waited to fetch them hither;
no noisy procession, with banners wav-
ing and brass bands playing marched
forth to honor their arrival. They
journeyed for the most part afoot
| They picked their ways through track
| less eanebrake and wooded waste,
/ across swift-running, bridgeless
| streams, their fint-locks their com
missariat. They had quilted what
| they regarded as the overcrowded CEN
tiers of the populous East to seek the
lonely but roomier wilds of the far
West keeniy alive to the idea of bet
tering their condition, 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 accoutrements of price
less value; the new-made constitution
of their country and well-worn family
Bible; for they were God-fearing,
Christian soldiers; heroes in home
spun as chivalric and undoubting as
mailed Knights of the Cross; hating
with holy hate the Indians and the
British; revering the memory of the
patriots and sages who had made the
Declaration of Independence, warm
with the blood of the Revolution. the
echoes of Lexington and Bunker Hill,
of Kings Mountain and Yorktown
still ringing in their ears.
Based on Public Opinion.
ours is a government resting on
public opinion. Each man is his own
master. He can blame nobody but him
self if he goes astray. Has not the tel
egraph annihilated time and space?
Does not the daily newspaper bring
him each day the completed history of
yesterday? Is he not able to read, to
mark, and, inwardly, to digest the
signs of the times? With these helps
why should he not be able to reach in
telligent and just conclusions?
at is largely that all men do not
think alike. The same fact will receive
different interpretations from differing
minds. There are conflicts of state
Even he prpSS is NOT infa Iii
BILE. 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,
it has sailed triumphant: the struggle
for freedom; the struggle for union;
the foreign war; the domestic war; the
disputed succession, these 1t has sur
vived until, at last, it has to face the
most. serious peril of all in that excess
of grandeur and power, which crowns
a century of marvellous achievement.
A Nation of Merchant Princes.
1--WE have become a nation of mer-
chant princes. Money is so abundant
that men are giving 1t away in sums
of startling magnitude. 1t seems so
easy to get that men are on
system putting it in the way
of a kind of redistribution back to
came Shall we see the day when
1t will no longer corrupt? If familiar
ity breeds contempt, we surely shall
The earths surface appears 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 land where there are
no titles or patents Of nobility, money
is pound to serve as the standard of
measurement, and. precisely as constt-
tutional government. political and re-
llgious freedom. were uppernlost in the
minds and hearts Of the pioneers who
sleep here, r. the acquisition Of wealth
uppermost in the minds and hearts Of
their sons and RTandsoDs. In other
words. as I have elsewhere put IL, the
idloeyncrasy Of the Nineteenth century
was Liberty; the idiosyncrasy Of the
Twentieth century f. markets. The
problem before us, therefore. involves
the adjustment Of these two; the re-
consultation Of capital and labor. Of
morality and dollars, the concurrent
expansion ~ the principles Of the con-
st.fufiOn and the requirements ~ com
nsefoe. n ~ Of good apHufY thet bOfn
osfr tWo great parties ciaim the same
objective point and. - ! d. nos doubt
fhat W. ore 90 ffe ascending not me
aesoendl0g feaie ~ nafi0nql gffe.op-
nepf. alft Centuries ~ greatness md
glory tefoge Ds ) shall continue o. 81
~ Guty - DISCUSS NJ oHn particular
horn ~ ffe dilemma. cure mas ~ ~
m. truth aili A. gneicatee ape ne
rag ~ our CsHntfY fEnlffQ.
.aybe bunfers - ffBfufhy, fnT fip-
.fafe ~ indiana. UNITED ~ brothers