The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-10-27
A Prophecy for North Carolina.

Among American States no better spot exists
than this spot upon which to work out the prob
lens of a livable and lovable democracy. I thank
God for the inextinguishable breath of democracy
breathed into me by birth in this State. By de-
mocracy, I mean no party or creed or war cry,
but a blessed spirit which wills imperiously to
give to every soul a chance to know and to be the
best. It is a narrow view which beholds democracy
as a mere thing of ruggedness and LONELINESS.
It is the business of democracy to make out of it
self an aristocracy. There is nothing too good
for a democracy. Surely its primal needs are
strength and virtue and simplicity and freedom.
Does it not also need beauty and dignity and
grandeur, if you will, and all the things which
minister to the spirit, else it perish of vulgar
strength. This spirit will not come by observa-
ton. One cannot say 10! here, and 10! there, and
the spirit is achieved. It comes by obeying the
law of things. The law of things is training as
a result of sacrifice. Sacrifice means vast invest
ment of love, energy, and wealth in human life.
Twenty years from to-day North Carolina will be
a State of imagination and faith in men of all
creeds and races and conditions. It will have
Quadrupled it's investment in them. It's type of
men will be efficient and knowing, free and sym
pathetic, acquainted with facts, able to do, free
to speak and sympathetic with every mans as
pirations, whether he be white or black, high or
low, bond or free. This is democracy, and moth
ing else is democracy. All history is the shifting
of the mental and moral moods of nations and
communities, and the interesting time-the time
for mems the period of shifting. We can see
now the romatic note of our past, it's exaltation
of personality, it's care for individuals dignity,
it's impulses, its enthusiasms, its deep l~oyalties.
We are at work upon the note of the future, de-
IL. 4I.L - z1o17- -. o11o1Ls-o -
sympathetic with all So that every man may earn
a dignity to cherish. To bring this about we
must spend money and time and hearts blood,
for the day of small things is past, and the thing
we seek, is above all price. The State of North
Carolina needs just now to realize the supreme
value of humanity in the mass. All the machinery
of her civilization should be for the advancement
of men in the aggregates, not men in the classes.
Is this mere crude optimism? If so, let it go at
that. I dare to hope for all that I can dream. I
once dreamed with many others for an effective
public school system. That dream is almost true,
and the spirit which has made it true is the spirit
which has made this noble gathering, and which
will unite the sons of North Carolina all over
America for service in her behalf.
~The-greatest dreamer this nation has known
was Thomas Jefferson, and he has been it's great
est spiritual force-with his e~nnobling lessons
of faith in men. Many of his dreams have come
true, and many are yet unfulflled. Let US dream
on and work. in our time and place as he did in
his earlier day. It cannot hurt for us to have
a vision before our eyes always of this land of
our birth and love, lovable in it's very limitations
and clad from its hard beset childhood in the
garments of common-sense and clear manhood
grown strong and majestic and spiritual and free
mighty home of benefcent laws and true
democracy, stainless still in honor, fruitful still
in noble deeds.-Dr. Edwin A. Alderman, at North
Carolina Reunion, Guilford Battle Ground, Octo-
Der IL, 1903.