The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-15

freS10ent Address.
The text of President Buffers address
was: CAS- they went, they were healed"
He said. in part:
There is logic of events, immutable.
and there is law set for the realization of
ideal If the basic ideas of our culture
are right that is WELL but that is not
enough. Those ideas must be allowed 20
proceed in natural course to logical end.
The tyranny of tradition and conversion is
deadly in this, that under its slow slavery
mems moral and spiritual perceptions be-
come atrophied. Men submit themselves to
the triple fetters of absolutism, supersti-
tOn pedantry. In place of the vital things
of the spirit they substitute formal trifies;
they cynically accept the current creed and
bow to sOulless idols that debase them
Along the course of progress not all
alike and with equal pace, have moved the
nations of the earth. Humanity's hammered
march; But between its glorious van,
struggling to the light, and the last strag-
glers of its scattered host, lost in darkness,
ages lie. So that, in an age of reason, there
are places where british force abounds, and
men, like wild things, dwell in tree tops,
and with such rude weapons as primitive
skill can fashion wage tribal wars They
are ethnic links between the present and
the past. So, too among the individual con-
stituents of any given social order, there
are found those who, in at least some of
their ideas, belong to the past, of which
Gus example of this in public life is the
present Emperor of the Germans, who pro-
claims himself a thoroughly up-to-date
man.. The faith of modern culture is not
in the Hohenzollern William III, born an
aristocrat, holding himself and his as of
better clay than the common lot. believing
In paternallSm in government, holding that
he rules by divine right, that he is God
made King and priest of his people and
that that people, some sixty-odd millions
of them, are but accessories of his power
born to uphold his throne William III is a
reactionist; in this age he is an anachron-
ism; he Is survival of history nightmare
the Gallo graces gone and only the bare
bones of him left TO make Teuton over
lord.
DENIES DIVINE RIGHT
Germany, socially and politically, is all
that America would not be- But caste spirit
and class legislation will be crushed in Ger
many. as elsewhere. Meantime the Emper-
or William. claiming, though he does, to be
modern Of the mOderns, does not belong
to this age The conviction of this age is
| that the institutional world is of mans
making; that men are born to equality of
| opportunity therein; that caste is contrary
to nature and to right. Society, moreover,
| is subject to the universal law of evolution
| The forces that affect it naturally are with
| in itself. God has not ordained a fixed or
| der. has He class over class we
| deny divine right, whether to king or to
| coal baron.
4
| living and not to the dead The living man
is responsible for his part in the world. and
his part is all there is of it. For it is not
the same world to-day that it was four
hundred years ago, or one hundred years
ago, or fifty years ago. Changed-in spite
of all reactionists it has changed. 1t will
will come death. The faith of culture is
that the world is in the right way, and
that only by following that way may hu-
| manityS ideals be realized.
| / ha
/ OF an outraged people, bursting through
| palace doors, have shot to death the sens
Gai satyra a that , over over, them held right Of
dish0nOred carcass of him. dogs death I,
Hideous thing to see: this God-appointed
King, sword-siashed, shot-torn. lying abject
and helpless. Foul thing to smell the black
/ blood of the degenerate staining the paving
stones. 1t makes the whole world sick
Meantime that potentate whose claim of
high superiority would silence human qtles-
tioning from papal palace says: Blood
stained thrones are not worth having God
give US patience No throne, be ii of king
in all the world, is any more worth having
because the world has found this out. name
| ly, mat the state is human institution
the church Is q human institution.
TERRITORIAL EXPANSION.
Here is question that may serve to
| illustrate the point under discussion: The
opponents of the present governmental pol
icy aver that the federal Constitution is
violated in the extension OF territorial lines
| beyond seas. Granting. for the sake of ar
gument, that such Is the case-that the in
tent of the founders of our government is
not strictly adhered to when territory con-
tanning masses of population unfit for citi-
zenship is made part of the national domain
shall the prescriptions of the past prevail.
regardless of changed conditions OF present
Judgment. of contemporary public opinion
| There are not wanting those to answer no:
| the federal Constitution is not the last
word; posterity too. has rights. However.
there Is such conflict between the Con-
stitution and spirit Of our time. and he that