The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-05

OF free government conducted in spirit |
depends not only the welfare of this Ma |
ton. but depends the future of free gov |
eminent in the entire world lApplause] |
privileges. but soberly to realize our respon- |
sibility.
FORMER REPUBLICS.
Hitherto republics have failed. The re- |
public of antiquity went down; the repub- |
lies Of the middle ages went down, although |
tried on a much smaller scale than ours, |
and although an consequence TIE expert |
ment would have seemed less hazardous. |
fundamentally the cause of failure of those |
republics would be found in the fact that !
ultimately each tended to become not a
government of the whole people doing JUS
tice to each member of the people, but a
government of class: sometimes control
of the government slipped into the hands of
oligarchy; sometimes is slipped into the
hands of amob. In either case the resultwas
the same; Ii was exactly as material to the
abiding welfare of the republic II 1t was
turned into a government in which the few
oppressed the many, If it was turned
into government in which the many plum
dered the few. Either form OF government
and ruin to the country. 1t did not avail
to have escaped Scylla If wreckage came on
Charybdis: 1t was of no use TO have es-
capped one form of ruin. If ruin came at the
other end Of the pole.
This government will succeed because ii
shall be kept true to the principles for
fought. [Applause.l This Is not and never
shall be government of a plutocracy.
[Applause.] This is not and never shall be
a government of mob. Applause. 1t is a
through the law. Applause. government
in which no man is permitted either to DOM
ineer over the less well off or to plumber
the better off. lApplause.1 1t is a govern
ment in which each man is TO be guaran-
teed his rights and In turn in which II is to
be seen that he does not wrong his fellow.
lApplauSe.1 The supreme safety or our
country is to be found In a fearless and
honest administration of the law of the
land. lApplause.1 1t makes not the slight
est difference whether the offense against
the law takes the form of cunning and
greed on one hand. or of physical violence
on the other; in either case the lawbreaker
breaking stopped. tApplause.1 When any
executive undertakes to enforce the law he
Is entitled to the support of every decent
the lawbreaking has taken. He is enti-
tied to the support of all men in his efforts.
[Applause.l If he is worth his salt he will
enforce the law whether he gets support
or not.
"All men are not merely wicked but fool
ish If they take privileges to violate the
law. All men are not only wicked but fool
forced to obey the law; but the most foolish
man in making such complaint is the rich
man; for the rich man owes his very ex-
istence, his prosperity, to the fact that the
law throws its mantle around him and he
therefore is twice over foolish IL in any way
he permits reverence for the law to be
broken down In a community like ours.
my fellow-countrymen, remember al
ways that there are two sides to what l
have preached to-day. 1t Is abase and evil
thing for the man of great means to look
down upon, to treat with arrogance his
brother who is less well off; and 1t is no
- L.. 60.
with envy, with hatred, with rancor, his
brother because that brother is better off,
[Applause.] The two qualities-envy and ar
same black crystal. The same attributes
which make a man when powerful tyran-
nize over others will make him the agita-
tor and the revolutiOniSt If he happens to be
placed at the other end of the social scale.
A MENACE TO THE COUNTRY.
ct ask you to remember always that the
man who breaches to you to do wrong in
your own interest, whether he breaches it
to the man at one end of the social scale or
to the man at the other. is equally a menace
to the entire community. [Applause.] In
Lincoln's day the men who wore the blue
fought to establish once for all the prin-
ciple that there was no place in this coun-
try for sectional hatred, and that the ca
reer of the man who sought to stir up one
section against another was at an end. Let
to II that there Is just as little room
in the country for the man who seeks to
stir up creed against creed, class against
class, one body Of Americans against an
other body of Americans as the man who
seeks to stir one section against another.
Applause
line Of cleavage between locality and To-
cality, creed and creed, class and class,
| occupation and occupation. If a man is a
decent man, If he acts squarely by his fell
lnxxy ha I'M "a at
work which Is useful and honorable, he is
! a good citizen, and he is entitled to the
| praise of ali other good citizens. ZAP
| plause.1 And If that is the case the other
man who refuses or rejects relationship
with him stamps himself as being a poor
citizen of this Republic: [Applause.]
new problems in the spirit with which Lin
| coin and the men of Lincoln's time ap-
| preached the problems they solved-a spirit
| of courage, of resolution, of clear-sighted
| sanity, of the broadcast kindness, of genu-
| inc brotherhood and love for all men, not
| the spirit Of weakness. The men of 1861 had
| iron in their veins, or they could never have
| won out in the great contest of that time.
| They were strong men, or they could not
| have fought to a successful finish the great
| civil war; and they were good men. or they
Now my felow-countrymen as we read
| Lincolns words, as we think of his deeds,
let us in honesty and humility consecrate
| ourselves and our lives to treating the
| problems of to-day as he treated those
great problems in the solution of which he
gave his life for the people. Let us re-
| member that we cannot win out as a nation
| if We permit the black vices of envy, of
| rancor, Of arrogance. to control us in our
dealings with our fellows. Let US remem-
| Der that we must act in a spirit of broad
/ charity and ndliness to our fellows. and
yet with the clear-sightedness that recog-
| nizes that there can be no compromise with
| the lawbreaker; that the first essential to
| civilized government Is obedience to the
/ law. Let us remember here that this must
| never be allowed to become a government
1 by a class; that 1t must be kept a govern
\ ment such as ii was as Washington founded
1 il; such as it was as Lincoln preserved it
| a government of the people a whole, in
which every man Is given justice as a man
| and is guaranteed the treatment social and
/ political, which he can show himself en-
I titled to receive. We can never make this
| government good government save on the
| basis of high type of individual citizen
| ship. The stream cannot rise higher than
| the source Upon the character of the in
| dividual. man, the individual woman, must
1 depend in the long run the success of our
| institutions. 1 believe in you; believe in
| the future of this country of which you
| are part because believe that the average
| American citizen has in him those qualities
/ of honesty, OF courage, of fair dealing as
/ between man and man; that the average
| American citizen has in him the spirit of