Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-06-01
THE PRESIDENT
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ridges; where the cavalry fought;
where the hills were attacked and de-
Tended; and where, finally, the great
charge surged up the slope only to
break on the summit in the bloody
spray of gallant failure.
But the soldiers who Won at Gettys-
burg, the soldiers who fought to a finish
the Civil War and thereby made their
cOuntrymen forever their debtors have
left us far more even than the MEM
cries of the wa. itself. They fought
for four years in order that on this
continent those who came after them
their children and their childrens chill
dren, might enjoy n lasting peace.
They took arms not to destroy. but to
save liberty: not to overthrow, but to
establish the supremacy of the law.
The crisis which they faced was to de-
termine whether or not this people was
fit for self-government and therefore
fit for liberty. Freedom is not a gift
which can be enjoyed save by those
who show themselves worthy of it. In
| this world no privilege can be perma-
| nently appropriated by men who have
not the power and the will successfully
| to assume the responsibility of using
| it Alright. In his recent admirable lit
| tie volume on freedom and RESPONSE
bility in democratic government. Presi-
dent Hadley of Yale has pointed out
that the freedom which IS worth any
| thing is the freedom which means SELL
government and not anarchy. Free
| dom thus conceived is q constructive
force, which enables an intelligent and
good man to do better things than he
could do without it; which is in its es-
| sence the substitution of Self-restraint
for external restraint-the substitution
| of a form of restraint which promotes
| progress for the form which retards it.
| This is the right view of freedom; but
it can only be taken if there is a full
recognition of the close connection be-
| tween liberty and responsibility in every
domain of human thought. 1t was es-
sentially the view taken by Abraham
| Lincoln, and by all those who, when
| the Civil War broke out, realized that
in a self-governing democracy those
who desire to be considered fit to enjoy
liberty must show that they know how
to use it with moderation and justice
! in peace, and how fight for it when it
is jeoparded by malice domestic or for
eign levy.
The lessons they laugh us are les
sons as applicable in our everyday lives
now as in the rare times of great stress.
The men who made this field forever
memorable did so because they COM
bined the power of fealty to a lofty
ideal with the power of showing that
fealty in hard, practical, common-
seA Be fashion. They stood for the life
Of effort. not the life of ease. They
had that love of country, that love OF
Justice, that love of their fellowmen,
without which power and resourceful
efficiency but make Il man danger to
his fellows. Yet, in addition thereto.
they likewise possessed the power ana
the efficiency; for otherwise their high
purpose would have been barren of re-
suit. They knew each how to act for
himself, and yet each how to act with
his fellows They learned, as all the
generation of the Civil War learned,
that rare indeed is the chance to do
anything worth doing by one sudden
and violent effort. The men who be-
lieved that the Civil War would be
ended in ninety days, the men VINO
| cried loudest ION to Richmond" if they
had the right stuff in them speedily
learned their error; and the war was
actually won by those who settled
themselves steadfastly down to fight
for three years, or for as much longer
| as the war might last, and who gradu-
| a!ly grew to understand that the tfl-
umph would come. not by a single bril-
liant victory, but by hundred painful
and tedious campaigns. In the East
and the West the columns advanced
and recoiled, swayed from side to SIDE,
and again advanced; along the COASTS
! the black ships stood endlessly OIL ana
| on before the hostile forts; generals ana
| admirals emerged into the light, each
to face his crowded hour of success or
failure; the men in front fought; the
men behind supplied and pushed Tor
ward those in front; and the fmal VIC
tory was due to the deeds of all who
played their parts we'll and man1uily'
in the scores of battles. in the count
less skirmishes, in march, i'm camp, or
| in reserve. as commissioned officers, or
| in the ranks-wherever and whenever
duty called them. Just so it must be
| for us in civil life. We can make and
keep this country worthy of the mon
who gave their lives to save it, only on
| condition that the average man among
| us on the whole does his duty braVely
| LOYALTY, and with common sense, IN
| whatever position life allots to him.
/ National greatness is of slow growth
| 1t can not be forced and yet be stable
and enduring; for it is based funda-
mentally upon national character and
national character is stamped deep III
| a people by the lives Of many genera
lions. The men who went into the
army had to submit to discipline, mad
to submit to restraint through the gov
eminent of the leaders they had chos-
en-, as the price of winning. So we, the
people. can preserve our liberty ana
our greatness in time of peace only by
ourselves exercising the virtues OF
honesty, of self-restraint, and Of fair
dealing between man and man. In all
the ages of the past men have seen
countries lose their liberty. because
their people could not restrain and or
der themselves, and therefore forfeited
the right to what they were unable to
use with wisdom.
1t was because y3u men Of the civil