Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1904-02-23
Neal Browns Views

Hon. Neal Brown delivered an adj
dress at Wednesday mornings session
of the Wisconsin Bar associations
meeting held last week in Milwaukee,
and that speech has been widely copied
throughout the state His subject was
The Foundation of Free Government
Beginning his topic he went back To
the Engles, Saxons and Jutes, three
tribes that grew up on the shores of the
Baltic sea, who though Graded in say
agry, held the potentialities of the
greatest civilization the world has eIer
seen, possessing that love of personal
liberty and individnalistic EQUALITY
which cnrbed the power of kings and
prelates in the centuries to come. He
offered strong protest against too
much government, and pointed out
that the countries of Europe are losing
their vitality by reason of too streeg an
application Of this principle. After
speaking of the early settlement of this
country by the English, Mr. Brown
said
They were not troubled with any of
the griefs and qualms of our modern
scholastics, who cry twoe, woe" and
view with alarm our expansive WAYS.
When they discovered a wilderness sub
Ject to brief casual sovereignty of no.
mads-a sovereignty as feeble and eva
nescent as that of the bear and the BIZ
son, they took possession of it for the
Crl nf rNd ND hair
We're they right and have we been
right In our time IN taking possession
of Texas, California, Hawaii, the Philip
pines and Porto Rico? Who shall now
sit inhjudgment on us?
What dreaming scholar in his cell can
solve the problem of expansions What
bookish priest Of ethics can bid the wave
recede before it is spent? 1t has its own
law, and the fulfllment of this law
means the policing of every land of
blood and barbarisnl, so that the ship
wrecked mariner d the stranger may
have safe refuge there. 1t means the
eternal mid-nOon of civilization for
every people now darkened by savagery
or crushed by despotism. 1T means that
the earth belongs TO the people. and
that no part of it can be held in fee by
those who will not use it for the good of
man. Often when we have commenced
to debate the question as to whether we
ought to expand, we have found that
debate was vain; we have already ex-
banded. a handful of Americans were
already on the ground establishing such
dlstinctively American institutions as
the town meeting and the vigilance
committee. A miniature republic
would BE founded complete in all its
parts before our attention was officially
called to their enterprise. Ordinarily
| they have not needed our aid and could
get along very well without it.
A modern instance is now before us.
| For hundreds of years the nations have
| dreamed of a canal across the narrow di-
vide between North and South America.
| The contamination of this dream has
| seemed near at hand, when 10, the con-
| science-keepers stand before us and put
| their taboo on the goal. 1t seems we
have not followed the forms; we have
| trespassed on the rights of little sister
| republic; have trampled on the weak
! She averred that she would still be a Sis
| ter to us, but we must not expect any
thing more unless we paid swinging
| price for it. The name republic is a
| good name; it is supposed to charm
away all evil. and pictures forth a land
of peace and equality, of government
| by the people, of monarchy and despot-
! ism extinct. And yet the real republics
| in the world can be counted on the fin
gers of one hand. | cannot name one
south of the Rio Grande. The name
republic may be only an empty sound.
| Constitutions and forms do not make
republics; they are created by the
genius and character of the people. A
republic cannot be built upon official
ism, militarism and bureaucratic
! paternalism.