The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1905-09-12
ADDRESS OF JUDGE FREEMAN.

Before the Old Settlers of the Pecos
Valley at South Spring Ranch.
on September 9TH, 1905.
Ladies, and Gentlemen and Old Set
Il have very little hope of adding
much to the very able addresses to
which we have listened.
THE subject of my address is.
tOld Settlers as Citizens. This sub
ject contemplates a larger, field than
it is my purpose to occupy. 1t in
wolves also comparisons which it is
difficult to draw.
men differ as to what constitutes
good citizenship. Then, again, the 10
cality of the old settlement, the peo-
pie who form the settlement, and
their peculiar environments are all
to be considered in determining the
quality of heir citizenship.
1.-The old citizenship of New Eng
land was until quite a recent period
characterized by the p~uritanism of its
old settlers. In Georgia and South
Carolina the traces of the Huguenot
are still to be observed, while in the
old commonwealth of Virginia YOU
may still run across the descendants
of the first families.
I'm almost all countries the old
settlers are the best citizens. There
is a reason for this that it is not at
all difficult to understand. 1t is this
E-o- H. 4,~,o ~ -yIS4I -yo
have a written history, all peoples.
at least all Anglo-Saxon people, have
improved. No n understands and
appreciates this change so much as
your old settlers This remark ap-
plies with peculiar force to western
conditions where societies of good
people have struggled long to
emerge from a state of lawlessness.
81 talk today, to men who are bank
lers. merchants, stockmen, farmers,
ETC., who have hunted the buffalo on
the plain, and who on every full moon
instinctively close corrals against
the in Dads of their troublesome
neighbors, the Comanches and Apach-
es. If these men are better citizens
thar the new corners it is because
they have tried the old and the new.
and prefer the latter. They know
what bad citizenship and lawlessness
means; they have felt their effects.
I talk to men today who were active
participants in what is known as the
Lincoln County War; who were in
the country during the reign of Billy
the Kid and his gang of outlaws and
rustlers. All of these men, without
exception, are good citizens; they
do not want any more Lincoln County
Wars.
Indeed men who have passed thro
some times, if they have any man
hood, become thereby the best of
citizens. When in England, the
army of Cromwell was dissolved by
the restoration, it was found that
they became the best of farmers,
flock masters and mechanics. Nor
are we less at a los for illustrations
nearer homo n in times more re
cent, for while all soldiers were
not good men; yet a good man who
made a good soldier becomes for that
reason a good citizen.
Il do not mean by this that war
should be encouraged in order that
we may have good citizens. On the
contrary, it is the duty of good citi-
zens to discourage war by every pos
sible means that can be brought to
bear. The earlier settlers of this
country did not wan war, domestic
Or otherwise. War is a pestilence,
n the best evidence that the great
civilized heart of the world is averse
to war is found in the fact that the
one man by who's efforts peace in
the far East was attained, is today
more highly honored than all of the
military heroes on both sides of The
great struggle. l need not, of course,
say who that man iS-hiS name is on
every tongue, and love of him fills ev-
cry heart.
What 1 mean to say is that even
pestilence results in publication; and
that good citizenship like. a phoenix
arises out of the ashes of desolation.
We are sometimes tried as by fire.
81 believe that it was Carlyle who
said that old conditions needed some
times to be renovated like old chin
neys. by being burned out.
"Old settlers as a rule are extreme
ly conservative. They accept with
extreme caution all Innovations on
most intelligent citizens of England
stood aghast when in the latter part