Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1905-03-08
OUR RELA- IONS AMONG OUR
SELVES.

Our relations with the other powers
of the world are important; but still
more important are our relations
among ourselves. Such growth IN
Wealth., in population and in power
as this nation has seen during the cen
fury and quarter of its national life
is inevitably accompanied by like
growth in the problems which are ever
before every nation that rises to greas,
ness. Power Invariably means both re-
sponslbility and danger. Our foretath-
ers faced certain perils which we nave
outgrown. We now face other perils
The very existence of which it was in
possible that they should foresee.
Modern life is both complex and IN
tense, and the tremendous changes
wrought by the extraordinary indus
rial development of the last half cen
tury are felt in every fiber of our social
and political being. Never before have
nen tried 80 vast and formidable an
experiment as that of administering
the affairs of a continent under the
forms of democratic republic. The
conditions which have told for our
marvellous material well-being, which
have developed to very high degree
ours energy, self-reliance and individual
initiative, have also brought the care
and anxiety inseparable from the ac-
emulation of great wealth in indus
trial centers. Upon the success or our
experiment much depends, not only as
regards our own welfare, but as re-
cards the welfare of mankind. II we
fail, the cause OF free self-government
throughout the world will rock to its
foundations; and, therefore, our re-
sponsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to
the world as it is today, and to the
generations yet unborn. There is no
good reason why we should fear the fu-
ture, but there is every reason why We
should face it seriously, neither hiding
from ourselves the gravity Of the prob
lens before us nor fearing to approach
these problems with the unbending, uA-
Rinching purpose to solve them aTlgEt.
Yet, after all, though the problems
are new, though the tasks set before
aus differ from the tasks set before our
fathers who founded and preserved TINS
republic, the spirit in which these tasks
npst be undertaken and these proplehs
faced if our duty is to be well done, re-
mains essentially unchanged. We know
that self-government is difficult. We
know that no people need such high
traits of character as that PEOPLE whlcA
seeks to govern it's affairs Alright
through the freely expressed will ottfe
rreemen who compose it. But we have
faith that we shall not prove false TO
the memories of the men Of the mighty
past. They did their work, they left us
the splendid heritage We now enjoy.
We. in our turn, have an assured con-
fdence that we shall be able to leave
this heritage unwasted and enlarged TO
our children and our children's chill
dren..sTo do, so we must show. not
merely in great crises, but in the every
day affairs of life, the qualities of prac-
tical intelligence, of courage, of hard
ihocd and endurance, and, above all,
The power of devotion to lofty ideal,
which made great the men who founded
this republic in the days Of Washing
ton, which made great the men who
preserved this republic in the days Of
Abraham Lincoln.