Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1905-03-04

| insistent that we are not wronged our
selves. We wish peace; but we wish
| the peace of justice, the peace of right
eOusness. We wish it because we
think it is right and not because we
are afraid. No weak nation that acts
manfully and justly should ever have
cause TO fear us, and no strong power
should ever be able to single us out
as a subject for insOlent aggression.
Our relations with the other pow
ers of the world are import
ant; but still more important are our
relations among ourselves Such
growth in wealth. population and in
! power as this nation has seen during
the century and a quarter of its ma
tional life is inevitably accompanied by
like growth in the problems which
are ever before every nation that rises
TO greatness.
Responsibilities and PeriIs.
Power invariably means both re-
spOnsibilities and perils. Our fore
! fathers faced certain perils which we
have outgrown. We now face other
perils the very existence of which it
was impossible that they should fore
see.
Modern life is both complex and in
tense, and the tremendous changes
wrought by the extraordinary indus
trial development of the last half cen
fury are felt in every fibre of our So
cial and political being. Never before
have men tried so vast and formidable
an experiment as that of administer
ing the affairs of a continent under the
forms of a democratic republic. The
conditions which have told for our
marvellous material we'll being. which
have developed TO a very high degree
our energy, self-reliance and individ-
ual initiative. have also brought the
care and anxiety inseparable from the
accumulation of great wealth in indus
trial centers.
Upon the success of our experiment
much depends; not only as regards our
own welfare. but as regards the well
fare of mankind. If we fail. the cause
of free government throughout the
world will rock 10 its foundations: and
therefore our responsibility is heavy,
to ourselves. to the world as it is to-
day. and 10 the generations yet unborn
There is no good reason why we should
fear the future. but there is every rea-
son why We should face it seriously.
neither hiding from ourselves the gray
ity OF the problems before us nor fear
ing to approach these problems with
the unbending. unfiinching purpose to
solve them Alright.
Must show Same Spirit.
Yet, after all, though the problems
are new, though the tasks set before us
differ from the tasks set before our
fathers who fought and preserved this
republic, the spirit in which these tasks
must be undertaken and these prob
lens faced, if our duty is to be well
done. remains essentially unchanged
We know that self-goyernment is diff
cult. We know that no people needs
such high traits of character as that
people which seeks TO govern its af-
fairs Alright through the freely express
ed will Of the freemen who compose ii.
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 confidence that we shall be
able TO leave this heritage unwasted
and enlarged TO our children and our
children's children. To do so We must