The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1905-03-21
REV.S.K. MAHON
OF MassiIIon, Talks Of
Problems Solved and
UnS0Ived
AT THE BIG BANQUET

1t we're an ambitious effort to hold
the attention Of this distinguished
body directly after its ears have been
ravished by the eloquent deliverances
of the finished orator who has preced-
ed me.
II is an act of considerable temerity
for a clergyman to rise before this
common-sense body of 200 business
men, unless we had you In our
churches, for you well know that this
precious quality of common-sense Is
supposed 10 have its abiding place al
most entirely with business men, and
rarely with the clergy.
Men Of the pulpit have always been
held to be wanting in practical
knowledge, knowing little of the dark
and devious ways of this naughty
world Yet the preacher is not wholly
impracticable; sometimes l am led to
think that the men of my cloth are the
Dlost practical business men In the
world. There is no class who can
make so little go so far, and live SO
comfortably on as small means, who
can fatten on pastures where members
of the Board of Trade would starve;
no class that go through life in such
large numbers without bankruptcy. In
a certain space of time there were
$500 merchants who failed in busi-
ness liabilities amounting to $500, 0,000,-
900. / do not believe that one quar-
ter that many clergymen failed or
that their liabilities amounted to any
thing like that sum.
But granting that we are wanting
in practical business ability, the fact
remains that we are very necessary
evil. Indeed what would the people
do without us? The father tells the
son that the clergy seen by the son
in the senate chamber is not to pray
for the senate but for the country. So,
in the hands of the city fathers and
the Board of Trade what would the
people do If we were not about to pray
for them?
Unsolved problems, we have them,
we have always had them. Sums for
each day. Some of them have been
easily solved and some of them have
caused the midnight oil to burn. So
luton has always come when there
was a willingness to accept the facts,
no matter how unpleasant, and deal
honestly, vigorously and persistently
with them.
The Pilgrims solved the Indian prob
lem with shot-guns and 1t was not
General Sherman but General Miles
Standish who originated the axiom
that the only good Indians are the
dead ones.
The Pilgrims solved the witch-craft
problems, failing at first because they
tried to apply Indian warfare meth
DDS, but they finally succeeded because
they learned that it is never possi-
BILE to wall In a creed and wall out
liberty. And now New England is said
to have more religions and not less
religion, but less bigotry than any
other community in the world"
We>are told that in days before dy-
Mantle was known. the Pilgrims in the
cabin of the Mayflower discovered the
most powerful explosive that has
ever been discovered; it was the prin-
cipal that all men are created equal
They tried its explosive power upon
England Gnd 1t burst the bonds that
held the colonists to the mother coun.
try, while it melted the states into q
Union one and indissoluble. The
explosive was used again and 3,0OO,.
900 of slaves who had been told thai
"Christus Consolator" had come to
free all the world except themselves
were freed, and they could say, "H,
HAS come to proclaim liberty to thu
captives-and He HAS opened tn,
prison to them that are bound" Nc
Kinley the careful, but watchful CALI
again for this explosive and the yok,
of oppression of 400 years is loosed IL
a night by Dewey in Manila. An,
savages eager to learn have mad,
more progress in the six years of Am
erican rule than in all the 400 year
preceding. Some indeed look upol
them as a burden and almost wisl
that the Philippines had not come t,
US. They are like the Dutchman VIII,
was one Of many children contestin
his fathers will and who said afte
the case had dragged out for year
This fight gives me so much troubl
, that am almost sorry that dad died
, Problems. say that we have alway
had them and that we have Away
solved them.
When Fulton on that summer day @
, 1908 launched his steamboat devi
! upon the Hudson, he launched the ma
]. tion upon the high seas of new des
. tiny, that of commerce, and from
;. sprang canals, government roads, an
, railroads growing in mileage from 2
miles in 1880 to over 100000 in 1902.
The noWer-lOom the mule len N,