The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1905-03-09

zatiOn of all which life has offered us,
a full acknowledgment of the respon-
sibility which is ours, and a fixed de
| termination to show that under a free
government mighty people can
thrive best alike as regards the
things of the body and the things of
the soul.
Much has been given to us and
much will rightfully be expected from
us. We have duties to others and
duties to ourselves, and we can shirk
neither. We have become q great
nation, forced by the fact of its great
ness into relations with the other ma
/ lions of the earth, and We must be
have as beseems a people with such
responsibilities Toward all other
nations, large and small, our attitude
must be one Of cordial and sincere
| friendship. We must show not only
( in our words, but in our deeds, that
we are earnestly DESTROYS of securing
their good will by acting toward them
in a spirit of just and generous recog-
milton OF all their rights.
But justice and generosity in a
nation, as in an individual, count
most when shown not by the weak,
but by the strong. While ever care
ful to refrain from wrOnging others,
we must be no less insistent that we
are not wrOnged ourselves. We wish
peace, but we wish the peace of JUS
tice, the peace of righteousness. 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 insoleut aggression.
Our relations with the other pow
ers 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
century and quarter of its national
life is inevitably accompanied by q
| like growth in the problems which
are ever before every nation that ris-
es to greatness. Power invariably
means both responsibility and dan
ger. Our forefathers faced certain
perils which we have outgrown. We
now face other perils the very exis-
tence of which it was impossible that
they should foresee.
Modern life is both complex ard
intense, and the tremendous changes
wrought by the extraordinary indus
trial development of the last half cen
fury are felt in every fiber of our so
cial and political being. Never before
have men tried so vast and formidable
an eXperipent as that of administer
ing the affairs of continent under
the forms of democratic republic.
The conditions which have told for
our marvellous material well-being,
which have developed to a very high
degree our energy, selfreliance and
individual iniatiYe, have also brought
the care and anxiety inseparable from
the accumulation of great wealth
in industrial centers. Upon the
success of our experiment much de-
ponds, not only as regards our own
welfare, but as regards the welfare
OF mankind. If we fail, the cause of
free self-gOvernment throughout the
world will rock to its foundations;apd
therefore our responsibility 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 future, but there is
every reason why we should face it
seriously, neither hiding from oursel-
YES the gravity of the problems be-
fore us nor fearing to approach these
problems with the unbending, I'M
flinching purpose to solve them
Alright.
yet, after all, though the prob
lens are new, though the tasks set
before us differ from the tasks set be-
fore our fathers who founded and
preserved this Republic, the spirit in
which these tasks must be underta-
ken and these problems faced, if our
/ duty is to be we'll done, remains es-
sentiallv unchanged.
We know that self-government is
difficult. We know that no people
need such high traits of character as
that people which seeks to govern
its affairs Alright through the freely
expressed will of the freemen who
compose it. But we haye faith that
we shall not prove false to the mem
cries 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 conf
dence 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 show, not
I T,1nrnlU in