The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-06-14

Though our tests be sometimes rough they are robust and clean. We are a provincial people, and we rejoice in our provnciaHsm We have always piqued | ourselves upon doing our love-making and our law-maldng, as we do our blowing | in a straight furrow, and yet it Is true that Kentucky never encountered darker | days than came upon us when the worst that can befall commonwealth seemed' passed and gone. The stubborn war be- tween the old court party and the new court party was bitter enough; but 1t was not so implacable as the strife which strangely began with the discussion of an honest difference of opinion touching purely economic question, of national. not state. policy. Can there be one living Kentuol,lan who does not look back with horror and amazement upon the passions and incidents of those evil days?
 General Grant once said to me: You Kentuckians are a clannsh set Whilst ] was in the White House, if a Ken | tuckian happened to get in harms way. or wanted an office. the Kentucky con- tingent began to pour in; in case he was a republican the democrats said he was a perfect gentleman; in case a democrat, the republicans said the same thing; can 1t be that you are all perfect gentlemen? | With unblushing candor, l told him that we were, that we fought our battles as we washed our linen, at home. but that outside, when trouble came, it was Ken lucky against the universe. MT. Tilden said of lad in the Blue Grass country, ] who had fallen from second story | window upon a stone paving without a | hurt and had run away to his play that | 1t furnished conclusive proof that he was destined for a great career In Ken lucky politics. Let me frankly confess that. peacemaker though l am, and at once the most amiable and placable or men. there have been times when |, even I, have wanted to go down to the | cross roads and swear at the court | That was when things did not swing to suit me. That was when the majority ap- | peared to think they knew more than | I did We grow so used to blessings that we heed them not and look beyond. fet' | when trouble or danger assails us' or | humiliation or sorrow, or when leagues oceans. continents lie between ourselves | and the vanished land from whose sacred | lintels ambition has lured us, or duty torn-and the familiar scenes rise up oe- | fore us-how small these frctions seem, | from us. I have stood upon the margin 1 of A distant sea and watched the ships 20 by. envious that their prows were westward bent. I have marked the slad waves dancing to the setting sun, heart- sick with thoughts of home.
 Is Forgiving.
 And thus wistful. yearning. ready to take my dearest enemy by the hand and l forgive him yea, to sop gravy with nm | ont of the selfsame dish, those words or the vagabond poet. whose sins the re- cordng angel long ago plotted out or | his book have come to me ana sung to me and cheered me even as mother s | lullaby
 Tn all my wanderings round this world of care,
 Tn all my grief-and God has given my share
 I still had hopes my latest hours to crown | Am,d these rural scenes to lay me down | ITO husband out lifes taper at the close And keen the flame from wasting by re- | pose,
 still had hopes-for pride attends us
 still
 Among the swains to show my book
 learned skill,
 | Around my fire an evening group 10 ara" And tell of all felt and all l saw
 And as hare whom hounds ana horhS | pursue, e.. Paris to the place from whence at frs
 he flew,
 still had hopes my long vacations past Here to return and die at home at last.
 ..Uome, There may be words as sweet words as tender. words more resonant and high, but. within our language round is there one word so all-embracing a' that simple word Home? Home be ever so humble there's no place ih' home the Old Kentucky Home; the | homo of. your fathers and of mine; ol innocent childhood, of happy boyhood' o hmadins, manhood: when all the worlc scanned bright and fair; and hearts were fulI and strong: when life was a fairA taIe and the wind as 1t breathed upoi inc houeysuckle about the door' whls pered nought but of love and tame 'hert l g,ory strode the sunbeams and there Was no such music as the low of cattle, the whir of the spinning wheel, the eau o' the dinner horn, and the creakiis oi 'h' barnyard gate. Home
 "Take the bright sheel
 From it's home on the lea.
 And wherever 1t goes
 It will sing of the sea.
 So take the fond heart
 From it's home by the hearth,
 Twill sing of the loved ones
 To the ends of the earth
 "For it's Home Home, Home, sighs the exile on the beach and it's Home Home. Home cries the hunter from the hills and the hero from the wars
 "Hame to my ain countree,'
 always Home whether 1t be tears or trophies we bringi whether we come witf laurels crowned. or bent with anguish anc sorrow and faiulre. having none othei shelter in the wide. wide world beside the prodisal along with the victor-ofter in his dreams. yet always in his hope turns him Home.
 Home Again.
 You, too. friends and brothers-Ken tuckians each and every one-you, too