The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1906-04-27

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reached which ultimately brought
Hawaii under the sovereignty Of the
United States as an organized terri
tory.
Leaving the minister at his home,
took the Senator to bis hotel, and as he
stepped from the carriage, he said, II
guess the time has come when we must
think about entering upon some form
of a colonial system From that day,
the one absorbing thought of his life
was the relation which the United
States, the dominant power of the
western hemisphere, should hold to
the weaker continental powers and the
islands in the two oceans which wash
our shores, and when little later the
war with Spain had thrown upon us
the responsibility of Cuba, Porto Rico
and the Philippines, and statesmen
doubted as to the right of a representa-
tive republic to hold control and sove-
reignty ofsunrepresented peoples, he
demonstrated beyond cavil or dispute,
in speech of wonderful simplicity but
strength, that the United
States possessed, inherently as we'll as
under it's constitution, all Of the rights
and powers pertaining to any absolute
ly independent sovereign nation.
The Platt amendment to the Cuban
;" 40 OAAy q PA0SVAN0A OPRAA
cation of the principles enunciated in
the earlier speech, and it Is entirely
safe to say that as Abraham Lincoln
demonstrated to the world the right of
the republic to preserve it's own life
against attacks from within, SO it is
due to Orville II. Platt, as much as to
any other one man, that the United
States stands forth among the powers
of the world today, the equal of any,
in every right, in every privilege, in
every degree and kind Of sovereignty,
and lacking in no respect In any pre-
rogative enjoyed or claimed by any
but this in his 26 years of service in
the Senate, he would have left his i'm
print on the history of his time.
He entered the Senate in 1879, an
ordinary New England country lawyer,
but great enough to stick when flung
up against the chance of greater OppOr-
tunities. For quarter of q century
he studied and toiled for the welfare of
a grateful constituency, no want OF
theirs too small to escape his notice,
no demand too large or too frequent to
exhaust his patience, and yet through
it all, 1t is manifest as we LOOK back
over his life work, that he saw, as all
must see, who In the thick of things
at the nations capitol see at all, that
the real welfare and enduring pros
perity of his own little state was mex
| tricably bound up and absolutely inter.
| woven with the larger national life.
do not believe that it ever entered into
the mind of Orville 81. Piatt that his
efficiency as representative or hit
greatness as senator would, or could
be measured by the number or size Of
the appropriations which he might Sc
cure from the national treasury for ex
penditure within the boundaries OF hi
own state, for he looked upon all thu
states as members of one body. y
concern. Whether as chairman Of
the committee on territories o.
patents, creating sovereign states IL
the then boundless West or securing
for the individual the reward of In
ventive genius, he worked just as pa
tiently and devOtedly in the one cas-
as the other, but his thought, hi
counsel and his vote were governed
and controlled by the way in which b.
believed the interests of the Who'll
people were to be affected by his action
He loved to stand upon the very bill
top of national affairs and sweep int
lone view the whole horizon and then
1retiring into solitude and seclusion
/ WO1A OuU w q "AoO 0O1AVAOA VII
problems of our national life, owe
which other men, with selfish thought
and narrower vision, Oftentlme
stumbled and fell.
He entered the Senate in 1879, lite1
ally a State-man, unknown to tn
country at large, and probably ur
acquainted with anyone there excep
possibly his own colleague froI
Connecticut. Twenty.six years late
he died in his cOuntry's service,
statesman in the true meaning of tina
word, leader among leaders, and dul
ing all that time, no man can trutt
fully say but that he bore characte
above reproach, serving with hdellt
and zeal, his state, his country and hi
God