Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1906-09-27

gathering of republicans at Harris Grove
Webster county, on the occasion of the
celebration of the anniversary OF the
founding of the republican party, said:
"A government like ours, in the nature
of the case, is government by political
parties. Without them the administra-
ton of our affairs would become a mere
scramble for office, without purpose or
conference except the ambition Of indi-
vidual leaders. A state organized into
political parties, without losing the adj
vantage of leadership and guidance in
its affairs, is able to impose upon those
who aspire to public office the obligation
OF acting within tine limitations of rec
ognized political principles; so that the
government becomes an expression not Of
the whims and fancies of those chosen
10 office, but of that large concensus of
opinion which enters into the platform
of political parties.
''The almost total failure of nations
republican i'm form to develop orderly in
situations arises from their inability to
comprehend party spirit in its American
sense; so that we have the example of
many countries which have faithfully
copied the constitution of the United
States, in which elections can hardly be
distinguished from revolutions: that is
to say, the forcible triumph of mere per-
sonal leadership. As American citizens
we make no apology for our party or
CARNATIONS. In the language of Mr..
Blaine, at once eloquent and true, we set
a proper value upon that exalted senu-
ment of honorable association in public
life which holds together successive gen
erations of men-a sentiment which in
the United States causes the democrat to
reverence the memory of Jefferson and
Jackson and Douglas. which causes his
opponent to glory in the achievements of
Hamilton and Clay and Lincoln; a senti-
ment which in England has bound the
wings in Il common faith and common
glory, from WalpOle to Gladstone, and
their more conservative rivals in a creed
of loyalty whose disciples, from Boiling
broke to BeaConshed, include many OF
the noblest British patriots
We Are Americans.
1--WE are Americans before we are parti-
sans, and those of us who share the
republican faith are entitled to the salts
faction which we feel in the fact that
there has not been a time in fifty years
when a man was any less an American
citizen on account of his activity as a
republican partisan.
The anniversary which we commemorate
here today is a patriotic celebration, and
II only partakes of the character of
political meeting because for half a CEN
fury the American people have chosen
the republican party to write their his
tory and to oversee the progress and
development of their institutions. The
log cabin yOndcr on the edge of the
woods, in which Norman Hart and his
wife set up their family altar when this
part of Iowa was an almost uninhabited
frontier, and in which the polls were
opened to receive the votes of their neigh
bors for John c. Fremont, is to us a
sacred thing; for it not only represents
the primitive Iowa homestead but it pre-
serves the memory of the beginnings of
that great popular movement which four
years afterwaTd took one-tenth of our
people into the ranks of the union army
to protect the life of the republic and
to advance the liberties of the human
race
ITO us who are younger, there is a
real inspiration i'm the presence here of
the men and women, many of them
grown infirm under the burden of years
who, sitting about their quiet fireSides
talking together of the future of their
country thought out the articles of the
republican faith. and it may be without
knowing the full meaning of what they
did, became the pioneers of the new
American civilization and the larger place
Of the republic on the map of the world
History honors, and will still honor. the
immortal names which the republican
party of that far off time contributed to
its pages. We will do well with this
cloud of witnesses around us, even while
the names of Lincoln and Fremont. of
Giddings and Wendell Phillips, of Henry
Ward Beecher and Lucretia Mott of
Seward and Chase of Sumner and Fes-
sender are upon our lips, if we keep in
our hearts a hospitable place for the
tnen and women whose names are not
written in any hall of fame who are,
after all, the real founders of the repub-
hcan party. and have ever since con-
stituted the nucleus of that politicaI
power which has proved we'll nigh in
Vlnclble in American politics for more
than fifty years They have. after all.
been our real leadership for a political
party that does not rest upon the con-
science and affection of the people makes
only feeble and transient impression
upon the government of the United States.
Party Endurance.
while half century is only a small
span IN the life of a nation, it is no little
space in the life of a political party. and
the lull distance between the strength of
youth and the infirmities of approa ching
age. The republican party arose with
no aVeWed programme OF constructive
poucy. 1t was organized at a time when
me noise OF impending civil strife could
NC ulsuhctly heard and at the outset its
platform contained little except a nrotast
against the departure Of our government
from the principles of the Declaration of
independence and the Constitution Of
Ch'leu olates. The men and women who
eoIliposed the constituency to which its
nrst convention appealed thought of moth
ing except the threat Of the slave pouer
10 subject the whole nation tn its CON
trol. Many of its members inherited from
the old whig party those we'll defined
oplhlohs about questions relating to our
industrial and commercial life which
Clay. apo vi iheiirS
But the exigency of the nation had
lohg since put these questions into the
D@chsTound so completely that when
~ I ahl Llhcoln delivered his eulogy in
the OLD state house at Springfield on the
occasion of the funeral of Mr. Cr1ay ha
never mentioned the doctrines which had
peeh Identified with his public service.
Out spoke only of that love of freedom,
ana devotion to the union which iII,,n,-
mated the biography of the great yhi,,
leader e''"' "hls
mus II happened that in the formative
perou OF the republican party. the or
sanizaloh was grounded upon sound
moral basis and instructed for the r5i,riit..
work before it in the Fundamental min,
cipies which underlie our form of govern
ment. When Mr.. Lincoln was nominatad
-FOUR years later this solemn protest in
favor of freedom and the union was
stated In even palmer terms but side b,,
side with the anti-slavery prona go, AZ