The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-27

Americans descended from the colonial stock. For all alike the problems or our existence are fundamentally the same, and for all alike these problems change from generation to generation.
 In the colonial period, and for at least a century after it's close, the conquest of the continent, the expansion of our people westward to the Alleghenies, 4 then to the Mississippi, then to the Pa cifc, was always one of the most im- portant tasks, and sometimes the most l important, in our national life. Behind ! the first settlers the conditions grew easier, and in the older settled regions of all the colonies life speedily assum- ed much of comfort and something of luxury; and though generally it was on a much more democratic basis than life in the old world, it was by no means democratic when judged by our modern standards; and here and there, as in the tide-water regions of Virginia, a genuine aristocracy grew and four ished. But the men who first broke ground in'the virgin wilderness, wheth- CT on the Atlantic coast or in the in- terior, fought hard for mere life. Tn the early stages the frontiersman had to do battle with the savage, and when the savage was vanquished there re- mained the harder strain of war with the hostile forces of soil and climate, with flood, fever and famine. There was sickness, and bitter weather; there were no roads; there was a complete lack of all but the very toughest and most absolute necessaries. Under such circumstances the men and women who made ready the continent for civiliza- ton were able themselves to spend but little time in doing aught but the rough work which was to make smooth the ways of their successors. In conse- quence observehs whose insight was spoiled bl lack of sympathy always found both the settlers and their lives unattractive and repellent. In Mar tin Chuzzlewit the description of Amer ica culminating in the description of the frontier town of Eden, was true and lifelike from the standpoint of one continent to look merely at the outer shell; and yet it was community like INGll tIldt bdNG III li LO AMI dAAehlAA l4tAA coin; it was men such as were therein described from whose loins Andrew Jackson sprang.
 Hitherto each generation among us has had its allotted task, now heavier, now lighter. In the Revolutionary war the business was to achieve indepen- dence. Immediately afterwards there was an even moro momentous task;
 that to achieve national unity and the capacity for orderly development, with out which our liberty our independence, would have been a curse and not a blessing. In each of these two contests, while there were many great leaders from many different states, it Is but fair to say that the foremost place was taken by the soldiers and the statesmen of Virginia; and to Virginia was reserv- ed the honor of producing the hero of both movements, the hero of the war and of the peace, that made good the results of the war-George Washington; while the two great political tendencies of the time can be symbollzed by the names of two other great Virginians- Jefferson and Marshall-from one of whom we inherit the abiding trust in the people which Is the foundation stone of democracy, and from the other the power to develop on behalf of the people a coherent and powerful govern ment genuine and representative na- tionality.
 Two generations passed before the second great crisis of our history had to be faced. Then care the Civil war. terrible and bitter in itself and in it's aftermath, but a struggle from which the nation finally emerged united in fact as well as in name, united forever, Oh, my hearers, my fellow countrymen, great indeed has been our good fortune, for as time clears away the mists that Ionce shrouded brother from brother and made each look "as through a glass ldarkly" at the other, we can all feel the same pride in the valor the devo- ton and the fealty toward the right as lit was given to each to see the right, shown alike by the men who wore the blue and by the men who wore the lgray. Dich and prosperous though we lare as a people, the proudest heritage lthat each of us has, no matter where Ihe may dwell north or south, east or lwest. is the immaterial heritage of feeling, the right to claim as his own all the valor and all the steadfast de. Ivotion to duty shown by the men of both the great armies of the soldiers whose leader was Grant and the sol diers whose leader was Lee. The mer land the women of the civil war did their duty bravely and we'll in the days lthat were dark an dterrible and splen- did we, their descendants, who pay proud homage to their memories, and glory in the feats of might of one side Inc less than of the other, need to keeT steadily in mind that the homage which counts is the homage of heart and oi hand, and not of the lips, the homage of deeds and not of words only We
 too, in our turn, must prove our trutf by our endeavor. We must show our. selves worthy sons of the men of the mighty days by the way in which we 1 meet the problems of our own time. w ICarry our hears nlSn because our Id'
 thers did well in the years that triet
 mems souls; and we must in our turI
 so bear ourselves that the children wht
 come after us may feel that we to' have done our duty
 We can not afford to forget the max
 i'm upon which Washington insisted
 that the surest way to avert war is tC
 be prepared to meet it. Nevertheless
 the duties that most concern us ol
 this generation are not military, bu
 social and industrial. Each commu