The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1908-07-08
FX-GOV. M'BR|DE DELIVERS
STIRRING ADDRESS
Speaks to Immense Audience That
Gathered at the North Yakima
Celebration of Independence Day.

4
deavor. And nobly has each respond
ed to the call. And may we trans
nit to future generations our heri-
tage OF the past, not only undimmed,
but with added lustre.
The contest between the colonies
and the mother country was not so
unequal as at first sight it might
seem. True, Great Britain was then
the most powerful nation upon the
face of the globe, while the colonies
were sparsely populated and had not
yet formed any permanent union
although for the time being welded
together by force of the pressure of
the common danger threatening them
from without, But the chief hope Of
i the colonies lay in the character q
their people-the basis upon which
the final test. But who were the
people who in defense of their liber-
ties hesitated not to throw down the
gage of battle before the mighty EN-
pire across the sea. They were the
more daring, or the descendants OF
the more daring spirits of western
Europe Englishmen, Scotchmen,
Irishmen. Scandinavians, Germans
and Frenchmen-men who had
braved the stormy waves of the At
lantic and the dangers and hardships
of a new country to escape the hand
of the oppressor, or that they might
be permitted to worship their Maker
according to the dictates of their own
conscience. 1t was not the weaklings
of the human race, but the more
hardy and the more daring spirits
the energetic and the adventurous
the strong of mind, the brave of
heart and the resourceful, who for
saking their homes in the Old World
set sail upon the boisterous waves OF
an intervening ocean to face the saw
ages, and the no less savage wilder
ness of the new world These, and
the descendants of these, were the
men who in 1916 stood ready to do,
to dare, and to die, if need be, in de-
Tense of their liberties, and to sus-
tain the propositions that all men
are created equal and are endowed
with certain inalienable rights
among which are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.
so, while the contest might
seem one sided, looking at the num-
bers, the munitions of war and the
other material resources of the con-
tending forces, yet it would not seem
so unequal when you take into con-
sideration the character of the colon
lists, their training in the school of
life and their experience in meeting
and overcoming the obstacles neces-
sarily confronting them in the open
ing up of a new world-an expert
ence fitting them for great deeds.
Nor, as an element in the contest,
should the justice of their case be
lost sight of, for Thrice armed is he
who hath his quarrel just.
"At the end Of the great day when
it was decided that all political con-
nection between the colonies and
Great Britain should be totally dis
Tnh N 10
greatest question was decided which
ever was debated in America, and a
greater, perhaps, never was nor will
be decided among men. ! am we'll
aware of the toll and blood and treas
ure that it will cost us to maintain
this declaration, and support and de-
fend these states; that the end is
worth all the means; that posterity
will triumph in that days transac-
ton, even though we should rue it,
which I trust in God we shall not. ="
And the end was worth the means
was worth all of the toll and the
blood and the treasure spent for
that end was this Great Republic of
today-a republic dedicated to lib
erty and to freedom
The Declaration of Independence
was not product of the dectrinaire,
of the theorist, or of the dreamer 1t
owed not its birth to the scholar in
his closet. 1t was not the offspring
of any single mind. 1t was, in the
words of Bancroft, the genuine eff
fusion OF the soul of the country at
that time. the revelation of its mind,
when. in its youth, IT'S enthusiasm, it's
sublime confronting of danger, it
rose TO the highest creative powers of
which man is capable. The bill OF
rights which il promulgates is of
rights that are older than human in
situations, and spring from the eter-
nal justice