The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-06-09

hoFhls CH6EdcteF. WtA lS ttie DaChuonu of purpose and purpose Is a thought In your heart. with win or determina- ton behind 1t and this is what fixes the responsibility and creates charac- ter. We should be careful not to con- fuse character with reputation, one is what you are and the other is what you appear to be.
 Many are satisfied with the pleas ures of literature. They study we'll. re- member well. imagine well. dream well; they are at home with the classics and converse with Homer and Virgil Many revel in the plays of Shakespeare, march in the vanguard of the Celestial battles of Milton. wear the armor of Richard on the burning plains of Pal estine and fight again the wars of Greece and Rome and Persia. They weep with Alexander over conquered world and perish with Caesar at Pom pey's statue. They read with consum- ing interest the abstruse productions of Darwin and Tyndal and Huxley; they delight themselves with the august rhetoric of pr. Samuel Johnson, as he Cakes little fishes talk like whales. such is the society that felicitates their souls. It was Intended in the divine p1ann that every man should be a thinker. He was created with this faculty and not to use 1t is to displease the Great Architect. May the good day hasten when, by the means or such institutions as this. every farmer. mechanic, merchant and those of every business profession and calling. shall be public spirited patriot and com- panion and shall think for himself As the Individual thinks. so will his char acter be, and as people think, so will the nations character be.
 Address of R. H. Mangum.
 R.. H. Mangum of Selma, delivered the alumni address. The speaker re- ferred briefly to the old times when he was college boy, and to the men con- nected with the institution at that time He said that though much that he had gieaned from books in those days had passed from mind. the im- press of the lives of the noble men with whom he had here come in con tact bided with him. As the old boys look about today, they can but realize that. Some we loved, the loveliest and the best that from his vintage rolling time hath pressed. have drunk their cup around or two before, and one by one sunk silently to rest. But with this realization. also comes the ennobling thought. that their works do live after them. As we gather again In those classic halls. we pay loving tribute to their memory and bear witness that in every nobler mood we feel the orient of their spirits glow.
 He said that honor is the subject of mystery and asked what would be the result if the sentiment honor with its most comprehensive meaning, was thrown into the activity of intense in- dustrialism, the turmoil of our politi- cal strife and the dazzling whirl of social life. When the myriad voices had been harmonized and the average sentiment moulded into a composite, would not old Jack Falstaff leer at us, with the query, Can honr set to a leg?'
 The speaker then traced what he claimed to be the gradual cheapening of individual worth and integrity in the business world; that today there was more embezzlement and dedication than ever before. and that in their self made impotency, business men were laying hold of the very pillars of the temple, in compelling women to bear on their already overburdened shoulders, mems temptations and work {.
 He traced the graduay weakening and abandonment of the sense Of per- sonal honor and purity in political cir cIes. He said that a certain class of self called and self appointed mission aries had come to the people of the South, had even invaded the lecture halls of her universitieg and college, and gravely urged them to abandon principles which they believed were true and right, as God had given 1t to them to see truth and right; that these people based their appeal and argument upon nothing higher than appeals tho the cupidity and love of power of the people; that no argument which went 10 the right and wrong of even that question could be disregard ed by honest men, but that when the ethics of the question were pushed en- tireiy aside, and nothing but a gilded bribe is offered. 1t was time for man. hood to assert itself. and honor to write the answer.
 General Lee left behind shining example for Southern men, when the leadership of the army into which he had been born and had served his young manhood's years was offered to him. and he refused to consider 1t. because he did not believe 1t would be follow ing the right as he saw the right for him to do so. The problems that con- front the nation, cannot be solved by men who act from no higher motives than expediency and personal aggran- dizement. They must be solved by men who approach them with clean hands and pure hearts. The speaker then spoke of social life and urged upon his hearers that they could not expect their business and political life to rise to higher levels than their so- cial life. That if the honorable and pure-hearted rnen of each community would not shirk the unpleasantness of duty. they could soon begin an era of better and higher living. That they could do 1t without the necessity for nistols or shot guns, for men of evil minds could never face purity and truth.
 The speaker closed by saying that he would not be understood as being nessimigtic. That the still small voice grows constantly more com- manding and millions of honorable, noble men and women are catching step to an onward and upward move ment and turning their faces towards q new day; as they do the light begins to break in the east and the crimson streak on oceans cheek grows into the Meeting of Alumni.
 Immediately upon the conclusion of the exercises in the chapel of the University this morning meeting of the Alumni Association was held in the hall of the Bellies Lettres Society. The regular business program for the