The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-02-13

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life's workout it was never called |
an experiment again. 1t had proved
its right to be. Europe--and not only
the Europe of princes and aristocrats
had felt free to mock it with proph-
ecies of failure. Of the intellectual
men of England, during the earlier part
of our Civil War, the only conspieu-
Gus one who did not despair of the
republic was John Bright. Mr.. Glad |
stone had no hope. At one period of
the war when things looked blacklist
for the Union, he had published book
called "The History of Democracy
From the Achaean League to the Down
fall of the United States "a work
which he was eager, within two years,
to withdraw from print In 1864 a Ger
man publicist, reviewing the history of
vanished republics-of Rome, of the
Grecian states, of Italy, France and
Holland-convinced himself that the
Civil War must end with sashed and
girded dictator in the White House.
The task of restoring order in a de-
moralized land and of paying the ma
tional debt would be too great, he
thought, for an excited and unframed
democracy to undertake. Indeed for
a long time back democracy, as work
ing plan of government, had few be-
levers among great thinkers and pub
Heists abroad, however strongly some
of them may have been arrayed against
| one man power Carlyle did not believe
in it, and fiouted it's basic claim in
characteristic phrase Democracy will
prevail" he said, 'tonly when men be-
| lieve the vote of Judas to be as good
as that of Christi Macaulay had said
! that our constitution was all sail and
! no anchor and he foresaw the plumber
/ of the rich by the poor. Men of the
| Disfael type were cynical to the
! last word. Europe generally believed
that no state was safe without train
/ ed governing class; men educated to
affairs and, perhaps, with an inherit
| ed taste for them. In their belief
state was like ship at sea. There
must be certifcated mariners in COM
mand. What to do in a storm could
not be safely left to vote of the
crew in the foreeastle In the earliest
! years Of the republic when Presidents
of the ruling caste were chosen in
/ SoUNoo ~ thC luS
| phrase "King Caucus there was less
apprehension abroad among people who
thought of us at all. Our leaders then
were men whom Europe could appreci-
! ate. Washington landed proprietor,
a master of slaves, one given to cere-
| mony, was of a social class which. in
! England, might expect to have its sons
IN parliament, even in the peerage.
| The two Adamses, aristoerats at heart.
| were understood. Jefferson, who had
lived in some state abroad before he
became a Jacobin at home, was look
| ed up to by men who usually looked
down. But foreign opinion about us
| changed when the peasantry of old
world fields and the waits of great
cities swarmed to America and began
| taking part in high politics-men of
the sort who hailed Andrew Jackson
as their prophet. "Wait,'' said the
European philosopher "untii this blind
mob. controls the state, and, in some
desperate exigency, chooses one of it's
own kind to lead it, Then the test
and the disaster. On the surface
the reasoning might have passed, but
there We're some things forgotten and
some things undreampt of in the old
political philosophy of Europe. Tt
ought not to have been necessary to
remind Europe of the Swiss; of how
"a few strong instincts and few
plain rules among the herdsmen of the
Alps had done more for mankind in
one unhappy day than all the pride of
intellect and thought And speaking
of those raised from the earth to do great
deeds, England surely should have re-
membered Cromwell and France the
peasant saint and warrior of Domremv,
! they should have seen in their horo.
scopes and taken measure of The
stalwart man.
Limbed like the cid heroic breeds.
Who stands self-poised on manhood 3
solid earth;
Not forced to frame excuses for his
birth.
Fed from within with all the strength
he needs.
Nature, when she puts forth he,
powers may matrieulate a greater mar
than any University; and she had al
ready done it in the American wiIds
For him her Old World moulds aside
she threw
And, choosing sweet clay from the
breast
Of the nnexhausted West.
With stuff untainted shaped a here
new.
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God
and true.
Blind to many things the gray phil
osophers, but fate ehastened them. Be
fore they had fairly begun making
their fine epigrams, something had
5 happened in the backwoods of Amer