Weekly independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1887-1914, 1913-06-20

we're much appreciated by a repre-
sentative audience Of Elko citizens.
The usual commencement exercises
we're held and every number in the
program was executed in mastery
fashion. Judge Norcross of the
Nevada Supreme Court delivered
the best commencement address
ever heard in Elko. The address
is published part today and part
tomorrow. The entire address will
appear in next weeks weekly
along with such other matters per-
tanning to the exercises as space
and time will permit.
Judge Norcross said:-
"Thegreatest achievement Of the
eighteenth Century was the De-
claration of American Independ-
ence. Not so much on account of
the political results emanating
from 1.-THE birth of the first ma
tion of the modern world, but be-
cause of the fact that it affirmed,
as a self evident truth. that all men
are created equal, and endowed by
the Creator with the i%nalienable
rights of life liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness, and founded a
government on that divinest princi-
pie Of human equity
Every revolution" says Emer-
son was first a thought in one
mans mind. ard when hat same
thought ccurs to another man, it is
the key to that era. Every reform
was once a private opinion, and
when it shall be a private opinion
again, it will solve the problem of
the age"
What mind first conceived the
idea of universah liberty? Amid
the gloomy centuries of universal
absolutism, to what soul did that
thought first come like a flash
Of inspiring light? We know not.
All that we know is hat the
thought was born, that it develop
ed in the shadow of the dogma of
divine right of kings. That tyran-
ny and oppression only served to
fructify the seed of liberty, and
little by little it grew out of the
shadow into the bright sunlight Of
freedom and the bloom Of liberty
was a reality.
When we view the centuries pre-
ceding the birth of this republic
and contemplate mans social ard
political evolution, the thought is
irresistably forced upon us that
There is a Divinity that shape our
ends
Rough hew them as we may"
1t is a matter Of intense inter
est when we consider that nearly
eighteen hundred years had elaps-
ed since the Master uttered the
Sermon on the Mount, before il
was proclaimed as a matter Of polti
cal truth that to insure the sacred
rights Of life. liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness, governments
are instituted among men deriving
their just powers from the consent
of the governed" II is also a
matter worthy Of the contemlpa-
tion Of the thoughtful mind, that
when mankind had struggled up
through successive stages of devel-
opment to a condition that was ripe
to promulgate this new theory of
government that a new continent
was also opened up TO mans ac-
QUESTION, where this political truth
would be demonstrated unhamper-
ed by established conditions that
had prevailed in other parts Of the
world from the dawn Of recorded
history.
How striking is the fact that for
unknown ages before and for three
thousand years after Moses, the
great law-giver received from on
High the Decalogue which com
prise the whole Of fundamental
law, thiS mighty continent remain
ed hidden from the knowledge of
the world A thousand and a half
years elapsed from the dawn Of the
Christian era, before q thought