The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1916-08-09
The Land and The Nation.

which it came need to be reminded
that Pennsylvania has given US more
! than anthracite and coke, more than
! the Steel Trust and Standard Oil.
/ We should remember that upon its
soil rose Independence Hall and that
there the eager listeners heard the
| glad tones of the bill which ANNOUNCE
| ed the birth of a nation conceived in
| liberty.
The immigrants who work in the
mines and mills are thought of as
men who receive wages and give
nothing, who take bread from our
children's mouths. They dig their
own graves while they enrich the ma
ton. The ground on which they work
is holy ground. They are the heroes
of our industrial struggle; the heroes
mangled by the mills, scalded and
burned by the fire, blown to pieces by
frightful explosions. Some day we
shall put beside the heroic figure of
the plowman which we are placing
on a pedestal that of the Celt, the
| Slav, the Latin, of the miners and
great commonwealth, enrichers of a
nation. In every part of this far
reaching land, in every state we must
discover this holy ground-discover
| it for ourselves and our children. l
never travel through those heart
| breaking forests, or what were once
| forests, in Michigan and Wisconsin
without reverently lifting my hat to
those brave men and women who are
now clearing what the lumber mag
mates have left, who are building hu-
man habitations amid that wreckage
of forests. Great are those men who,
going to a new part of the country,
rise above the wilderness and do not
become one with it.
Sometime ago as | was travelling
through the sandhills of Western Ne
braska in a luxurious automobile |
passed a dugout. 1t was sunset, but
the farmer was still in his field coax
| ing the sand to give nourishment to
the corn he had entrusted to it to
bring forth hundredfold. His wife
stood in the doorway, and we stopped
and chatted with her. We looked
into the one room in which she was
rearing an American family in clean
illness where water was the scarcest
commodity; in Goodness with none
! but God to watch her conduct; intel
igently, for there were books and
magazines. What a story of uncon-
querable faith and courage! How
sacred is this land won from reluct-
ant nature with fortitude surpass-
ing that of a soldier, this land unpol-
luted by human blood shed for con-
quest! Although we have no senti-
ment connected with the land it's
worth and it's beauty it is very sacred
to us. Should a foreign power desc
crate it by the touch of its soldiers
feet no American would rest until the
land was again free, no sacrifice
would be regarded as too great to
make in such a glorious cause.
We are deficient in the second ele-
ment which is usually required to
make~a nation: We are not of one
blood. From the lecture platform
have the opportunity of looking into
the faces of thousands of people, and
it means looking into the face of the
world. Coming in contact with schools
and colleges as do it is delight to
me to see the children of the younger
immigrants coming up out of the
steerage and mine into our higher
walks of life. AS to whether we can |
weld ourselves into a nation: We are |
becoming revitalized by air, reshaped |
by environment, we are becoming |
alike even physically. The fact that |
foreigners can stay in our country |
without feeling inconsistencies is made !
possible by the fact that although our
people speak the English language |
they are not English but Americans. |
We are a new race with new and vital |
ideas about society, religion and the |
state; ideas vital enough to make of |
US a new nation.
Frankly, l do not know what we
shall look like in the future, or what /
will happen as a result of the trans
mission of rich strains of blood into |
our national body, but I do know
that it depends on us.
Are you doing anything for our |
country besides preserving the past? |
What are you doing for our youth |
upon the city street? The battles |
of Lexington and Concord have been
fought, they will never be forgotten.
What are you doing for the future?
Is it enough to leave your money for
your children? What are you doing !
to make the will of the nation be in !
accord with the will of God? The |
past is secure. The Amorites, the |
Hittites and the Jebusites are dead,
as dead as they will ever be, but what |
about the Israelites, who have come
to a new Canaan? Your future lies
in your will; put your will behind
your wish.
l do not know about the future, no
man knows about the future, but no
matter what we shall look like in the |
time to come if in our day we are
wise and are guided by that wisdom,
if we are just and see that justice is
done, if we are loyal to the past and
are open to that guidance which has
led us through the past we shall all !