The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1918-10-03
DR.. Dunnack's Address.

History is the silent proof that the
march of humanity toward human liber-
tv, though often interrupted, has never
been altogether defeated. Long ago,
Xerxes built his great white throne, and
then the people thought that the march
of human liberty had ended forever.
Again, Alexander drew his sword and all
the world was conquered by the might of
his matchless military genius, and again
the march of civilization was interrupt
ed. Then Caesar crossed the Rubicon,
and again the march of civilization SEEM
ed forever to have ended, but the great
hordes gathered from the North, and soon
Caesar was but memory and for ten
centuries after the fall of Rome, Europe
was ruled by the sword; men who enter
tained ideas similar to those of the pres
ent leader of the German nation were
everywhere in power; human govern
ment gathered itself for the most part
around autocratic ideas. The develop
ment of human liberty, as we understand
it, was almost arrested; and then the
Barons of England summoned King John
to meet them at Rdnnymede, and at the
close of that great convention the Magma
Charta was signed, and the first priceless
document of human liberty was written.
The German King George III stole the
liberties of England, and in that dark
hour he reached across the Atlantic to
destroy the infant colonies in far away
America. England did not understand
and am very sorry the Colonies did not
understand at that time-that the Colo
MES in that great contest were not Only
to save their own liberty, but really were
to break the chains with which the Ger
man king was abont to bind England for
ever; and today English statesmen know
that it was the American colonies that
saved them from long run of tyranny
And when the great Revolution had end
ed, George Washington had written the
second great charter of human liberty.
Two opposing armies are gathered in
little village in Pennylvania. There, on
the hills, the North and the South are in
battle array and the greatest fight in the
Civil War is on. On those days in July
the fate of the American Republic was
in the balance; but when the battle of
Gettysburg had come to close, Abraham
Lincoln, by the command of this great
united republic, wrote the third charter
of human liberty.
The world was at peace! Such peace
as we thought would never come to an
end. 1t had lasted for years and years;
civilization was rapidly developing every
where. England was giving her civiliza-
ton to India and to her colonies in Africa.
Already the fires were burning upon the
hills of China. Nation after nation was
becoming republic; the French people
had already built high and wide the altar
of human liberty; the world was well
nigh belted with republics. We were
living in time when the great financial
resources of the world were so organized
that we thought they would make great
war an impossibility; the great modern
forces of the world were so organized and
interlocked that we thought from an in
ternatlonal point of view that nothing
more than petty warfare could ever
come to the world. Suddenly war was
once more gripping the world, and we
read it's story day after day, month after
month and year after year. Nation after
nation answered the roll-call, until prac-
tically every nation in the world had en-
rolled itself on one side or the other OF
what had already become world contest