Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1919-05-31

that founding q government the cor
ner stone of which they declared
should be dedicated to liberty. and
who took for their WatchWord OF
civic righteousness the proposition
that all were created free and equal.
should allow the shameful smirch or
slavery to stain the very threshold
Of the edifice they had erected.
Technically the historian looks
beyond slavery in a search for a
cause for the Civil War. Be that as
it may, it was the question Of slav-
cry which aroused the public con-
science, and it was your hatred for
that institution which nerved your
arm for the conflict.
And what did you accomplish?
Your armies Unanswered over more
than seven thousand miles Of terri
tory for four long years. A war
in which half a million men were
killed and two million wounded
must have had it's lesson. You shiv-
cred the shackles of slavery. Three
generations of people in II states
had been taught that labor should
be enslaved. In the North preacher
and publicist assailed it as a crime
against nature and against God. 1t
was slavery and disunion or free
dom and union. One must not only
yield but die. The Goo Of battles
decided in favor Of liberty and union
and no surviving soldier in either
army today doubts the justice of that
verdict. Second, you accomplished
an industrial revolution. From the
touch of liberty came the expanss
of industry.
More than all this you established
forever the principle that this gov
crnment was no federation of inde-
mighty nation.
Great victories bring great oppor-
tunities. and great opportunities
bring great responsibilities, and it Is
our duty as good citizens to look
about US to see what We may do to
preserve for ourselves the blessings
~ fought so bravely to maintain.
The free institutions to which we
point with so much pride and for
which We are indebted must con-
stantly be defended against those
VAAO AAOsh AS1AOA 1iNCp NiS4puoACoS VI
selfishness would destroy them.
with the influx of foreign popu-
lation comes the danger of anarchy.
We will freely grant to all who will
become citizens Of this republic
equal rights under our law ~..h the
soldiers who saved this republic, but
no more. There is room in this coun-
try for only one flag and "Old Glory"
with the red of its courage, the white
of it's purity and the blue of its
truth must head the procession or
republic and neither mammon nor
anarchy shall be king.
This country has a class Of capt.
talists who seek to control first one
and then another of the necessities
of life. If public sentiment cannot
reach these evils the scope Of our
constitution, the wisdom Of our leg
islatures and the strength of our
courts should try by lawful means to
eradicate them. Traffic in the food
of the people must be fettered. The
corporation is but the creature of the
state and should not by it's move
ments be the peril of the investor
and traps alike for enterprise and
ambition.
Just what part our nation may
play in the great world drama now
to com, no one can say. Prophecy IS
idle. We know that the same cour-
?ge and we believe that the same
wisdom which you venerable men
showed in 81 yet remains in your
posterity. We can only pray that the
God of our fathers still holds our
country's safety in his keeping"