Norwich bulletin., 1922-05-31
|CTTY RONORS MEMORY OF HEROES
 WHO SERVED THEIR COUNTRY

&0 AhE&atA O0OtNtN ascended Man has been able to secure and maintain his place only through eter- nal vigilance and almost inceasant strife. He was shackled by environment, by forces without and within. He was forced to fight to free himself from the limita- tions imposed by nature. Part of his program was to tame and harness nature to his tasks. He had to fight his way to intellectual. economic, political and relig- ious freedom. None of them fell into his lap from the skies Each of these precious parts of our inheritance have come dowR to rs with the dust and scare of conflict upon them and sacred with blood-mar of forefathers who won them at great cost. The history of liberty Is the story of mankind. The fight for freedom sums the struggle of the human spirit that parallels the biological struggle for life, which ln nature results in the survival of the fit. It touches all sides of our life from the first strivings of the child to be free from restraint to the climax found in the saint striving to be free from sin. It calls for all weapons in the arsenal of | man, material or mental or spiritual, The sanctified sternness of human life Is a
 
 may shirk the course and succeed When I bring you some suggestins on this fight | for freedom it will not be thought out of place on this day when we memorialize 1 the men who put bayonet and body be- tween us and the enemy that would over | throw our liberties
 1 Nothing is more characteristic of us ] than the instinct for freedom. You man 1 do almost anything elst to man without l FF, txs.f of his liberty and you have degraded him. Slavery is hateful to ali men, its name is anafhama. Lowell struck a chord that vfbrates in each of us wher | he wrote:
 "when e deed is done for freedm. through
 the broad earth's aching breast
 Runs 8 thrill of joy prophetic trembling on from east to west,
 And the slave where'er he covers feeli
 the soul within him climb
 To the awful verge of manhood, as tn,
 energy sublime
 Of a century bursts ful-blossomed on tn thorny stem of time.
 For mankind are one in spirit. and al instinct bears along
 Round the earth's electric circle the swift flush of right or wrong
 | humanlty's vast frame
 : Through its ocean-sundered flores feel the glsh of joy or shame
 In the gain or loss of one race ali tn
 rest have equal claim"
 Let us sketch this fight briefly as
 basis for further study. Political freedo1
 is bound up with the others in so intimat !, a way that 1t may be best to use ths | oS ba xryb f1l hau
 vey. Democracy is our particular bran
 of plitical freedom. There was forl
 of democracy in Greece in her great day
 Marathon is Europe's first great battl for freedom. '"Throughut the civilize
 world. men of every cline. of every pt
 itica persuasion. fee as Greeks at tf
 name of Marathon. Never in the anna
 of earth were united 50 closely in os
 applause, admiration if the heroism
 ness of their cause. It was the first gre;
 victocy fo opinion, and it's fruits wei
 reaped not by Athens only but by g
 Greece. and by all time thereafter" He
 democracy and autocracy faced cal
 other, and democracy won. Since tn, !: time no decisive fight for freedom h, e, been finally lost Freedom has be, t. checked in It's course; has been drivl n back from the open life of men, but wh,
 
 IS only moving her mighty youth for il
 hour of attack. She lived in the Joy le bosoms of faithful men biding her tim l. On the whole, the progress of freedom d Europe has been slow but sure IT
 Renaissance broke the shackles tn s. bound mems minds. The Reformati, IS set mems souls free. The French Rev " lution broke the power of the divt k right of kinds, on the continent. and t
 guillotine cut away the power of the n i bility with their heads
 Perhaps we are more concerned wi If the growth of freedom in Britain th, ,e on the. continent, for there the roots n our national life lie. We cannot ful y- understand our own insthutins until
 are familiar with those over the !. Greens History of England is the g ,o count of a great people fighting tn, z way upward to full possession of polite 7. and religious liberty. We follow the TO t along which freedom marched and fl t her mile posts macked Magma Char . Petition of Rights, Bil of Rights, e+c. ' = find ourselves in the revolution of t IS 1600s. Charles I loses his head. Jan ''' II is chased from the kingdom, Char T II Is deprived of the succession. T IS long fight between kng and parIam, GU 9u ends with parliament in charge It is pt -ic lament that ocers the crown to Wilih T and Mary on condition that they r as under the provisions of the Bill of Rigr Ve Since then no sovereign wears the Brit I'D crown without the consent of parliame go ,, The king IS a fgurehead intended to All as ornamental as useful
 u A century later George III of Gern "a: descent and leanings. though born or England. tried to bring back the ms ms regime. He would be king. He wo He rule by divine right He defied par IT. ment. He deliberately tried to sna es from the hands of Englishmen all the ne suits of the long struggle which be, lg when John was forced to sign the Gr we Charter by which power found it's V lte into the hands of the people. For t an power they brought John to his kn, re- fought the wars of the Roses For oh the protectorate and grim old Oli or Cromwell came; for this a king on killed, for this succession wes chans las for this some of the most sacred tri he tions of the kingdom were put un lat foot. And now this insane king wo in dare to restore the old orderl It of one of the most crucial hours that ib- come to the British nation in Eve h all dred years. Their liberties were in D, lat their proud place among the natl
 menaced. France dared to insult to powerful rival and went unchauenr for Pitt deplored the degradation of a nal in held under the heel Of the king and
 creatures
 Zee. Englishmen in England growl; EnEl -oi- men in America act. Our fight for ir bv pendence is on. Not a mere tax led by the open break but a principle. They