The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1929-07-03
THE DAY OF APPRAISAL

THE DAY OF APPRAISAL
Tomorrow the nation attains its l53rd birthday.
In its adolescent days this anniversary was accorded
a reverence that it docs not command today. 1t was a
natal day of a young nation then. Now it is merely a
Roman holiday, rather.
vig-ilance-c,crnal vigilance the fathers OF the nation
termed it-then was the WatchWord. Dearly bought in
dependence faced the need Of maintaining itself. Birth
pains divided the people. The new regime was difficult
to maintain for several reasons. One was economic. 1t
was a poor country. with It's magnificent wealth then
unrealizcd or undcmonstrated. The use OF coal had not
yet been discovered. Petroleum deposits were not known
and, had they been known, there was no use to which
this liquid treasure could have been applied. The ma
ton was born before the days of the acknowledges,
before the days CT the steamboat, the railroad locomo-
tive or even the day of canals. 1t was a long time in adj
vance OF the telegraph. too. These were factors greater
than even the Revolution in developing this nation into
what 1t is today.
Since that day I'm l776. when, from the old state house
in independence square, in Philadelphia, the Liberty
bell pealed out the proclamation that the thirteen orig
inal colonies had shaken off the yoke of the mother
country, inventive genius has been shaping this nation
into an industrial and commercial commonwealth, out Of
the political entity that its independence made it in the
beginning. People have been forced to quit thinking of
America in the terms OF the Declaration of Independence
and have had to deal with it in the terms of an economic
epoch. The OSCILLATIONS Of Thomas jefferson have had
to accommodate themselves to a mechanical age. Evo-
luton has been in progress and along that path the ma
ton has come to what it is today.
Like an individual the nation has been inventorying it.
self all these years. Every Fourth Of July has brought
to the fore the dominant question. Quo vadis? Whittier?
This was the burning query when the American rcpub-
lie went to war a second time in 1872. 1t was the prob
lem when hostilities ensued with Mexico. And it rose to
its climax in 1851, when the salvation Of the nation
became the dividing issue OF the people. No war in which
this nation has engaged was without this searching of
destiny. Could this republic endure? Or was it doomed
to the same decay that had befallen Greece and Rome?
Yes, in peace as well as in war, the American people have
always weighed the permanency of their country and
government in the scales of historical uncertainty and
the hitherto finity Of political existence. Had Washing
ton and the founders created a political organism that
could weather the perils to which other governments
and peoples had bowed? Had Lincoln permanently saved
government of the people, for the people and by the
people?
Optimism has never been able to. answer the doubt
whether this nation is built on eternal rock or shifting
sand. Time changes all things. The American republic
has had to itself to considerable new phil
osophy since it developed out Of the travail of the Rev.
dictionary period. It will have to shape itself to all the
changes OF the future, and what these will be no one can
prophecy now. The world has come to the stage where
travel on foot has been surpassed by horseback and
vehicular travel, by the steamship and the steam locomo-
tive-and the latter has had to divide its domain with
the electric locomotive, the automobile and the airplane.
What economic development involving the very exist
ence Of the nation, as We now know 1t, may not come out
Of the future. still unfathomed, possibly to reshape it to
economic compulsion to which political form will have
to yield?
Consider the problems Of the day. EVERYWHERE rest
lessness If not actual lawlessness. Industrial conditions
shrinking in an endeavor to produce cheaper, on a
.o-1> ill.,. -.
individual worker. Questionable fidelity to a free ballot.
A constant changing of values. Flux, uncertain indus
trial and commercial evolution. a flabby political organ
ism. Ills Of no mean portent.
On the other hand. perhaps out of these very uncer-
taintes and forebodings the possibilities Of a greater day
emereing-a day when the American people shall be more
firmly established in their liberty and their culture as
they now are established in their industrial and COM
mercial prosperity.
The great problem is how to give spiritual permanencv
to this freest Of all governments, to this richest of coun-
tries, to its morals and its civilization.
Ihe Fourth OF July should not be a Roman holiday. It
should Be 2 dAy-not necessarily devoid of the emotions
which 80 with something as divine as this nation-whcn
the people respond to the consciousness of their free i'm
heritance-the most opulent since Eden was closed.
Looking backward and forward the entire nation should
renew out Of the past, faith and out Of their loyalty and
devotion. hope In the future of their national destiny,
No other nation in history was born as ours was horn.
No other nation was dedicated to quite the ideals to
which ours y dedicated; and no other nation is follow
Ing quite the path that ours is following.
unwtttingly. our forefathers did more than declare pa-
nttcal Independence on that hot July day in ITS. With
at reaitxtng II. they declared the independence Of their
descendants from other things-lrom poverty, from war.
from ignorance. from unremitting tol. from blindness Of
and spirit. To such . goal, slowly and painfully
Ut nons the less surely. We are making our way. We
- richer than any other people: We have more leisure
m1re tine - recreation ana enjoyment: and dimly we
- 1eginning - realise thak this Is making It possible
- - - hreed better, happier. stronger men than other
poapah
MaCUlnem-peshaps them. aftes Al, Is the one word
exrsMnnkoa eeal IIapptness that comes through
5eteDe ANm q11oa1 easess Through release from fear
ge1f ak snpisnse6ssa1ian feas q domestic discord or fear