1366 lines
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1366 lines
65 KiB
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21 page printout
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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Contents of this file page
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1895 REUNION ADDRESS. 1
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OUR NEW POSSESSIONS. 15
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POLITICAL MORALITY. 20
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**** ****
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
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1895.
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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FELLOW-CITIZENS, OLD FRIENDS AND
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COMRADES:
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It gives me the greatest pleasure to meet again those with
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whom I became acquainted in the morning of my life. It is now
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afternoon. The sun of life is slowly sinking in the west, and, as
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the evening comes, nothing can be more delightful than to see again
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the faces that I knew in youth.
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When first I knew you the hair was brown; it is now white. The
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lines were not quite so deep, and the eyes were not quite so dim.
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Mingled with this pleasure is sadness, -- sadness for those who
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have passed away -- for the dead.
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And yet I am not sure that we ought to mourn for the dead. I
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||
do not know which is better -- life or death. It may be that death
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is the greatest gift that ever came from nature's open hands. We do
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not know.
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There is one thing of which I am certain, and that is, that if
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we could live forever here, we would care nothing for each other.
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The fact that we must die, the fact that the feast must end, brings
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our souls together, and treads the weeds from out the paths between
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our hearts.
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And so it may be, after all, that love is a little flower that
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grows on the crumbling edge of the grave. So it may be, that were
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it not for death there would be no love, and without love all life
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would be a curse.
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I say it gives me great pleasure to meet you once again; great
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pleasure to congratulate you on your good fortune -- the good
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fortune of being a citizen of the first and grandest republic ever
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established upon the face of the earth.
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||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
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That is a royal fortune. To be an heir of all the great and
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||
brave men of this land, of all the good, loving and patient women;
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||
to be in possession of the blessings that they have given, should
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||
make every healthy citizen of the United States feel like a
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||
millionaire.
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||
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||
This, to-day, is the most prosperous country on the globe; and
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it is something to be a citizen of this country.
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||
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It is well, too, whenever we meet, to draw attention to what
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||
has been done by our ancestors. It is well to think of them and to
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thank them for all their work, for all their courage, for all their
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toil.
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Three hundred years ago our country was a vast wilderness,
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||
inhabited by a few savages. Three hundred years ago -- how short a
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||
time; hardly a tick of the great clock of eternity -- three hundred
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||
years; not a second in the life even of this planet -- three
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||
hundred years ago, a wilderness; three hundred years ago, inhabited
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||
by a few savages; three hundred years ago a few men in the Old
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||
World, dissatisfied, brave and adventurous, trusted their lives to
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||
the sea and came to this land.
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||
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In 1776 there were only three millions of people all told.
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||
These men settled on the shores of the sea. These men, by
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||
experience, learned to govern themselves. These men, by experience,
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||
found that a man should be respected in the proportion that he was
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||
useful. They found, by experience, that titles were of no
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||
importance; that the real thing was the man, and that the real
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||
things in the man were heart and brain. They found, by experience,
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||
how to govern themselves, because there was nobody else here when
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||
they came. The gentlemen who had been in the habit of governing
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||
their fellow-men staid at home, and the men who had been in the
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||
habit of being governed came here, and, consequently, they had to
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||
govern themselves.
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||
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And finally, educated by experience, by the rivers and
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forests, by the grandeur and splendor of nature. they began to
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||
think that this continent should not belong to any other; that it
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||
was great enough to count one, and that they had the intelligence
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||
and manhood to lay the foundations of a nation.
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||
|
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It would be impossible to pay too great and splendid a tribute
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||
to the great and magnificent souls of that day. They saw the
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||
future. They saw this country as it is now, and they endeavored to
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||
lay the foundation deep; they endeavored to reach the bed-rock of
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||
human rights, the bed-rock of justice. And thereupon they declared
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that all men were born equal; that all the children of nature had
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||
at birth the same rights, and that all men had the right to pursue
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the only good, -- happiness.
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||
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And what did they say? They said that men should govern men;
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||
that the power to govern should come from the consent of the
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||
governed, not from the clouds, not from some winged phantom of the
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||
air, not from the aristocracy of ether. They said that this power
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||
should come from men; that the men living in this world should
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||
govern it, and that the gentlemen who were dead should keep still.
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||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
2
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||
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1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
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||
|
||
They took another step, and said that church and state should
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||
forever be divorced. That is no harm to real religion. It never
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||
was, because real religion means the doing of justice; real
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||
religion means the giving to others every right you claim for
|
||
yourself real religion consists in duties of man to man, in feeding
|
||
the hungry, in clothing the naked, in defending the innocent, and
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||
in saying what you believe to be true.
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||
|
||
Our fathers had enough sense to say that, and a man to do that
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||
in 1776 had to be a pretty big fellow. It is not so much to say it
|
||
now, because they set the example; and, upon these principles of
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||
which I have spoken, they fought the war of the Revolution.
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||
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||
At no time, probably, were the majority of our forefathers in
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||
favor of independence, but enough of them were on the right side,
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||
and they finally won a victory. And after the victory, those that
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||
had not been even in favor of independence became, under the
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||
majority rule, more powerful than the heroes of the Revolution.
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||
|
||
Then it was that our fathers made a mistake. We have got to
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||
praise them for what they did that was good, and we will mention
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||
what they did that was wrong.
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||
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||
They forgot the principles for which they fought. They forgot
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||
the sacredness of human liberty, and, in the name of freedom, they
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||
made a mistake and put chains on the limbs of others.
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||
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||
That was their error; that was the poison that entered the
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||
American blood; that was the corrupting influence that demoralized
|
||
presidents and priests; that was the influence that corrupted the
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||
United States of America.
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||
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||
That mistake, of course, had to be paid for, as all mistakes
|
||
in nature have to be paid for. And not only do you pay for your
|
||
mistake itself, but you pay at least ten per cent. compound
|
||
interest. Whenever you do wrong, and nobody finds it out, do not
|
||
imagine you have gotten over it; you have not. Nature knows it.
|
||
|
||
The consequences of every bad act are the invisible police
|
||
that no prayers can soften, and no gold can bribe.
|
||
|
||
Recollect that. Recollect, that for every bad act, there will
|
||
be laid upon your shoulder the arresting hand of the consequences;
|
||
and it is precisely the same with a nation as it is with an
|
||
individual. You have got to pay for all of your mistakes, and you
|
||
have got to pay to the uttermost forthing. That is the only
|
||
forgiveness known in nature. Nature never settles unless she can
|
||
give a receipt in full.
|
||
|
||
I know a great many men differ with me, and have all sorts of
|
||
bankruptcy systems, but Nature is not built that way.
|
||
|
||
Finally, slavery took possession of the Government. Every man
|
||
who wanted an office had to be willing to step between a fugitive
|
||
slave and his liberty.
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||
|
||
|
||
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||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
3
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
Slavery corrupted the courts, and made judges decide that the
|
||
child born in the State of Pennsylvania, whose mother had been a
|
||
slave, could not be free.
|
||
|
||
That was as infamous a decision as was ever rendered, and yet
|
||
the people, in the name of the law, did this thing, and the Supreme
|
||
Court of the United States did not know right from wrong.
|
||
|
||
These dignified gentlemen thought that labor could be paid by
|
||
lashes on the back -- which was a kind of legal tender -- and
|
||
finally an effort was made to subject the new territory -- the
|
||
Nation -- to the institution of slavery.
|
||
|
||
Then we had a war with Mexico, in which we got a good deal of
|
||
glory and one million square miles of land, but little honor. I
|
||
will admit that we got but little honor out of that war. That
|
||
territory they wanted to give to the slaveholder.
|
||
|
||
In 1803 we purchased from Napoleon the Great, one million
|
||
square miles of land, and then, in 1821, we bought Florida from
|
||
Spain. So that, when the war came, we had about three million
|
||
square miles of new land. The object was to subject all this
|
||
territory to slavery.
|
||
|
||
The idea was to go on and sell the babes from their mothers
|
||
until time should be no more. The idea was to go on with the
|
||
branding-iron and the whip. The idea was to make it a crime to
|
||
teach men, human beings, to read and write; to make every Northern
|
||
man believe that he was a bulldog, a bloodhound to track down men
|
||
and women, who, with the light of the North Star in their eyes,
|
||
were seeking the free soil of Great Britain.
|
||
|
||
Yes, in these times we had lots of mean folks. Let us remember
|
||
that.
|
||
|
||
And all at once, under the forms of law, under the forms of
|
||
our government, the greatest man under the flag was elected
|
||
President. That man was Abraham Lincoln. And then it was that those
|
||
gentlemen of the South said: "We will not be governed by the
|
||
majority; we will be a law unto ourselves."
|
||
|
||
And let me tell you here to-day -- I am somewhat older than I
|
||
used to be; I have a little philosophy now that I had not at the
|
||
nine o'clock in the morning portion of my life -- and I do not
|
||
blame anybody. I do not blame the South; I do not blame the
|
||
Confederate soldier.
|
||
|
||
She -- the South -- was the fruit of conditions. She was born
|
||
to circumstances stronger than herself; and do you know, according
|
||
to my philosophy, (which is not quite orthodox), every man and
|
||
woman in the whole world are what conditions have made them.
|
||
|
||
So let us have some sense. The South said, "We will not
|
||
submit; this is not a nation, but a partnership of States." I am
|
||
willing to go so far as to admit that the South expressed the
|
||
original idea of the Government.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
4
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
But now the question was, to whom did the newly acquired
|
||
property belong? New States had been carved out of that territory;
|
||
the soil of these States had been purchased with the money of the
|
||
Republic, and had the South the right to take these States out of
|
||
the Republic? That was the question.
|
||
|
||
The great West had another interest, and that was that no
|
||
enemy, no other nation, should control the mouth of the
|
||
Mississippi. I regard the Mississippi River as Nature's protest
|
||
against secession. The old Mississippi River says, and swears to
|
||
it, that this country shall be one, now and forever.
|
||
|
||
What was to be done? The South said, "We will never remain,"
|
||
and the North said, "You shall not go." It was a little slow about
|
||
saying it, it is true. Some of the best Republicans in the North
|
||
said, "Let it go." But the second, sober thought of the great North
|
||
said, "No, this is our country and we are going to keep it on the
|
||
map of the world."
|
||
|
||
And some who had been Democrats wheeled into line, and
|
||
hundreds and thousands said, "This is our country," and finally,
|
||
when the Government called for volunteers, hundreds and thousands
|
||
came forward to offer their services. Nothing more sublime was ever
|
||
seen in the history of this world.
|
||
|
||
I congratulate you to-day that you live in a country that
|
||
furnished the greatest army that ever fought for human liberty in
|
||
any country round the world. I want you to know that. I want you to
|
||
know that the North, East and West furnished the greatest army that
|
||
ever fought for human liberty. I want you to know that Gen. Grant
|
||
commanded more men, men fighting for the right, not for conquest,
|
||
than any other general who ever marshaled the hosts of war.
|
||
|
||
Let us remember that, and let us be proud of it. The millions
|
||
who poured from the North for the defence of the flag -- the story
|
||
of their heroism has been told to you again and again. I have told
|
||
it myself many times. It is known to every intelligent man and
|
||
woman in the world. Everybody knows how much we suffered. Everybody
|
||
knows how we poured out money like water; how we spent it like
|
||
leaves of the forest. Everybody knows how the brave blood was shed.
|
||
Everybody knows the story of the great, the heroic struggle, and
|
||
everybody knows that at last victory came to our side, and how the
|
||
last sword of the Rebellion was handed to Gen. Grant. There is no
|
||
need to tell that story again.
|
||
|
||
But the question now, as we look back, is, was this country
|
||
worth saving? Was the blood shed in vain? Were the lives given for
|
||
naught? That is the question.
|
||
|
||
This country, according to my idea, is the one success of the
|
||
world. Men here have more to eat, more to wear, better houses, and,
|
||
on the average, a better education than those of any other nation
|
||
now living, or any that has passed away.
|
||
|
||
Was the country worth saving?
|
||
|
||
See what we have done in this country since 1860. We were not
|
||
much of a people then, to be honor bright about it. We were
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
5
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
carrying, in the great race of national life, the weight of
|
||
slavery, and it poisoned us; it paralyzed our best energies; it
|
||
took from our politics the best minds; it kept from the bench the
|
||
greatest brains.
|
||
|
||
But what have we done since 1860, since we really became a
|
||
free people, since we came to our senses, since we have been
|
||
willing to allow a man to express his honest thoughts on every
|
||
subject?
|
||
|
||
Do you know how much good we did? The war brought men together
|
||
from every part of the country and gave them an opportunity to
|
||
compare their foolishness. It gave them an opportunity to throw
|
||
away their prejudices, to find that a man who differed with them on
|
||
every subject might be the very best of fellows. That is what the
|
||
war did. We have been broadening ever since.
|
||
|
||
I sometimes have thought it did men good to make the trip to
|
||
California in 1849. As they went over the plains they dropped their
|
||
prejudices on the way. I think they did, and that's what killed the
|
||
grass.
|
||
|
||
But to come back to my question, what have we done since 1860?
|
||
|
||
From 1860 to 1880, in spite of the waste of war, in spite of
|
||
all the property destroyed by flame, in spite of all the waste, our
|
||
profits were one billion three hundred and seventy-four million
|
||
dollars. Think of it! From 1860 to 1880! That is a vast sum.
|
||
|
||
From 1880 to 1890 our profits were two billion one hundred and
|
||
thirty-nine million dollars.
|
||
|
||
Men may talk against wealth as much as they please; they may
|
||
talk about money being the root of all evil, but there is little
|
||
real happiness in this world without some of it. It is very handy
|
||
when staying at home and it is almost indispensable when you travel
|
||
abroad. Money is a good thing. It makes others happy; it makes
|
||
those happy whom you love, and if a man can get a little together,
|
||
when the night of death drops the curtain upon him, he is satisfied
|
||
that he has left a little to keep the wolf from the door of those
|
||
who, in life, were dear to him. Yes, money is a good thing,
|
||
especially since special providence has gone out of business.
|
||
|
||
I can see to-day something beyond the wildest dream of any
|
||
patriot who lived fifty years ago. The United States to-day is the
|
||
richest nation on the face of the earth. The old nations of the
|
||
world, Egypt, India, Greece, Rome, every one of them, when compared
|
||
with this great Republic, must be regarded as paupers.
|
||
|
||
How much do you suppose this Nation is worth to-day? I am
|
||
talking about land and cattle, products, manufactured articles and
|
||
railways. Over seventy thousand million dollars. just think of it.
|
||
|
||
Take a thousand dollars and then take nine hundred and ninety-
|
||
nine thousand; so you will have one thousand piles of one thousand
|
||
each. That makes only a million, and yet the United States today is
|
||
worth seventy thousand millions. This is thirty-five per cent. more
|
||
than Great Britain is worth.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
We are a great Nation. We have got the land. This land was
|
||
being made for many millions of years. Its soil was being made by
|
||
the great lakes and rivers, and being brought down from the
|
||
mountains for countless ages.
|
||
|
||
This continent was standing like a vast pan of milk, with the
|
||
cream rising for millions of years, and we were the chaps that got
|
||
there when the skimming commenced.
|
||
|
||
We are rich, and we ought to be rich. It is our own fault if
|
||
we are not. In every department of human endeavor, along every path
|
||
and highway, the progress of the Republic has been marvelous,
|
||
beyond the power of language to express.
|
||
|
||
Let me show you: In 1860 the horse-power of all the engines,
|
||
the locomotives and the steamboats that traversed the lakes and
|
||
rivers -- the entire power -- was three million five hundred
|
||
thousand. In 1890 the horse-power of engines and locomotives and
|
||
steamboats was over seventeen million.
|
||
|
||
Think of that and what it means! Think of the forces at work
|
||
for the benefit of the United States, the machines doing the work
|
||
of thousands and millions of men!
|
||
|
||
And remember that every engine that puffs is puffing for you;
|
||
every road that runs is running for you. I want you to know that
|
||
the average man and woman in the United States to-day has more of
|
||
the conveniences of life than kings and queens had one hundred
|
||
years ago.
|
||
|
||
Yes, we are getting along.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 we used one billion eight hundred million dollars
|
||
worth of products, of things manufactured and grown, and we sent to
|
||
other countries two hundred and fifty million dollars worth.
|
||
|
||
In 1893 we used three billion eighty-nine million dollars
|
||
worth, and we sent to other countries six hundred and fifty-four
|
||
million dollars worth.
|
||
|
||
You see, these vast sums are almost inconceivable. There is
|
||
not a man to-day with brains large enough to understand these
|
||
figures; to understand how many cars this money put upon the
|
||
tracks, how much coal was devoured by the locomotives, how many men
|
||
plowed and worked in the fields, how many sails were given to the
|
||
wind, how many ships crossed the sea.
|
||
|
||
I tell you, there is no man able to think of the ships that
|
||
were built, the cars that were made. the mines that were opened,
|
||
the trees that were felled - no man has imagination enough to grasp
|
||
the meaning of it all. No man has any conception of the sea till he
|
||
crosses it. I knew nothing of how broad this country is until I
|
||
went over it in a slow train.
|
||
|
||
Since 1860 the productive power of the United States has more
|
||
than trebled.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
I like to talk about these things, because they mean good
|
||
houses, carpets on the floors, pictures on the walls, some books on
|
||
the shelves. They mean children going to school with their stomachs
|
||
full of good food, prosperous men and proud mothers.
|
||
|
||
All my life I have taken a much deeper interest in what men
|
||
produce than in what nature does. I would rather see the prairies,
|
||
with the oats and the wheat and the waving corn, and the
|
||
schoolhouse, and hear the thrushing amid the happy homes of
|
||
prosperous men and women -- I would rather see these things than
|
||
any range of mountains in the world. Take it as you will, a
|
||
mountain is of no great value.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 our land was worth four billion five hundred million
|
||
dollars; in 1890 it was worth fourteen billion dollars.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 all the railroads in the United States were worth four
|
||
hundred million dollars, now they are worth a little less than ten
|
||
thousand million dollars.
|
||
|
||
I want you to understand what these figures mean.
|
||
|
||
For thirty years we spent, on an average, one million dollars
|
||
a day in building railroads. -- I want you to think what that
|
||
means. All that money had to be dug out of the ground. It had to be
|
||
made by raising something or manufacturing something. We did not
|
||
get it by writing essays on finance, or discussing the silver
|
||
question. It had to be made with the ax, the plow, the reaper, the
|
||
mower; in every form of industry; all to produce these splendid
|
||
results.
|
||
|
||
We have railroads enough now to make seven tracks around the
|
||
great globe, and enough left for side tracks. That is what we have
|
||
done here, in what the European nations are pleased to can the new
|
||
world."
|
||
|
||
I am telling you these things because you may not know them,
|
||
and I did not know them myself until a few days ago. I am anxious
|
||
to give away information, for it is only by giving it away that you
|
||
can keep it. When you have told it, you remember it. It is with
|
||
information as it is with liberty, the only way to be dead sure of
|
||
it is to give it to other people.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 the houses in the United states, the cabins on the
|
||
frontier, the buildings in the cities, were worth six thousand
|
||
million dollars. Now they are worth over twenty-two thousand
|
||
million dollars. To talk about figures like these is enough to make
|
||
a man dizzy.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 our animals of all kinds, including the Illinois deer
|
||
-- commonly called swine -- the oxen and horses, and all others,
|
||
were worth about one thousand million dollars; now they are worth
|
||
about four thousand million dollars.
|
||
|
||
Are we not getting rich? Our national debt to-day is nothing.
|
||
It is like a man who owes a cent and has a dollar.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
Since 1860 we have been industrious. We have created two
|
||
million five hundred thousand new farms. Since 1860 we have done a
|
||
good deal of plowing; there have been a good many tired legs I have
|
||
been that way myself. Since 1860 we have put in cultivation two
|
||
hundred million acres of land Illinois, the best State in the
|
||
Union, has thirty-five million acres of land, and yet, since 1860,
|
||
we have put in cultivation enough land to make six States of the
|
||
size of Illinois. That will give you some idea of the quantity of
|
||
work we have done. I will admit I have not done much of it myself,
|
||
but I am proud of it.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 we had four million five hundred and sixty-five
|
||
thousand farmers in this country, whose land and implements were
|
||
worth over sixteen thousand million dollars. The farmers of this
|
||
country, on an average, are worth five thousand dollars, and the
|
||
peasants of the Old World, who cultivate the soil, are not worth,
|
||
on an average, ten dollars beyond the wants of the moment. The
|
||
farmers of our country produce, on an average, about one million
|
||
four hundred thousand dollars worth of stuff a day.
|
||
|
||
What else? Have we in other directions kept pace with our
|
||
physical development? Have we developed the mind? Have we
|
||
endeavored to develop the brain? Have we endeavored to civilize the
|
||
heart? I think we have.
|
||
|
||
We spend more for schools per head than any nation in the
|
||
world. And the common school is the breath of life.
|
||
|
||
Great Britain spends one dollar and thirty cents per head on
|
||
the common schools; France spends eighty cents; Austria, thirty
|
||
cents; Germany, fifty cents; Italy, twenty-five cents, and the
|
||
United States over two dollars and fifty cents.
|
||
|
||
I tell you the schoolhouse is the fortress of liberty. Every
|
||
schoolhouse is an arsenal, filled with weapons and ammunition to
|
||
destroy the monsters of ignorance and fear.
|
||
|
||
As I have said ten thousand times, the schoolhouse is my
|
||
cathedral. The teacher is my preacher.
|
||
|
||
Eighty-seven per cent. of all the people of the United States,
|
||
over ten years of age, can read and write. There is no parallel for
|
||
this in the history of the wide world.
|
||
|
||
Over forty-two millions of educated citizens, to whom are
|
||
opened all the treasures of literature! Forty-two millions of
|
||
people, able to read and write! I say, there is no parallel for
|
||
this. The nations of antiquity were very ignorant when compared
|
||
with this great Republic of ours. There is no other nation in the
|
||
world that can show a record like ours. We ought to be proud of it.
|
||
We ought to build more schools, and build them better. Our teachers
|
||
ought to be paid more, and everything ought to be taught in the
|
||
public school that is worth knowing.
|
||
|
||
I believe that the children of the Republic, no matter whether
|
||
their fathers are rich or poor, ought to be allowed to drink at the
|
||
fountain of education, and it does not cost more to teach
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
everything in the free schools than it does teaching reading and
|
||
writing and ciphering.
|
||
|
||
Have we kept up in other ways? The post office tells a
|
||
wonderful story. In Switzerland, going through the post office in
|
||
each year, are letters, etc., in the proportion of seventy-four to
|
||
each inhabitant. In England the number is sixty; in Germany, fifty-
|
||
three; in France, thirty-nine; in Austria, twenty-four; in Italy,
|
||
sixteen, and in the United States, our own home, one hundred and
|
||
ten. Think of it. In Italy only twenty-five cents paid per head for
|
||
the support of the public schools and only sixteen letters. And
|
||
this is the place where God's agent lives. I would rather have one
|
||
good school-master than two such agents.
|
||
|
||
There is another thing. A great deal has been said, from time
|
||
to time, about the workingman. I have as much sympathy with the
|
||
workingman as anybody on the earth -- who does not work. There has
|
||
always been a desire in this world to let somebody else do the
|
||
work, nearly everybody having the modesty to stand back whenever
|
||
there is anything to be done. In savage countries they make the
|
||
women do the work, so that the weak people have always the bulk of
|
||
the burdens. In civilized communities the poor are the ones, of
|
||
course, that Work, and probably they are never fully paid. It is
|
||
pretty hard for a manufacturer to tell how much he can pay until he
|
||
sells the stuff which he manufactures. Every man who manufactures
|
||
is not rich. I know plenty of poor corporations; I know tramp
|
||
railroads that have not a dollar. And you will find some of them as
|
||
anarchistic as you will find their men. What a man can pay, depends
|
||
upon how much he can get for what he has produced. What the farmer
|
||
can pay his help depends upon the price he receives for his stock,
|
||
his corn and his wheat.
|
||
|
||
But wages in this country are getting better day by day. We
|
||
are getting a little nearer to being civilized day by day, and when
|
||
I want to make up my mind on a subject I try to get a broad view of
|
||
it, and not decide it on one case.
|
||
|
||
In 1860 the average wages of the workingman were, per year,
|
||
two hundred and eighty-nine dollars. In 1890 the average was four
|
||
hundred and eighty-five. Thus the average has almost doubled in
|
||
thirty years. The necessaries of life are far cheaper thin they
|
||
were in 1860. Now, to my mind, that is a hopeful sign. And when I
|
||
am asked how can the dispute between employer and employe be
|
||
settled, I answer, it will be settled when both parties become
|
||
civilized.
|
||
|
||
It takes a long time to educate a man up to the point where he
|
||
does not want something for nothing. Yet, when a man is civilized.
|
||
he does not. He wants for a thing just what it is worth; he wants
|
||
to give labor its legitimate reward, and when he has something to
|
||
sell he never wants more than it is worth. I do not claim to be
|
||
civilized myself; but all these questions between capital and labor
|
||
will be settled by civilization.
|
||
|
||
We are to-day accumulating wealth at the rate of more than
|
||
seven million dollars a day. Is not this perfectly splendid?
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
And in the midst of prosperity let us never forget the men who
|
||
helped to save our country, the men whose heroism gave us the
|
||
prosperity we now enjoy.
|
||
|
||
We have one-seventh of the good land of this world. You see
|
||
there is a great deal of poor land in the world. I know the first
|
||
time I went to California, I went to the Sink of the Humboldt, and
|
||
what a forsaken look it had. There was nothing there but mines of
|
||
brimstone. On the train, going over, there was a fellow who got
|
||
into a dispute with a minister about the first chapter of Genesis.
|
||
And when they got along to the Sink of the Humboldt the fellow says
|
||
to the minister:
|
||
|
||
"Do you tell me that God made the world in six days, and then
|
||
rested on the seventh?
|
||
|
||
He said, "I do."
|
||
|
||
"Well," said the fellow, "don't you think he could have put in
|
||
another day here to devilish good advantage?
|
||
|
||
But, as I have said, we have got about one-seventh of the good
|
||
land of the world. I often hear people say that we have too many
|
||
folks here; that we ought to stop immigration; that we have no more
|
||
room. The people who say this know nothing of their country. They
|
||
are ignorant of their native land. I tell you that the valley of
|
||
the Mississippi and the valleys of its tributaries can support a
|
||
population of five hundred millions of men, women, and children.
|
||
Don't talk of our being overpopulated; we have only just started.
|
||
|
||
Here, in this land of ours, five hundred million men and women
|
||
and children can be supported and educated without trouble. We can
|
||
afford to double two or three times more. But what have we got to
|
||
do? We have got to educate them when they come. That is to say, we
|
||
have got to educate their children, and in a few generations we
|
||
will have them splendid American citizens, proud of the Republic.
|
||
|
||
We have no more patriotic men under the flag than the men who
|
||
came from other lands, the hundreds and thousands of those who
|
||
fought to preserve this country. And I think just as much of them
|
||
as I would if they had been born on American soil. What matters it
|
||
where a man was born? It is what is inside of him you have to look
|
||
at -- what kind of a heart he has, and what kind of a head. I do
|
||
not care where he was born; I simply ask, Is he a man? Is he
|
||
willing to give to others what he claims for himself? That is the
|
||
supreme test.
|
||
|
||
Now, I have got a hobby. I do not suppose any of you have
|
||
heard of it. I think the greatest thing for a country is for all of
|
||
its citizens to have a home. I think it is around the fireside of
|
||
home that the virtues grow, including patriotism. We want homes.
|
||
|
||
Until a few years ago it was the custom to put men in prison
|
||
for debt. The authorities threw a man into jail when he owed
|
||
something which he could not pay, and by throwing him into jail
|
||
they deprived him of an opportunity to earn what would pay it.
|
||
After a little time they got sense enough to know that they could
|
||
not collect a debt in this way, and that it was better to give him
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
his freedom and allow him to earn something, if he could.
|
||
Therefore, imprisonment for debt was done away with.
|
||
|
||
At another time, when a man owed anything, if he was a
|
||
carpenter, a blacksmith or a shoemaker, and not able to pay it,
|
||
they took his tools, on a writ of sale and execution, and thus
|
||
incapacitated him so that he could do nothing. Finally they got
|
||
sense enough to abolish that law, to leave the mechanic his tools
|
||
and the farmer his plows, horses and wagons, and after this, debts
|
||
were paid better than ever they were before.
|
||
|
||
Then we thought of protecting the home-builder, and we said:
|
||
"We will have a homestead exemption. We will put a roof over wife
|
||
and child, which shall be exempt from execution and sale," and so
|
||
we preserved hundreds of thousands and millions of homes, while
|
||
debts were paid just as well as ever they were paid before.
|
||
|
||
Now, I want to take a step further. I want the rich people of
|
||
this country to support it. I want the people who are well off to
|
||
pay the taxes. I want the law to exempt a homestead of a certain
|
||
value, say from two thousand dollars to two thousand five hundred,
|
||
and to exempt it, not only from sale on judgment and execution, but
|
||
to exempt it from taxes of all sorts and kinds. I want to keep the
|
||
roof over the heads of children when the man himself is Prone. I
|
||
want that homestead to belong not only to the man, but to wife and
|
||
children. I would like to live to see a roof over the heads of all
|
||
the families of the Republic. I tell you, it does a man good to
|
||
have a home. You are in partnership with nature when you plant a
|
||
hill of corn. When you set out a tree you have a new interest in
|
||
this world. When you own a little tract of land you feel as if you
|
||
and the earth were partners. All these things dignify human nature.
|
||
|
||
Bad as I am, I have another hobby. There are thousands and
|
||
thousands of criminals in our country. I told you a little while
|
||
ago I did not blame the South, because of the conditions which
|
||
prevailed in the South. The people of the South did as they must.
|
||
I am the same about the criminal. He does as he must.
|
||
|
||
If you want to stop crime you must treat it properly. The
|
||
conditions of society must not be such as to produce criminals.
|
||
|
||
When a man steals and is sent to the penitentiary he ought to
|
||
be sent there to be reformed and not to be brutalized; to be made
|
||
a better man, not to be robbed.
|
||
|
||
I am in favor, when you put a man in the penitentiary, of
|
||
making him work, and I am in favor of paying him what his work is
|
||
worth, so that in five years, when he leaves the prison cell, he
|
||
will have from two hundred dollars to three hundred dollars as a
|
||
breastwork between him and temptation, and something for a
|
||
foundation upon which to build a nobler life.
|
||
|
||
Now he is turned out and before long he is driven back. Nobody
|
||
will employ him, nobody will take him, and, the night following the
|
||
day of his release he is without a roof over his head and goes back
|
||
to his old ways. I would allow him to change his name, to go to
|
||
another State with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and begin
|
||
the world again.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
We must recollect that it is the misfortune of a man to become
|
||
a criminal.
|
||
|
||
I have hobbies and plenty of them.
|
||
|
||
I want to see five hundred millions of people living here in
|
||
peace. If we want them to live in peace we must develop the brain,
|
||
civilize the heart, and above all things, must not forget
|
||
education. Nothing should be taught in the school that somebody
|
||
does not know.
|
||
|
||
When I look about me to-day, when I think of the advance of my
|
||
country, then I think of the work that has been done.
|
||
|
||
Think of the millions who crossed the mysterious sea, of the
|
||
thousands and thousands of ships with their brave prows towards the
|
||
West.
|
||
|
||
Think of the little settlements on the shores of the ocean, on
|
||
the banks of rivers, on the edges of forests.
|
||
|
||
Think of the countless conflicts with savages -- of the
|
||
midnight attacks -- of the cabin floors wet with the blood of dead
|
||
fathers, mothers and babes.
|
||
|
||
Think of the winters of want, of the days of toil, of the
|
||
rights of fear, of the hunger and hope.
|
||
|
||
Think of the courage, the sufferings and hard ships.
|
||
|
||
Think of the homesickness, the disease and death.
|
||
|
||
Think of the labor; of the millions and millions of trees that
|
||
were felled, while the aisles of the great forests were filled with
|
||
the echoes of the ax; of the many millions of miles of furrows
|
||
turned by the plow; of the millions of miles of fences built; of
|
||
the countless logs chanced to lumber by the saw -- of the millions
|
||
of huts, cabins and houses.
|
||
|
||
Think of the work. Listen, and you will hear the hum of
|
||
wheels, the wheels with which our mothers spun the flax and wool.
|
||
Listen, and you will hear the looms and flying shuttles with which
|
||
they wove the cloth.
|
||
|
||
Think of the thousands still pressing toward the West, of the
|
||
roads they made, of the bridges they built; of the homes, where the
|
||
sunlight fell, where the bees hummed, the birds sang, and the
|
||
children laughed; of the little towns with mill and shop, with inn
|
||
and schoolhouse; of the old stages, of the crack of the whips and
|
||
the drivers' horns; of the canals they dug.
|
||
|
||
Think of the many thousands still pressing toward the West,
|
||
passing over the Alleghanies to the shores of the Ohio and the
|
||
great lakes -- still onward to the Mississippi -- the Missouri.
|
||
|
||
See the endless processions of covered wagons drawn by horses,
|
||
by oxen, -- men and boys and girls on foot, mothers and babes
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
inside. See the glimmering camp fires at night; see the thousands
|
||
up with the sun and away, leaving the perfume of coffee on the
|
||
morning air, and sometimes leaving the new-made grave of wife or
|
||
child. Listen, and you will hear the cry of "Gold!" and you will
|
||
see many thousands crossing the great plains, climbing the
|
||
mountains and pressing on to the Pacific.
|
||
|
||
Think of the toil, the courage it has taken to possess this
|
||
land!
|
||
|
||
Think of the ore that was dug, the furnaces that lit the
|
||
nights with flame; of the factories and mills by the rushing
|
||
streams.
|
||
|
||
Think of the inventions that went hand in hand with the work;
|
||
of the flails that were changed to threshers; of the sickles that
|
||
became cradles, and the cradles that were changed to reapers and
|
||
headers -- of the wooden plows that became iron and steel; of the
|
||
spinning wheel that became the jennie, and the old looms
|
||
transformed to machines that almost think -- of the steamboats that
|
||
traversed the rivers, making the towns that were far apart
|
||
neighbors and friends; of the stages that became cars, of the
|
||
horses changed to locomotives with breath of flame, and the roads
|
||
of dust and mud to highways of steel, of the rivers spanned and the
|
||
mountains tunneled.
|
||
|
||
Think of the inventions, the improvements that changed the hut
|
||
to the cabin, the cabin to the house, the house to the palace, the
|
||
earthen floors and bare walls to carpets and pictures -- that
|
||
changed famine to feast -- toil to happy labor and poverty to
|
||
wealth.
|
||
|
||
Think of the cost.
|
||
|
||
Think of the separation of families -- of boys and girls
|
||
leaving the old home -- taking with them the blessings and kisses
|
||
of fathers and mothers. Think of the homesickness, of the tears
|
||
shed by the mothers left by the daughters gone. Think of the
|
||
millions of brave men deformed by labor now sleeping in their
|
||
honored graves.
|
||
|
||
Think of all that has been wrought, endured and accomplished
|
||
for our good, and let us remember with gratitude, with love and
|
||
tears the brave men, the patient loving women who subdued this land
|
||
for us.
|
||
|
||
Then think of the heroes who served this country; who gave us
|
||
this glorious present and hope of a still more glorious future;
|
||
think of the men who really made us free, who secured the blessings
|
||
of liberty, not only to us, but to billions yet unborn.
|
||
|
||
This country will be covered with happy homes and free men and
|
||
free women.
|
||
|
||
To-day we remember the heroic dead, those whose blood reddens
|
||
the paths and highways of honor; those who died upon the field, in
|
||
the charge, in prison-pens, or in famine's clutch; those who gave
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
1895 REUNION ADDRESS.
|
||
|
||
their lives that liberty should not perish from the earth. And
|
||
to-day we remember the great leaders who have passed to the realm
|
||
of silence, to the land of shadow. Thomas, the rock of Chickamauga,
|
||
self-poised, firm, brave, faithful; Sherman, the reckless, the
|
||
daring, the prudent and the victorious; Sheridan. a soldier fit to
|
||
have stood by Julius Caesar and to have uttered the words of
|
||
command; and Grant, the silent, the invincible, the unconquered;
|
||
and rising above them all, Lincoln, the wise, the patient, the
|
||
merciful, the grandest figure in the Western world. We remember
|
||
them all to-day and hundreds of thousands who are not mentioned,
|
||
but who are equally worthy, hundreds of thousands of privates,
|
||
deserving of equal honor with the plumed leaders of the host.
|
||
|
||
And what shall I say to you, survivors of the death-filled
|
||
days? To you, my comrades, to you whom I have known in the great
|
||
days, in the lime when the heart beat fast and the blood flowed
|
||
strong; in the days of high hope -- what shall I say? All I can say
|
||
is that my heart goes out to you, one and all. To you who bared
|
||
your bosoms to the storms of war; to you who left loved ones to
|
||
die, if need be, for the sacred cause. May you live long in the
|
||
land you helped to save; may the winter of your age be as green as
|
||
spring, as full of blossoms as summer, as generous as autumn, and
|
||
may you, surrounded by plenty, with your wives at your side, and
|
||
your grandchildren on your knees, live long. And when at last the
|
||
fires of life burn low; where you enter the deepening dusk of the.
|
||
last of many, many happy days; when your brave hearts beat weak and
|
||
slow, may the memory of your splendid deeds; deeds that freed your
|
||
fellow-men; deeds that kept your country on the map of the world;
|
||
deeds that kept the flag of the Republic in the air -- may the
|
||
memory of these deeds fill your souls with peace and perfect joy.
|
||
Let it console you to know that you are not to be forgotten.
|
||
Centuries hence your story will be told in art and song, and upon
|
||
your honored graves flowers will be lovingly laid by millions of
|
||
men and women now unborn.
|
||
|
||
Again expressing the joy that I feel in having met you, and
|
||
again saying farewell to one and all, and wishing you all the
|
||
blessings of life, I bid you good-bye.
|
||
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
|
||
|
||
As I understand it, the United States went into this war
|
||
against Spain in the cause of freedom. For three years Spain has
|
||
been endeavoring to conquer these people. The means employed were
|
||
savage. Hundreds of thousands were starved. Yet the Cubans, with
|
||
great heroism, were continuing the struggle. In spite of their
|
||
burned homes, their wasted fields, their dead comrades, the Cubans
|
||
were not conquered and still waged war. Under those circumstances
|
||
we said to Spain, "You must withdraw from the Western World. The
|
||
Cubans have the right to be free!"
|
||
|
||
It was understood and declared at the time, that we were not
|
||
waging war for the sake of territory, that we were not trying to
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
|
||
|
||
annex Cuba, but that we were moved by compassion -- a compassion
|
||
that became as stern as justice. I did not think at the time there
|
||
would be war. I supposed that the Spanish people had some sense,
|
||
that they knew their own condition and the condition of this
|
||
Republic. But the improbable happened, and now, after the successes
|
||
we have had, the end of the war appears to be in sight, and the
|
||
question, arises: What shall we do with the Spanish islands that we
|
||
have taken already, or that we may take before peace comes?
|
||
|
||
Of course, we could not, without stultifying ourselves and
|
||
committing the greatest of crimes, hand back Cuba to Spain. But to
|
||
do that would be no more criminal, no more infamous, than to hand
|
||
back the Philippines. In those islands there are from eight to ten
|
||
millions of people, and they have been robbed and enslaved by
|
||
Spanish officers and soldiers. Undoubtedly they were savages when
|
||
first found, and undoubtedly they are worse now than when
|
||
discovered -- more barbarous. They wouldn't make very good citizens
|
||
of the United States; they are probably incapable of self-
|
||
government, but no people can be ignorant enough to be justly
|
||
robbed or savage enough to be rightly enslaved. I think that we
|
||
should keep the islands, not for our own sake, but for the sake of
|
||
these people.
|
||
|
||
As far as the Philippines are concerned, I think that we
|
||
should endeavor to civilize them, and to do this we should send
|
||
teachers, not preachers. We should not endeavor to give them our
|
||
superstition in place of Spanish superstition. They have had
|
||
superstition enough. They don't need churches, they need schools.
|
||
We should teach them our arts; how to cultivate the soil, how to
|
||
manufacture the things they need. In other words, we should deal
|
||
honestly with them, and try our best to make them a self-supporting
|
||
and a self-governing people. The eagle should spread its wings over
|
||
those islands for that and for no other purpose. We can not afford
|
||
to give them to other nations or to throw fragments of them to the
|
||
wild beasts of Europe. We can not say to Russia, "You may have a
|
||
part," and to Germany, "You may have a share," and to France, "You
|
||
take something," and so divide out these people as thieves divide
|
||
plunder. That we will never do.
|
||
|
||
There is, moreover, in my mind, a little sentiment mixed with
|
||
this matter. Manila Bay has been filled with American glory. There
|
||
was won one of our greatest triumphs, one of the greatest naval
|
||
victories of the world -- won by American courage and genius. We
|
||
can not allow any other nation to become the owner of the stage on
|
||
which this American drama was played. I know that we can be of
|
||
great assistance to the inhabitants of the Philippines. I know that
|
||
we can be an unmixed blessing to them, and that is the only
|
||
ambition I have in regard to those islands. I would no more think
|
||
of handing them back to Spain than I would of butchering the entire
|
||
population in cold blood. Spain is unfit to govern. Spain has
|
||
always been a robber. She has never made an effort to civilize a
|
||
human being. The history of Spain, I think, is the darkest page in
|
||
the history of the world.
|
||
|
||
At the same time I have a kind of pity for the Spanish people.
|
||
I feel that they have been victims -- victims of superstition.
|
||
Their blood has been sucked, their energies have been wasted and
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
|
||
|
||
misdirected, and they excite my sympathies. Of course, there are
|
||
many good Spaniards, good men, good women. Cervera appears to be a
|
||
civilized man, a gentleman, and I feel obliged to him for his
|
||
treatment of Hobson. The great mass of the Spaniards, however, must
|
||
be exceedingly ignorant. Their so-called leaders dare not tell them
|
||
the truth about the progress of this war. They seem to be afraid to
|
||
state the facts. They always commence with a lie, then change it a
|
||
little, then change it a little more, and maybe at last tell the
|
||
truth. They never seem to dare to tell the truth at first, if the
|
||
truth is bad. They put me in mind of the story of a man
|
||
telegraphing to a wife about the condition of her husband. The
|
||
first dispatch was, "Your husband is well, never better." The
|
||
second was, "Your husband is sick, but not very." The third was,
|
||
"Your husband is much worse, but we still have hope." The fourth
|
||
was, "You may as well know the truth we buried your husband
|
||
yesterday." That is about the way the Spanish people get their war
|
||
news.
|
||
|
||
That is why it may be incorrect to assume that peace is coming
|
||
quickly. If the Spaniards were a normal people, who acted as other
|
||
folks do, we might prophesy a speedy peace, but nobody has
|
||
prophetic vision enough to tell what such a people will do. In
|
||
spite of all appearances, and all our successes, and of all sense,
|
||
the war may drag on. But I hope not, not only for our own sake, but
|
||
for the sake of the Spaniards themselves. I can't help thinking of
|
||
the poor peasants who will be killed, neither can I help thinking
|
||
of the poor peasants who will have to toil for many years on the
|
||
melancholy fields of Spain to pay the cost of this war. I am sorry
|
||
for them, and I am sorry also for the widows and orphans, and no
|
||
one will be more delighted when peace comes.
|
||
|
||
The argument has been advanced in the National Senate and
|
||
elsewhere, that the Federal Constitution makes no provision for the
|
||
holding of colonies or dependencies, such as the Philippines would
|
||
be; that we can only acquire them as territories, and eventually
|
||
must take them in as States, with their population of mixed and
|
||
inferior races. That is hardly an effective argument.
|
||
|
||
When this country was an infant, still in its cradle, George
|
||
Washington gave the child some very good advice; told him to beware
|
||
of entangling alliances, to stay at home and attend to his own
|
||
business. Under the circumstances this was all very good. But the
|
||
infant has been growing, and the Republic is now one of the most
|
||
powerful nations in the world, and yet, from its infant days until
|
||
now, good conservative people have been repeating the advice of
|
||
Washington. It was repeated again and again when we were talking
|
||
about purchasing Louisiana, and many Senators and Congressmen
|
||
became hysterical and predicted the fall of the Republic if that
|
||
was done. The same thing took place when we purchased Florida, and
|
||
again when we got one million square miles from Mexico, and still
|
||
again when we bought Alaska. These ideas about violating the
|
||
Constitution and wrecking the Republic were promulgated by our
|
||
great and wise statesmen on all these previous occasions, but,
|
||
after all, the Constitution seems to have borne the strain. There
|
||
seems to be as much liberty now as there was then and, in fact, a
|
||
great deal more. Our Territories have given us no trouble, while
|
||
they have greatly added to our population and vastly increased our
|
||
wealth.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
|
||
|
||
Beside this, the statesmen of the olden time, the wise men
|
||
with whom wisdom was supposed to have perished, could not and did
|
||
not imagine the improvements that would take place after they were
|
||
gone. In their time, practically speaking, it was farther from New
|
||
York to Buffalo than it is now from New York to San Francisco, and
|
||
so far as the transportation of intelligence is concerned, San
|
||
Francisco is as near New York as it would have been in their day
|
||
had it been just across the Harlem River. Taking into consideration
|
||
the railways, the telegraphs and the telephones, this country now,
|
||
with its area of three million five hundred thousand square miles,
|
||
is not so large as the thirteen original colonies were; that is to
|
||
say, the distances are more easily traveled and more easily
|
||
overcome. In those days it required months and months to cross the
|
||
continent. Now it is the work of four or five days.
|
||
|
||
Yet, when we came to talk about annexing the Hawaiian Islands,
|
||
the advice of George Washington was again repeated, and the older
|
||
the Senator the fonder he was of this advice. These Senators had
|
||
the idea that the Constitution, having nothing in favor of it, must
|
||
contain something, at least in spirit, against it. Of course, our
|
||
fathers had no idea of the growth of the Republic. We have, because
|
||
with us it is a matter of experience. I don't see that Alaska has
|
||
imperiled any of the liberties of New York. We need not admit
|
||
Alaska as a State unless it has a population entitling it to
|
||
admission, and we are not bound to take in the Sandwich islands
|
||
until the people are civilized, until they are fit companions of
|
||
free men and free women. It may be that a good many of our citizens
|
||
will go to the Sandwich Islands, and that, in a short time, the
|
||
people there will be ready to be admitted as a State. All this the
|
||
Constitution can stand, and in it there is no danger of
|
||
imperialism.
|
||
|
||
I believe in national growth. As a rule, the prosperous farmer
|
||
wants to buy the land that adjoins him, and I think a prosperous
|
||
nation has the ambition of growth. It is better to expand than to
|
||
shrivel; and, if our Constitution is too narrow to spread over the
|
||
territory that we have the courage to acquire, why we can make a
|
||
broader one. It is a very easy matter to make a constitution, and
|
||
no human happiness, no prosperity, no progress should be sacrificed
|
||
for the sake of a piece of paper with writing on it; because there
|
||
is plenty of paper and plenty of men to do the writing, and plenty
|
||
of people to say what the writing should be. I take more interest
|
||
in people than I do in constitutions. I regard constitutions as
|
||
secondary; they are means to an end, but the dear, old,
|
||
conservative gentlemen seem to regard constitutions as ends in
|
||
themselves.
|
||
|
||
I have read what ex-President Cleveland had to say on this
|
||
important subject, and I am happy to say that I entirely disagree
|
||
with him. So, too, I disagree with Senator Edmunds, and with Mr.
|
||
Bryan, and with Senator Hoar, and with all the other gentlemen who
|
||
wish to stop the growth of the Republic. I want it to grow.
|
||
|
||
As to the final destiny of the island possessions won from
|
||
Spain, my idea is that the Philippine Islands will finally be free,
|
||
protected, it may be for a long time, by the United States. I think
|
||
Cuba will come to us for protection, naturally, and, so far as I am
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
|
||
|
||
concerned, I want Cuba only when Cuba wants us. I think that Porto
|
||
Rico and some of those islands will belong permanently to the
|
||
United States, and I believe Cuba will finally become a part of our
|
||
Republic.
|
||
|
||
When the opponents of progress found that they couldn't make
|
||
the American people take the back track by holding up their hands
|
||
over the Constitution, they dragged in the Monroe doctrine. When we
|
||
concluded not to allow Spain any longer to enslave her colonists,
|
||
or the people who had been her colonists, in the New World, that
|
||
was a very humane and wise resolve, and it was strictly in accord
|
||
with the Monroe doctrine. For the purpose of conquering Spain, we
|
||
attacked her fleet in Manila Bay, and destroyed it. I can not
|
||
conceive how that action of ours can be twisted into a violation of
|
||
the Monroe doctrine. The most that can be said is, that it is an
|
||
extension of that doctrine, and that we are now saying to Spain,
|
||
"You shall not enslave, you shall not rob, anywhere that we have
|
||
the power to prevent it."
|
||
|
||
Having taken the Philippines, the same humanity that dictated
|
||
the declaration of what is called the Monroe doctrine, will force
|
||
us to act there in accordance with the spirit of that doctrine. The
|
||
other day I saw in the paper an extract, I think, from Goldwin
|
||
Smith, in which he says that if we were to bombard Cadiz we would
|
||
give up the Monroe doctrine. I do not see the application. We are
|
||
at war with Spain, and we have a right to invade that country, and
|
||
the invasion would have nothing whatever to do with the Monroe
|
||
doctrine. War being declared, we have the right to do anything
|
||
consistent with civilized warfare to gain the victory. The
|
||
bombardment of Cadiz would have no more to do with the Monroe
|
||
doctrine than with the attraction of gravitation. If, by the Monroe
|
||
doctrine is meant that we have agreed to stay in this hemisphere,
|
||
and to prevent other nations from interfering with any people on
|
||
this hemisphere, and if it is said that, growing out of this, is
|
||
another doctrine, namely, that we are pledged not to interfere with
|
||
any people living on the other hemisphere, then it might be called
|
||
a violation of the Monroe doctrine for us to bombard Cadiz. But
|
||
such is not the Monroe doctrine. If, we being at war with England,
|
||
she should bombard the city of New York, or we should bombard some
|
||
city of England, would anybody say that either nation had violated
|
||
the Monroe doctrine I do not see how that doctrine is involved,
|
||
whether we fight at sea or on the territory of the enemy.
|
||
|
||
This is the first war, so far as I know, in the history of the
|
||
world that has been waged absolutely in the interest of humanity;
|
||
the only war born of pity, of sympathy; and for that reason I have
|
||
taken a deep interest in it, and I must say that I was greatly
|
||
astonished by the victory of Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay. I think
|
||
it one of the most wonderful in the history of the world, and I
|
||
think all that Dewey has done shows clearly that he is a man of
|
||
thought, of courage and of genius, So, too, the victory over the
|
||
fleet of Cervera by Commodore Schley, is one of the most marvelous
|
||
and the most brilliant in all the annals of the world. The
|
||
marksmanship, the courage, the absolute precision with which
|
||
everything was done, is to my mind astonishing. Neither should we
|
||
forget Wainwright's heroic exploit, as commander of the Gloucester,
|
||
by which he demonstrated that torpedo destroyers have no terrors
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|
||
OUR NEW POSSESSIONS.
|
||
|
||
for a yacht manned by American pluck. Manila Bay and Santiago both
|
||
are surpassingly wonderful. There are no words with which to
|
||
describe such deeds -- deeds that leap like flames above the clouds
|
||
and glorify the whole heavens.
|
||
|
||
The Spanish have shown in this contest that they possess'
|
||
courage, and they have displayed what you might call the heroism of
|
||
desperation, but the Anglo-Saxon has courage and coolness --
|
||
courage not blinded by passion, courage that is the absolute
|
||
servant of intelligence. The Anglo-Saxon has a fixedness of purpose
|
||
that is never interfered with by feeling; he does not become
|
||
enraged -- he becomes firm, unyielding, his mind is absolutely made
|
||
up, clasped, locked, and he carries out his will. With the Spaniard
|
||
it is excitement, nervousness; he becomes frantic. I think this war
|
||
has shown the superiority, not simply of our ships, or our armor,
|
||
or our guns, but the superiority of our men, of our officers, of
|
||
our gunners. The courage of our army about Santiago was splendid,
|
||
the steadiness and bravery of the volunteers magnificent. I think
|
||
that what has already been done has given us the admiration of the
|
||
civilized world.
|
||
|
||
I know, of course, that some countries hate us. Germany is
|
||
filled with malice, and has been just on the crumbling edge of
|
||
meanness for months, wishing but not daring to interfere; hateful,
|
||
hostile, but keeping just within the overt act. We could teach
|
||
Germany a lesson and her ships would go down before ours just the
|
||
same as the Spanish ships have done. Sometimes I have almost wished
|
||
that a hostile German shot might be fired. But I think we will get
|
||
even with Germany and with France -- at least I hope so.
|
||
|
||
And there is another thing I hope -- that the good feeling now
|
||
existing between England and the United States may be eternal. In
|
||
other words, I hope it will be to the interests of both to be
|
||
friends. I think the English-speaking peoples are to rule this
|
||
world. They are the kings of invention, of manufactures, of
|
||
commerce, of administration, and they have a higher conception of
|
||
human liberty than any other people. Of course, they are not
|
||
entirely free; they still have some of the rags and tatters and
|
||
ravelings of superstition; but they are tatters and they are rags
|
||
and they are ravelings, and the people know it. And, besides all
|
||
this, the English language holds the greatest literature of the
|
||
world.
|
||
|
||
END
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
POLITICAL MORALITY.
|
||
|
||
THE room of the House Committee on Elections was crowded this
|
||
morning with committeemen and spectators to listen to an argument
|
||
by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll in the contested election case of
|
||
Strobach against Herbert, of the IId Alabama district. Colonel
|
||
Ingersoll appeared for Strobach, the contestant. While most of his
|
||
argument was devoted to the dry details of the testimony, he
|
||
entered into some discussion of the general principles involved in
|
||
contested election cases, and spoke with great eloquence and force.
|
||
In part he said:
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
20
|
||
|
||
POLITICAL MORALITY.
|
||
|
||
The mere personal controversy, as between Herbert and
|
||
Strobach, is not worth talking about. It is a question as to
|
||
whether or not the republican system is a failure. Unless the will
|
||
of the majority can be ascertained, and surely ascertained, through
|
||
the medium of the ballot, the foundation of this Government rests
|
||
upon nothing -- the Government ceases to be. I would a thousand
|
||
time rather a Democrat should come to Congress from this district,
|
||
or from any district, than that a Republican Should come who was
|
||
not honestly elected. I would a thousand times rather that this
|
||
country should honestly go to destruction than dishonestly and
|
||
fraudulently go anywhere. We want it settled whether this form of
|
||
government is or is not a failure. That is the real question, and
|
||
it is the question at issue in every one of these cases. Has
|
||
Congress power and has Congress the sense to say to-day, that no
|
||
man shall sit as a maker of laws for the people who has not been
|
||
honestly elected? Whenever you admit a man to Congress and allow
|
||
him to vote and make laws, and there is any doubt as to his title,
|
||
you poison the source of justice -- you poison the source of power;
|
||
and the moment the people begin to think that many members of
|
||
Congress are there through fraud, that moment they cease to have
|
||
respect for the legislative department of this Government -- that
|
||
moment they cease to have respect for the sovereignty of the people
|
||
represented by fraud.
|
||
|
||
Now, as I have said, I care nothing about the personal part of
|
||
it, and, maybe you will not believe me, but I care nothing about
|
||
the political part. The question is, Who has the right on his side?
|
||
Who is honestly entitled to this seat? That is infinitely more
|
||
important than any personal or party question. My doctrine is that
|
||
a majority of the people must control -- that we have in this
|
||
country a king, that we have in this country a sovereign, just as
|
||
truly as they can have in any other, and, as a matter of fact, a
|
||
republic is the only country that does in truth have a sovereign,
|
||
and that sovereign is the legally expressed will of the people. So
|
||
that any man that puts in a fraudulent vote is a traitor to that
|
||
sovereign; any man that knowingly counts an illegal vote is a
|
||
traitor to that sovereign, and is not fit to be a citizen of the
|
||
great Republic. Any man who fraudulently throws out a vote, knowing
|
||
it to be a legal vote, tampers with the source of power, and is, in
|
||
fact, false to our institutions. Now, these are the questions to be
|
||
decided, and I want them decided, not because this case happens to
|
||
come from the South any more than if it came from the North. It is
|
||
a matter that concerns the whole country. We must decide it. There
|
||
must be a law on the subject. We have got to lay down a stringent
|
||
rule that shall apply to these cases. There should be -- there must
|
||
be -- such a thing as political morality so far as voting is
|
||
concerned.
|
||
|
||
New York Tribune, May 13, 1882.
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
21
|
||
|