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النشر الإلكتروني

DANIEL WEBSTER.

IT

T may be asked, perhaps, Supposing all this to be true, what can we do? Are we to go to war? Are we to interfere in the Greek cause, or any other European cause? Are we to endanger our pacific relations? No, certainly not. What, then, the question recurs, remains for us? If we will not endanger our own peace, if we will neither furnish armies nor navies to the cause which we think the just one, what is there within our power?

Sir, this reasoning mistakes the age. The time has been, indeed, when fleets, and armies, and subsidies were the principal reliances even in the best cause. But, happily for mankind, a great change has taken place in this respect. Moral causes come into consideration, in proportion as the progress of knowledge is advanced; and the public opinion of the civilized world is rapidly gaining an ascendency over mere brutal force. It is already able to oppose the most formidable obstruction to the progress of injustice and oppression; and as it grows more intelligent and more intense, it will be more and more formidable. It may be silenced by military power, but it cannot be conquered. It is elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary warfare. It is that impassible, unextinguishable enemy of mere violence and arbitrary rule, which, like Milton's angels

Vital in every part

Cannot, but by annihilating, die.

Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is vain for power to talk either of triumphs or of repose. No

matter what fields are desolated, what fortresses surrendered, what armies subdued, or what provinces overrun. In the history of the year that has passed by us, and in the instance of unhappy Spain, we have seen the vanity of all triumphs in a cause which violates the general sense of justice of the civilized world. It is nothing that the troops of France have passed from the Pyrenees to Cadiz; it is nothing that an unhappy and prostrate nation has fallen before them; it is nothing that arrests, and confiscations, and execution sweep away the little remnant of national resistance. There is an enemy that still exists to check the glory of these triumphs. It follows the conqueror back to the very scene of his ovations; it calls upon him to take notice that Europe, though silent, is yet indignant; it shows him that the sceptre of his victory is a barren sceptre; that it shall confer neither joy nor honor, but shall moulder to dry ashes in his grasp. In the midst of his exaltation, it pierces his ear with the cry of injured justice; it denounces against him the indignation of an enlightened and civilized age; it turns to bitterness the cup of his rejoicing, and wounds him with the sting which belongs to the consciousness of having outraged the opinion of mankind.

TANS. From "Speeches by Henry Cabot Lodge.' Reprinted with permission. By HENRY CABOT LODGE.

WE E need the Puritan spirit in certain elements of

our society. The number of men to whom inherited fortune brings education and command of time without effort on their part is ever increasing. Do they avail themselves fully of their opportunities, or are they too apt to pass their days in a vain search for distractions and a mournful regret that this country is not some other country? I am happy to believe that this is the very worst country in the world for an idler. But to the man with health, wealth, education, and unlimited command of time,-in other words, to the man who owes most to his country,-here are better opportunities and higher duties than anywhere else. I am not going to make the familiar plea that young men of education and wealth ought to perform their obvious duties as citizens. There has been plenty of sound argument and good advice offered on that score, and the proposition is well understood.

But this is not all. In this question lie deeper meanings. There is a very real danger that the growth of wealth here may end by producing a class grounded on mere money, and thence class feeling, a thing noxious, deadly, and utterly wrong in this country. It lies with the men of whom I have spoken to strangle this serpent at its birth. They cannot do this, however, unless they are in full sympathy with the American people and with American ideas; and to this sympathy they can never come by living in Europe, by mimicking foreign habits, by haunting well-appointed clubs,

or by studying our public affairs in the columns of a Saturday Review, home-made or imported. They must go to work. Philanthropy and public affairs need such men, because they can give what others cannot spare-time and money. There is a great field in politics. Before they enter it, let them take to themselves not only the high and self-respecting spirit of the Puritan, but also his fighting qualities, his dogged persistence, and another attribute for which he was not so conspicuous,―plenty of good nature. They will need all these weapons, for it is no primrose path. They must be prepared to meet not only the usual abuse, but also much and serious prejudice. They must not mind defeats and hard work. If their conception of duty differs from that of their accustomed friends and allies, they must not be surprised if some of those very friends mete out to them the harshest measure and deal them the sharpest blows.

Yet if they hold fast to two principles,-I care not under what party banner they serve,-if they will fearlessly do what in their own eyes and before their own conscience is right and brave and honorable; if, like the Puritans, they will do the work which comes to their hands with all their might, they will win the best success. They will win the regard and confidence of large bodies of their fellow-citizens, of those men by whose strong hands and active brains the republic is ever being raised higher, and this regard and confidence are the best and most valuable possessions that any American can ever hope to have. Let such men, then, go into politics, because they can give their time and energy to it, because they can do work worth

doing, and, above all, because they will thus become truer and better Americans.

I believe, Mr. President, that I am coming very close to what is called "Americanism," but of "Americanism" of the right sort we cannot have too much. Mere vaporing and boasting become a nation as little as a man. But honest, outspoken pride and faith in our country are infinitely better and more to be respected than the cultivated reserve which sets it down as ill-bred and in bad taste ever to refer to our country except by way of depreciation, criticism, or general negation. The Puritans did great work in the world because they believed most fervently in their cause, their country, and themselves. It is the same to-day. Without belief of this sort nothing worth doing is ever done.

We have a right to be proud of our vast material success, our national power and dignity, our advancing civilization, carrying freedom and education in its train. Most of all may we be proud of the magnanimity displayed by the American people at the close of the civil war, a noble generosity unparalleled in the history of nations. But to count our wealth and tell our numbers and rehearse our great deeds simply to boast of them is useless enough. We have a right to do it only when we listen to the solemn undertone which brings the message of great responsibilities,responsibilities far greater than the ordinary political and financial issues which are sure to find, sooner or later, a right settlement. Social questions are the questions of the present and the future for the American people. The race for wealth has opened a broad gap between rich and poor. There are thousands at

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