Away back in Bourbon county, Kentucky, when I was not quite twenty I
was married to a girl of nineteen. Soon after, we went to housekeeping
in a country home. It was supper time. I had fed the chickens and
horses, and washed my face in a tin pan on the kitchen steps, when a
sweet voice said: "Come, supper's ready." As I entered the dining room
my young wife came through the kitchen door, the coffee pot in her
hand, her cheeks the ruddier from the glow of the cook stove, her face
all lit up with expectancy as to what her young husband would think of
his first meal prepared by his wife. All the operas I have heard
since, and all the cities I have seen, dwindle into insignificance
compared with that pure, peaceful home in the country.
Another sweep of the searchlight brings us to the Immigration Problem.
We are today the most cosmopolitan country of the world. At the rate
of a million a year immigrants are pouring in upon us, and no wonder
they come, when they read of the marvelous fortunes made in the new
world; of Mackay a penniless boy in the old world, worth fifty
millions at middle life in America; A.T. Stewart peddling lace at
twenty, a merchant prince at fifty; Carnegie a poor Scotch lad at
eighteen, a half billionaire at seventy. These with many more such
results on a smaller scale, rainbow the sky that spans the sea, and
from the other end, this end is seen pouring its gold and greatness
into the lap of the land of the free. So they come, and though they do
not find all they expected, they do find far more here than they left
behind, and writing letters back over the ocean, they set others wild
with a desire to live in America. Many of them are excellent people;
their children go into our public schools and come out with ours, one
in thought, one in purpose, one in feeling. A little boy in Chicago
said:
"Papa, you were born in England?"
"Yes."
"And mama was born in Scotland?"
"Yes."
"And you had a king at the head of your armies?"
"Yes."
"Well! _we_ licked you all the same."
The children of our foreign born citizens in our public schools are
intensely American. A boy who was born in this country but whose
parents were foreign born, was for some misdemeanor chastised by his
father. When his playmates teased him he said: "Oh, the whipping
didn't count for much, but I don't like being licked by a foreigner."
There is another class coming to our country not only injurious but
dangerous. They bring with them the heresies of the lands they hail
from. They do not come to be American citizens. There is not an
American hair in their heads, or an American thought in their minds.
Every drop of blood in their veins, beats to the music of continental
customs, and they come prepared to sow and grow the seeds of anarchy.
Many come with tags on their backs giving their destination; not to
build American homes; not to learn our language; not to obey our laws,
or honor our institutions, but to undermine the honest laboring
classes who toil to build homes and educate and clothe their children.
I say, take off their tags and let them tag back home. Out of this
class came the men who cheered to the echo a speaker in Chicago when
he said: "I am in favor of dynamiting every bank vault in this city
and taking the money we are entitled to." Out of such schools of
anarchy, came the man who crossed the sea from Patterson, New Jersey,
to send a bullet through the heart of King Humbert, and out of this
class came the teachers, who shrouded our land with shame and sorrow
in Buffalo, New York.
Just here, I congratulate the spirit of William McKinley upon its
auspicious flight to the spirit world. There is no better time and
place for one to die, than at the summit of true greatness, "enshrined
in the hearts of his countrymen, at peace with his God," the sun of
his life going down, "before eye has grown dim or natural force has
abated." Take him from the time he entered the army, where his
commanding general said: "A night was never so dark, storm never so
wild, weather never so cold as to interfere with his discharge of
every duty." From this time on, as lawyer, commonwealth's attorney,
congressman, governor, and president, he was a Jonathan to his
friends, a Ruth to his kindred, a Jacob to his family, a Gideon to his
country. Take him in private life where an intimate friend said: "I
never heard him utter a word his wife or mother might not have heard;
I never heard him speak evil of any man." Take him when stricken down
by an assassin, hear him say: "Let no man harm him; let the law take
its course; good-bye to all; God's will be done," and in his last
conscious moments chanting "Nearer my God to Thee," and you have one
of the most touching stories of this old world. All honor to our
martyred president, William McKinley.
What a shame that in a land whose constitution guarantees life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the humblest citizen, the life
of its chief executive is not safe, though guarded by detectives and
surrounded by devoted friends. Until the country is rid of organized
anarchy it would be well to abandon free-for-all hand-shaking.
When Senator Hoar made his speech in the United States Senate against
anarchy he said: "It would be well if the nations of the earth would
combine together, purchase an island in the sea, place all anarchists
on that island, and let them run a government of their own." An
Irishman said: "I'm not in favor of any sich thing; I am in favor of
gathering thim up all right, takin' thim out in the middle of the
ocean, dumpin' them out, and letin' thim find their own island."
Out of the personal liberty league, which is but another form of
anarchy, came the man who in an address a few years ago said: "This
republic is our hunting ground and the American Sabbath shall be our
hunting day. Down with the American Sabbath!"
It has been well said: "The Sabbath is the window of our week, the
sky-light of our souls, opened by divine law and love, up through the
murk and cloud and turmoil of earthly life to the divine life above."
Whoever would destroy the Sabbath day is undermining the republic, and
any man who does not like the restrictions of our Sabbath, can find a
vessel leaving our ports about every day in the year. He can take
passage any day he chooses, and as the vessel steams out we can afford
to sing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
Another move of the searchlight and we have The Expansion Problem.
Yonder in the Philippine Islands are seventy different tribes,
speaking many languages. How to mold them into one common whole, loyal
to one flag is a mighty problem; and yet I am one of those who believe
God intends this American republic shall be a standard-bearer of
civilization to the darkest corners of the earth. I do not mean by
this that I advocate imperialism from the standpoint of wider domain.
Indeed I am disposed to dodge the question of imperialism, as I dodged
the money question in Colorado when the question was the issue in
politics. I gave three addresses for the Boulder, Colorado, Chautauqua
when the money question was the all-absorbing one in the west. At the
close of my second address I was introduced to the superintendent of
the railroad that runs over the Switzerland trail. He said: "I
understand your wife is here, and I will be pleased to have you and
Mrs. Bain as my guests tomorrow." I knew that meant a free ride and I
accepted. The next morning we were at the station at the appointed
hour and after a wonderful ride mid scenic grandeur up to where eagles
nest, and blizzards hatch out their young, our host said: "I want you
to have the most thrilling ride you ever had, and at the next station
be ready to leave the train." As the brakes gripped the wheels, and
the train rested on the eye-brow of the mountain height, we stepped
off. A hand car was taken from the baggage car and the train moved on
up the trail. While Mrs. Bain was captivated by the mountains, I was
looking at that hand car, without any handles on it, a flat truck with
four wheels. The superintendent said: "Will you help me lift this on
to the track?" I said: "Yes, but what are you going to do with it?"
When he said: "Going down the mountain to where we came from," I said,
"What will we hold to?" "To each other," he replied, and I could see
he was enjoying Mrs. Bain's placidness and my apprehension of trouble
ahead.
Determined to sustain Kentucky's reputation for courage I said no
more, but hoped Mrs. Bain would come to my relief since she knew her
husband was given to dizziness when riding backwards or swinging round
sudden curves. She said: "Isn't this a grand sight?" I said: "Yes,
it's grand, but we are going down the mountain on this hand car."
"That will be fine," was all the comfort she gave me.
Though I have traveled close to a million miles behind the iron horse
I cannot ride backwards on a railroad train. In that respect I am like
the husband who when about to die said to his wife: "I want to make a
special request of you, and that is, see that I am buried face down;
it always did make me sick to travel backwards." When a boy I could
not swing as could other boys. My head is not level on my shoulders. I
have never crossed the ocean and never will. I cannot ride the rolling
waves. Some years ago when out on a little coast ride for pleasure,
(if that's what you call it) I said to the captain: "How long till we
reach the shore?" When he answered forty minutes, I felt I couldn't
live that long. But I did, and when the boat touched the wharf I felt
as the old lady did who landed from her first ocean trip saying:
"Thank the Lord, I'm on vice-versa again."
When Mrs. Bain had seated herself on one side of that hand car I fixed
myself on the other, gripping the edge of the car. Off went the brake
and we started. In a few minutes I said to myself: "Farewell vain
world, I'm going home." As we ran along the wrinkle of the mountain,
and swung out toward the point of a crag with seemingly no way to
dodge the mighty abyss below, I was reminded of the preacher's
mistake, when in closing a meeting with the benediction he said: "To
Thy name be ascribed all the praises in the world with the end out."
Around frost-filed mountain crags, over spider bridges, through
sunless gorges, we went down that mountain like an eagle swooping from
a storm. When we reached Boulder, Mrs. Bain jumped from the car like a
school-girl and while she was thanking our host, I was thanking kind
Providence that we were back in Boulder. On our way to the hotel I
said: "Were you not frightened when we started down that mountain?"
"Why not at all," Mrs. Bain replied; "I knew the superintendent would
not invite us to take the ride unless it was safe."
I said: "Well, you had more confidence in him than you have in me.
When I call at the door with a new horse in the carriage or phaeton,
you won't get in until you know all about the horse."
"Yes," she said, "but I know _you_."
I do not regret having had that thrilling experience, but I _do_ feel
by that hand car ride, as the Dutchman felt about his twin babies. He
said: "I wouldn't take ten thousand dollars for dot pair of twins, and
I wouldn't give ten cents for another pair."
That evening I gave my last lecture at Boulder and in closing said: "I
suppose you who live mid these mines would like to know how I stand on
the money question." They cheered, showing their desire to know my
views on the then popular question, and I proceeded to dodge by
saying: "Last evening I stood on yonder veranda watching the sun as it
went down over the mountain's brow, leaving its golden slipper on Flag
Staff Peak. Colorado clouds, shell-tinted by the golden glory of the
setting sun, were hanging as rich embroideries upon the blue tapestry
of the sky, and soon the full moon began to pour its _silver_ on the
scene. As I stood gazing at the picture painted by the _gold_ of the
sun, and _silver_ of the moon, I felt whatever may have been my views
on the money question, the sun's gold-standard glory, and the moon's
free-silver coinage, as seen from these Colorado Chautauqua grounds
make me henceforth a Boulder bi-metalist."
On leaving the platform an old miner said: "How do you stand on the
money question? You got your views so mixed up with the sun and moon I
couldn't understand you."
So if some one should say to me: "Do you believe in imperialism of
humanity:" If asked: "Do you believe in expansion," my answer is; "I
believe in the expansion of human brotherhood." "I believe there's a
destiny that shapes our ends," and since the Philippine Islands were
pitched into our lap in a night, it may be it was done that the home,
the church and the school might have a chance under civil liberty in
the Philippine Islands. With boundless resources and immense means,
are linked great responsibilities, and we who live in freedom's land,
and humanity's century, are under obligations to help carry the light
of Christian civilization to the darkest corners of the earth.
Along with the Christian missionary goes that other "pathfinder of
civilization," the commercial traveler, who is known as the "evangel
of peaceful exchange" that makes the whole world kin. When the
Filipinos are fit for self-government, let us do as we did Cuba, make
them as free as the air they breathe, but keep the key to Manila Bay
as our doorway to the Orient; for whatever may be said of the old
"Joss House" kingdom with all her superstitions, she possesses today
the "greatest combination of natural conditions for industrial
activity of any undeveloped part of the globe." By building the Suez
Canal England secured an advantage of three thousand miles, in her
oriental trade over the United States. The Panama Canal wipes out this
advantage and places the trade of New York a thousand miles nearer
than that of Liverpool.
Now let the United States build her own merchant marine, then with her
own ships, loaded with her own goods, in her own harbor at Manila, she
has easy access to the Orient, with its seven hundred and fifty
millions of people, who purchased last year more than a billion and a
half dollars worth of the kind of goods we have to sell, and much of
it cotton goods, which means future employment for the growing
millions of negroes in the South. While it may be best to confine our
territorial domain within our ocean ditches, we must encourage
commercial expansion, for we have already one hundred millions of
people; soon we will have one hundred and fifty millions, and experts
tell us when the present century closes there will be three hundred
millions in this country. If this republic would build for the future
she must strive to create a world-wide business fraternity, through
which will go and grow the spirit of the noblest civilization of the
world.
Another swing of the searchlight and it falls upon The Labor and
Capital Question.
After all the years of education, agitation and legislation, we find
capital combining in great corporations on one hand, and labor
organizing in great trade unions on the other. Like two great armies
they face each other, both determined to win. While capital is
expanding on one side, the wants of the laboring classes are expanding
on the other. They see excursion trains bound for world's fairs; they
want to go. They see stores crowded with the necessaries and luxuries
of life; they want a share. They live in days of startling
pronouncements, they can read, they want the morning papers. They live
in a larger world, and knowing their brains and brawn helped to create
the larger world they feel they deserve a larger share in its
fortunes. When they see avenues lined with the mansion homes of
capital, and the toiling world crowded into tenement quarters, and
these tenements owned by capital, not five in fifty of the country's
wage-earners owning their homes, they naturally conclude there is
something wrong somewhere.
Over an inn in Ireland hangs a picture representing the "FOUR ALLS;" a
king with a scepter in his hand saying, "I rule all;" a soldier with a
sword in his hand saying, "I fight for all;" a bishop with a Bible in
his hand saying, "I pray for all," and a working man with a shovel in
his hand saying, "I pay for all."
"God bless them, for their brawny hands
Have built the glory of all lands;
And richer are their drops of sweat,
Than diamonds in a coronet."
I must say, however, all the fault for present conditions must not be
charged to capital. There are faults within I wish the laboring world
would see and correct. I travel the country over and note the men who
file in and out the saloons. Are they bankers or leading business men?
No, they are laborers from factories, furnaces, fields and work-shops,
spending their money for what is worse than nothing and giving it to a
business that pays labor less and robs more than any other
capitalization in the world.
The New York Sun says: "Every successful man in Wall Street is a total
abstainer. He knows he must keep his brain free from alcohol when he
enters the Stock Exchange, where his mind goes like a driving wheel
from which the belt has slipped." The laboring man needs brain as
clear and nerves as steady as the capitalist if he expects to win in
this age of sharp competition.
What the laboring classes in this country spend for liquor in twelve
months would purchase five hundred of the average manufactories of the
land; what they spend in ten years would purchase five thousand, and
what they spend in twenty years would control the entire manufacturing
interests of the country.
A few years ago a strike occurred with the Pullman Palace Car Company.
What the laboring classes spend for intoxicating liquors in three
months would purchase the Pullman Palace Car Company and all its
rolling stock. Instead of a strike, in which laboring men are out of
work and families suffering for the necessaries of life, why not stop
drinking beer and whiskey for ninety days, buy the whole business and
let the Pullman Company do something else. How to husband the
resources of the poor is far more important than the right use of the
fortunes of the rich. There is less danger in the massing of money by
the rich than there is in wasting the wages of the working world in
saloons.
Now I have already thrown the searchlight upon enough problems for you
to realize I have given you an incongruous picture. You must be
impressed with the conflicting forces at work upon our republic. Never
have we had so many advocates of peaceful arbitration for differences
between nations and never such armament for war; never such an
accumulation of comforts, never such a multiplication of wants; never
so much done to make men honest, never so many thieves. In 1850 seven
thousand in our penitentiaries; in 1860 twenty thousand; in 1870
thirty-two thousand; in 1880 fifty-eight thousand; in 1890 eighty-two
thousand, and in 1900 one hundred thousand. In London, England, last
year with over seven millions of people, twenty-four murders; in
Chicago, one hundred and eighteen. There are more murders in this
republic than in any civilized land beneath the sky. Yet in face of
all these unsettled questions, with advancement along all social,
moral, intellectual and religious lines I have faith to believe this
twentieth century American citizenship will prove itself sufficiently
thoughtful, testful and tactful to deal with all national issues as
one by one they come within reach of practical politics, and that this
country is big enough, brave enough, wise enough and just enough to
solve every problem vexing us today.
Some have not this faith. They see an army of three hundred thousand
tramps eating bread by the sweat of other men's brows; the slums of
great cities, cradles of infamy where children are trained to sin; the
"fire-damp of combination trusts" stifling the working world; gambling
brokers cornering the markets in the necessaries of life; the wages of
working girls being such as to lead many from life's Eden of purity; a
great battle on between labor and capital and in this combination of
threatening dangers they see the overthrow of free government.
If these pessimists would take a view from the nether standpoint and
see what we have come through as a country their fears would be
dispelled.
Look backward fifty years from today and see the republic wrapped in
the throes of civil strife; the soil of our Southland soaked with
blood and tears; the nation overwhelmed with debt; four million
negroes turned loose penniless in the South to beg bread at the white
man's door, and he already on "Poverty row;" Abraham Lincoln dead in
the White House, shot down by an assassin; the Secretary of War
bleeding from three stab wounds the same night; and Columbia reeling
on her throne.
Now see the harmonious association of all sections; a firmer
establishment of this "government of the people, by the people and for
the people" than was ever known. Look over the ocean and see Turkey's
massacre of the Armenians, Russia with her Siberian horrors, Spain
with her cruelty to the Moors and Jews; or look closer home over the
Mexican border and see the government torn to tatters and public men
shot down like dogs. Then turn and note our country's magnanimous
dealings with Cuba; her teachers schooling Filipinos into nobler life;
our President leading the armies of Russia and Japan out of the rivers
of blood; slavery gone, lottery gone, polygamy outlawed, the saloon
iniquity tottering to its fall; hospitals nestled in shadows of
bereavement, hungry children fed on their way to school, and men who
know how to make money, giving it away for the relief of suffering and
uplift of mankind as never before. Don't tell me the world is getting
worse.
I was in New York City for two weeks at the time of the Titanic
disaster. On Saturday evening before the ocean tragedy I stood on the
elevated at the corner of Thirty-third and Broadway. The "Great White
Way" was thronged with pleasure-seekers, crowding their way to
theatres and picture shows. It seemed to me I never saw the great city
so gay. But, on Monday morning after, there came on ether waves the
appalling news that the finest ship in the world had gone down, and
sixteen hundred human beings had gone with it. I never witnessed such
a transformation. It seemed to me every woman had tears in her eyes,
and every man a lump in his throat. Actors played to empty houses that
evening; a pall hung over the great Metropolis. But when details came,
with them came the triumph of humanity. The rich had died for the
poor, the strong had died for the weak.
John Jacob Astor had turned away from his fine mansion on Fifth
Avenue, his summer home at Newport, his hundred millions of dollars in
wealth, and was found spending his last moments saving women and
children. All honor to the brave young bridegroom who carried his
bride to a life boat, said, "good-bye sweetheart," kissed her and
stepping back went down with the ship. All hail to that loyal loving
Hebrew wife and mother, Mrs. Straus, who holding to her husband's arm
said: "I would rather die with you than live without you." Like Ruth
of old, she said: "Where thou goest, I will go; where thou diest I
will die, and there will I be buried." There side by side at the ocean
gateway to eternity these old lovers went down together.
Ah! this republic will never perish while we have such manhood and
womanhood to live and die for its honor.
It has been said: "We live in a materialistic age; that all human
activities are born of selfishness; that manhood is dying out of the
world." All over the land at midnight, men lean from the saddles of
iron horses, peering down the railroad track, ready to die if need be
for the safety of those entrusted to their care. Firemen will climb
ladders tonight and their souls will go up in flames, like Jim
Bludsoe's, to save the lives of imperiled women and children.
Look at the orchestra on board the Titanic. When the supreme moment of
danger came, they rushed to the deck, not to put on life belts, not to
get into lifeboats but to form in order, and send out over the icy
ocean, the music of the sweet song, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." When
the ship lifted at one end and started on its headlong dive of
twenty-seven hundred fathoms to the depths of the salty sea, those
brave men, without a discordant note, sent out the sweet refrain;
"Now let the way appear
Steps unto Heaven;
All that Thou sendest me,
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me,
Nearer, my God to thee;
Near to Thee."
May we not hope those brave musicians and those who died that others
might live, "On joyful wings cleaving the sky," ocean and icebergs
forgot _did_ upward fly, and on their flight to the spirit world
continued the song, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."
Manhood is not dying out of the world.
Students of history are asking, "Will the fate of Rome be repeated in
the history of this republic?" The answer is, we have saving
influences in this republic Rome never knew. Rome never had an asylum
for her blind or insane; she never had a home for widows and orphans;
her "golden house" of Nero never had an equal, but nowhere in her
dusty highways could be found footprints of mercy. In Rome the soldier
was the cohesive power, while socially everything was isolated. In
this republic there is an interlacing and binding together in bonds of
human brotherhood. A Methodist here bound to Methodists everywhere,
Presbyterian to Presbyterian, Baptist to Baptist, Disciple to
Disciple, Lutheran to Lutheran, Catholic to Catholic, Masons, Odd
Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Red Men, Maccabees, Woodmen, Christian
Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, Y.M.C.A.'s, W.C.T.U.'s, and many
other fraternities, making up an interdependent, together-woven,
God-allied and God-saving influence ancient empires never dreamt of.
These are the moral lightning rods that avert from this republic the
wrath of God.
Am I putting too much stress upon the humanity side of national life?
Do you tell me money is the great question of this country, tariff the
great question? Bring me the Bible and what do I find? Only a very few
pages given to the creation of the material universe, with all its
gold and silver, suns and systems, but I find page after page, chapter
after chapter, and book after book, given to the healing of the lame,
the halt and the blind, teaching a kindred spirit of sympathy to meet
the common woes of humanity.
What I am about to say may seem more like sermon than lecture, but I
believe it will be the best thing I have said when the lecture closes.
In the formula of human touch, laid down in the life of Jesus of
Nazareth, there is more saving influence for national endurance than
in all the wealth of our country's treasury.
From the time His beautiful mother wrapped Him in coarse linen, and
cradled Him on cattle straw in that Bethlehem barn, on up to His death
on the cross, He was ever touching the masses, healing their diseases,
soothing their sorrows and teaching the lesson, "the more humanity you
place at the bottom the better citizenship you will have at the top."
In the golden rule of this human touch lies the hope of this home of
the free.
A little boy boarded a car in New York City. A few feet from him sat a
finely-dressed lady and as the boy stared at her, he moved nearer and
nearer until he was close beside her.
"What do you mean by getting so close to me? Don't you see you have
put mud on my dress from your shoes? Move away," said the lady.
The little urchin replied: "I'm so sorry I got mud on your dress; I
didn't mean to do it."
"Where are you going, all by your little self, anyway?"
"I'm going to my aunt's where I live."
"Have you no mother?"
"No mam; she died four weeks ago. I ain't got any mother now, and
that's why I was settin' up close to you to make believe you wuz my
mother. I'm sorry 'bout the mud, you'll 'scuse me, won't you, good
lady?"
The woman extending her hand said: "Yes I will; come here," and soon
her arm was about him, and tears in her eyes, and the boy could have
wiped his feet on any dress in that car without rebuke. We want more
of human touch in national and individual life.
A tramp called at a fine home for his supper. The owner said: "You can
have something to eat provided you do some work beforehand."
"What can I do," asked the "hobo."
A set of harness was given him to clean. The gentleman went to his
supper, and soon after a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of four years
came out, and approaching the tramp, said: "Good evening, sir. Is you
got a little girl like me?"
"No, I am all alone in the world."
"Ain't you got no mama and papa?"
"No, they died a long time ago," and the tramp wiped away a tear as
memory came rolling up from out the hallowed past.
"Oh! I'm so sorry for you, 'cause I have a home and papa and mama."
The man of the house came out, and looking at the harness said:
"That's a good job; you must have done that work before. Come in and
you shall have a good supper."
The little tot ran around to the front gate, where a pair of horses,
hitched to a carriage, waited to take the family on a drive. The tramp
finished his supper and passing out, the little one in the carriage
said: "Good-bye, mister. When you want supper again you come and see
us, won't you;" and turning to the driver she said: "He ain't got no
papa, nor mama, no little girl and no home."
The tramp, who heard these words taking off his old hat bowed low to
the little one who had spoken the kind words.
A few minutes later while standing on a street corner, wondering where
he could spend the night, some one shouted, "Horses running away!" The
driver had left the team and the horses started with the little girl
alone in the carriage, screaming for help. Men ran out but the mad
horses cleared the track. The tramp fixed himself, and as the team
swept by, he gave a bound and caught the bit of the nearest horse. The
horses reared and plunged but the tramp held on, until he swerved them
to the sidewalk. As the near horse struck the curb he fell and the
tramp was crushed beneath the horse. A physician came and as he bent
over to examine the heart, the tramp said: "Was the little one saved?"
The child was brought and as her sweet blue eyes tenderly looked at
the face of the dying man he smiled, and then the spirit took its
flight, to where He who died to save the world, looked with compassion
upon the tramp who gave his life for "one of these little ones."
Oh, the beauty and power of human touch!
The Panama Canal is considered the glory crowning achievement of this
century; but the building of a highway of sympathy over which to send
help to the hopeless is a far greater achievement. If this republic is
to endure with the stars; if it is to go down the ages like a
broadening colonade of light, and stand in steady splendor at the
height of the world's civilization; it will not be because of its
money standard, its tariff or expansion policy, but because the
heart-beat of human brotherhood sends the blood of a common father
bounding through the veins of the concentrated whole of humanity,
binding high and low, rich and poor, weak and strong together.
"Work brothers; sisters work; work hand and brain,
We'll win the golden age again;
And love's millennial morn shall rise
In happy hearts and blessed eyes.
We will, we will, brave champions be
In this the lordlier chivalry."