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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1899)
safety mid happiness without , giving them the slightest voice in the matter. And , further , the senator must think , although he does not say so I suppose he expects to vote so that we have the right to turn our cannon , bayonets , and ships of war and armies upon that people ple , if they attempt to exercise this right , and prevent them from doing it. Thackeray , no mean judge of noble art , no mean judge of noble actions , was one day crossing the rotunda of this capitol i > i company with Charles Sumner. He stopped before the picture where the genius of the great artist of Connecticut lias delineated on the imperishable can vas the scene when the declaration of independence was presented by Jefferson to the solemn sitting over which Han cock presided , and the new nation , born on the 10th day of April , 1775 , was bap tized in the faith of our new gospel of liberty. He stood for a moment silent , and then said to Mr. Sumner , "That's your painter. " Surely he was right. The foremost action of human history is fitly represented by the great work which we fondly hope is to be as endur ing as time , enduring as the republic , enduring as liberty. It is there , in the foremost place of honor which can be found on this earth. No Parthenon , no St. Peter's , no Palace of the Escurial , no Sans Souci , not "Westminster Abbey itself , can equal , at least to our eyes , this spot where forever a great and free people declares its constitutional will. will.Beneath Beneath the great dome to which the pilgrim from afar first repairs when he visits the capital of his country hangs the great picture which delineates the scene when the nation was first baptized into immortal life. It was not only the independence of America which was then declared it was the dignity of hu man nature itself. "When Samuel Rog ers visited the Dominican convent at Padua , an aged friar showed him the famous picture of "The Last Supper" in the refectory of the convent. He said : "I have sat at my meals before it for seven and forty years , and such are the changes that have taken place among us so many have come and gone in that time that when I look upon the com pany there , upon those who are sitting at that table , silent as they are , I am sometimes inclined to think that we not they , are the shadows. " As administrations , terms of presi dential office , begin and end , as sena tors and representatives come and go before the silent figures in that immorta picture , it seems to me that wo are bui the shadows , while Hancock and Jeffer son and Adams and Franklin and Ells worth and Livingston are still deliberat * ! ing , still acting , still alive. Ah , Mr President , shall we turn it with its face to the wall ? Shall the scroll first bo stricken from the hand of Jefferson ant another put there which shall read "Governments derive their just power Tom the consent of the governed ome of them. Men are created equal ome of them. Taxation and ropre- entation go together for us , not for other men. Life , liberty , and the pur- nit of happiness are held in the Philip- rine Islands at our will , and not at the vill of the people. " And then shall we ; urn the picturu with its face to the vail and put instead of it a ropresenta- ion of some great battle where the guns of our navy and our army are turned on ; ho men struggling for their liberty at Iloilo ? Now , Mr. President , our friends tell is that all this is emotion and rhetoric and sentiment. They tell us that it does lot belong to the domain of practical statesmanship , or to the conduct to the iffairs of life ; that these are the things we think when we talk , and that wo are thinking of quite other things when we ict and vote. Well , the doctrines I stand upon are the doctrines of the most practical statesmen , of the most practi cal generation that ever lived on the face of the earth. These sentiments , wrapped in a few sentences , not equal- ng in compass the Ten Commandments or the Lord's Prayer , amplifying only a ittle the golden rule itself , have turned out to be a practical force in this world of ours. The Puritans took them for ; heir rule , and in one brief , crowded century they made England , which had jeen trembling before Spain , whose Icuees had smote together before Hol- and , whoso monarch had been the pen sioner and whose treasury had been the ; ributary of France , the greatest power : he world had over seen. It is these ; hat make "world-powers. " Our fathers shod their feet with them as with sandals. Borne \\p by them they crossed the Atlantic , and with their invincible might builded on its sure foundations this temple that covers the continent and whose portals are upon both the seas. Is there any practical statesmanship , is there any cunning of the politician , is there any struggling for power , is there tiny seeking for office , is there any party discipline which has ever wrought in all history such things as these half-do/en little sentences have wrought ? Are there any statesmen in American history , among the living or among the dead , whom the people love and honor as they do the men who planted their feet on these truths , anc who bore witness to them in life anc in death ? The one great lesson which sums ui the teachings of American history dur ing our century of constitutional life is the dignity of labor. It is an unques tionable truth that no tropical colony was ever settled , by men not born ii tropical climes , for the purpose of find ing work. There was scarcely over a tropical colony successful at all. There was never a tropical colony successfu except under the system of contrac labor. That is to be set up , enforced ml administered by the agencies of the epublic of the United States , if we are : o succeed in such administration at all. Our fathers taught us the priceless value of national credit and to keep free rom the burden of national debt. We lave thought until lately that our trength came in a largo part from our msullied and unequalled public credit. f we were compelled in self-defence ; o enter into a contest with the strong- st or richest power on earth , our credit vould remain unimpaired until our op- ) onent were bankrupt. If in time of var or public danger we were compelled ; o contract debt , we have supposed that : ho only policy of dealing with it in iuie of peace was to pay it. But now he senator from Connecticut seems to contemplate that wo shall embark on a ) ermanent system of national expendi- ; ure which will put this government mder an obligation , the equivalent of vhich will bo a national debt greater ; han that of any other nation on the face of the earth. Have you reflected hat a permanent increase of our expen ditures of one hundred and fifty millions a year which wo cannot avoid , and from which we cannot withdraw is precisely the same thing as adding to our national debt five thousand million lollars , capitalized at 8 per cent , which is more than the government now is mying , and that a permanent increase n our expenditures of three hundred millions a year is the same as increasing our national debt ten thousand millions capitalized at ! 5 per cent ? I think it can be easily demonstrated that the pol icies on which we are asked to embark involve a permanent national expendi- ; ure much larger than the amount I have named. Our civil list , already so enormous , must be enormously increased , tnstead of taking from the people by fair competition , or even by fair selec tion , men to take their share in self-gov ernment , wo must have in the future , as they have in England , a trained class whose lives are to be spent , not in self- government , Imt in the government of other men. At the close of the nineteenth century the American republic , after its example in abolishing slavery has spread through the world , is asked by the senator from Connecticut to adopt a doctrine of con stitutional expansion on the principle that it is right to conquer , buy , and sub ject a whole nation if wo happen to deem it for their good for their good as we conceive it , and not as they con ceive it. Mr. President , Abraham Lin coln said , "No man was ever created good enough to own another. " No na tion was over created good enough to own another. No single American workman , no humble American home , will ever be better or happier for the constitutional doctrine which the senator - " tor from Connecticut proclaims. If it .be adopted here not only the workman's wages will bo diminished , not only will