Standard Selections Part 36

THE GLORY OF PEACE

CHARLES SUMNER

The art of war is yet held even among Christians to be an honorable pursuit. It shall be for another age to appreciate the more exalted character of the art of benevolence which, in blessed contrast with the misery, the degradation, the wickedness of war, shall shine resplendent in the true grandeur of peace. Then shall the soul thrill with a n.o.bler heroism than that of battle. Peaceful industry, with untold mult.i.tudes of cheerful and beneficent laborers, shall be its gladsome token.

Literature, full of sympathy and comfort for the heart of man, shall appear in garments of purer glory than she has yet a.s.sumed. Science shall extend the bounds of knowledge and power, adding unimaginable strength to the hands of men, opening innumerable resources in the earth and revealing new secrets and harmonies in the skies.

The increasing beneficence and intelligence of our own day, the broad-spread sympathy with suffering, the widening thoughts of men, the longings of the heart for a higher condition on earth, the unfulfilled promises of Christian progress are the auspicious auguries of this happy future. As early voyagers over untried realms of waste we have already observed the signs of land. The green and fresh red berries have floated by our bark, the odors of the sh.o.r.e fan our faces, nay, we may seem to descry the distant gleam of light, and hear from the more earnest observers, as Columbus heard, after midnight from the masthead of the Pinta, the joyful cry of "Land! Land!" and lo! a new world broke upon his early morning gaze.

THE HOPE OF THE REPUBLIC

H. W. GRADY

I went to Washington the other day and I stood on the Capitol hill, and my heart beat quick as I looked at the towering marble of my country's Capitol, and a mist gathered in my eyes as I thought of its tremendous significance, of the armies and the treasury, and the judges and the President, and the Congress and the courts, and all that was gathered there; and I felt that the sun in all its course could not look down on a better sight than that majestic home of a Republic that had taught the world its best lessons of liberty. And I felt that if honor and wisdom and justice dwelt therein, the world would at last owe that great house, in which the ark of the covenant of my country is lodged, its final uplifting and its regeneration.

But a few days afterwards I went to visit a friend in the country, a modest man, with a quiet country home. It was just a simple, unpretentious house, set about with great trees and encircled in meadow and field rich with the promise of harvest; the fragrance of the pink and the hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma of the orchard and the garden, and the resonant clucking of poultry and the hum of bees. Inside was quiet, cleanliness, thrift and comfort.

Outside there stood my friend, the master, a simple, independent, upright man, with no mortgage on his roof, no lien on his growing crops--master of his land and master of himself. There was the old father, an aged and trembling man, but happy in the heart and home of his son. And, as he started to enter his home, the hand of the old man went down on the young man's shoulder, laying there the unspeakable blessing of an honored and honorable father, and enn.o.bling it with the knighthood of the fifth commandment. And as we approached the door the mother came, a happy smile lighting up her face, while with the rich music of her heart she bade her husband and her son welcome to their home. Beyond was the housewife, busy with her domestic affairs, the loving helpmate of her husband. Down the lane came the children after the cows, singing sweetly, as like birds they sought the quiet of their nest.

So the night came down on that house, falling gently as the wing of an unseen dove. And the old man, while a startled bird called from the forest and the trees thrilled with the cricket's cry, and the stars were falling from the sky, called the family around him and took the Bible from the table and called them to their knees. The little baby hid in the folds of its mother's dress while he closed the record of that day by calling down G.o.d's blessing on that simple home. While I gazed, the vision of the marble Capitol faded; forgotten were its treasuries and its majesty; and I said, "Surely here in the house of the people lodge at last the strength and the responsibility of this government, the hope and the promise of this Republic."

HUNGARIAN HEROISM

LOUIS KOSSUTH

Gentlemen have said that it was I who inspired the Hungarian people. I cannot accept the praise. No, it was not I who inspired the Hungarian people, it was the Hungarian people who inspired me. Whatever I thought and still think, whatever I felt and still feel, is but the pulsation of that heart which in the breast of my people beats. The glory of battle is for the historic leaders. Theirs are the laurels of immortality. And yet in encountering the danger, they knew that, alive or dead, their names would, on the lips of people, forever live.

How different the fortune, how n.o.bler, how purer the heroism of those children of the people who went forth freely to meet death in their country's cause, knowing that where they fell they would lie undistinguished and unknown, their names unhonored and unsung.

Animated, nevertheless, by the love of freedom and the fatherland, they went forth calmly singing their national anthems till, rushing upon the batteries whose cross fires vomited upon them death and destruction, they took them without firing a shot,--those who fell falling with the shout, "Hurrah for Hungary!" And so they died by thousands--the unnamed demiG.o.ds! Such is the people of Hungary. Still it is said it is I who have inspired them. No! a thousand times, no! It is they who have inspired me.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS[42]

WILLIAM MCKINLEY

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am glad to be again in the City of Buffalo and exchange greetings with her people, to whose generous hospitality I am not a stranger, and with whose good will I have been repeatedly and signally honored. Expositions are the timekeepers of progress. They record the world's advancement. They stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people and quicken human genius. They go into the home. They broaden and brighten the daily life of the people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student.

The wisdom and energy of all the nations are none too great for the world's work. The success of art, science, industry and invention is an international a.s.set and a common glory. After all, how near one to the other is every part of the world. Modern inventions have brought into close relation widely separated peoples, and made them better acquainted. Geographic and political divisions will continue to exist, but distances have been effaced.

Swift ships and fast trains are becoming cosmopolitan. They invade fields which a few years ago were impenetrable. The world's products are exchanged as never before, and with increasing transportation facilities come increasing knowledge and trade. Prices are fixed with mathematical precision by supply and demand. The world's selling prices are regulated by market and crop reports. We travel greater distances in a shorter s.p.a.ce of time, and with more ease than was ever dreamed of by the fathers.

Isolation is no longer possible or desirable. The same important news is read, though in different languages, the same day in all Christendom.

The telegraph keeps us advised of what is occurring everywhere, and the press foreshadows, with more or less accuracy, the plans and purposes of the nations. Market prices of products and of securities are hourly known in every commercial mart, and the investments of the people extend beyond their own national boundaries into the remotest parts of the earth. Vast transactions are conducted and international exchanges are made by the tick of the cable. Every event of interest is immediately bulletined.

The quick gathering and transmission of news, like rapid transit, are of recent origin, and are only made possible by the genius of the inventor and the courage of the investor. It took a special messenger of the government, with every facility known at the time for rapid travel, nineteen days to go from the City of Washington to New Orleans with a message to General Jackson that the war with England had ceased and a treaty of peace had been signed.

How different now! We reached General Miles in Porto Rico by cable, and he was able through the military telegraph to stop his army on the firing line with the message that the United States and Spain had signed a protocol suspending hostilities. We knew almost instantly of the first shots fired at Santiago, and the subsequent surrender of the Spanish forces was known at Washington within less than an hour of its consummation. The first ship of Cervera's fleet had hardly emerged from that historic harbor when the fact was flashed to our capital and the swift destruction that followed was announced immediately through the wonderful medium of telegraphy.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not a mile of steam railroad on the globe. Now there are enough miles to make its circuit many times. Then there was not a line of electric telegraph; now we have vast mileage traversing all lands and all seas. G.o.d and man have linked the nations together. No nation can longer be indifferent to any other.

And as we are brought more and more in touch with each other the less occasion there is for misunderstandings and the stronger the disposition, when we have differences, to adjust them in the court of arbitration, which is the n.o.blest forum for the settlement of international disputes.

The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals.

Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. If perchance some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad?

Then, too, we have inadequate steamship service. New lines of steamers have already been put in commission between the Pacific coast ports of the United States and those on the western coasts of Mexico and Central and South America. These should be followed up with direct steamship lines between the eastern coast of the United States and South American ports. One of the needs of the times is direct commercial lines from our vast fields of production to the fields of consumption that we have but barely touched.

Next in advantage to having the thing to sell is to have the convenience to carry it to the buyer. We must encourage our merchant marine. We must have more ships. They must be under the American flag, built and manned and owned by Americans. These will not be profitable in a commercial sense; they will be messengers of peace and amity wherever they go.

We must build the isthmian ca.n.a.l, which will unite the two oceans and give a straight line of water communication with the western coasts of Central America, South America and Mexico. The construction of a Pacific cable cannot be longer postponed.

In the furtherance of these objects of national interest and concern you are performing an important part. This exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the new world. His broad American spirit is felt and manifested here. He needs no identification to an a.s.semblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably a.s.sociated with the pan-American movement, which finds this practical and substantial expression and which we all hope will be firmly advanced by the pan-American congress that a.s.sembles this autumn in the capital of Mexico.

The good work will go on. It cannot be stopped. These buildings will disappear, this creation of art and beauty and industry will perish from sight, but their influence will remain to

"Make it live beyond its too short living With praises and thanksgiving."

Who can tell the new thoughts that have been awakened, and ambitions fired, and the high achievements that will be wrought through this Exposition?

Gentlemen, let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. We hope that all who are represented here may be moved to higher and n.o.bler effort for their own and the world's good, and that out of this city may come not only greater commerce and trade for us all, but, more essential than these, relations of mutual respect, confidence and friendship which will deepen and endure. Our earnest prayer is that G.o.d will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness and peace to all our neighbors and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of earth.

FOOTNOTE:

[42] His last speech, delivered at the Buffalo Exposition, September 5, 1901.

IRISH HOME RULE[43]

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE

I may without impropriety remind the House that the voices which usually pleaded the cause of Irish self-government in Irish affairs have within these walls during the last seven years been almost entirely mute. I return therefore to the period of 1886, when a proposition of this kind was submitted on the part of the government, and I beg to remind the House of the position then taken up by all the promoters of these measures. We said that we had arrived at a point in our transactions with Ireland where the two roads parted. "You have," we said, "to choose one or the other." One is the way of Irish autonomy according to the conceptions I have just referred to, the other is the way of coercion.

What has been the result of the dilemma as it was then put forward on this side of the House and repelled by the other? Has our contention that the choice lay between autonomy and coercion been justified or not?

What has become of each and all of these important schemes for giving Ireland self-government in provinces and giving her even a central establishment in Dublin with limited powers? All vanished into thin air, but the reality remains. The roads were still there, autonomy or coercion. The choice lay between them, and the choice made was to repel autonomy and embrace coercion.