[Pamphlets. American history]

15
individual wealth is public debt. Never was there so much need as now of
the profoundest wisdom and an integrity beyond bribe, to crystallize our
chaos, to disentangle the complexities of our situation, to disenthrall our industries from legislation which protects by cramping and crippling, to
retrench the spoils of office, enormous when not exceeding legal limits,
unmeasured beyond them, and through the entire hierarchy of place and
trust to establish honesty and competency, not partizan zeal and efficiency,
as the essential qualifications.
There is a sad and disheartening element in the pomp and splendor, the
lofty panegyric and fervent eulogy of these centennial celebrations. It was
once said in keen reproach by him who spake as never man spake, " Ye
build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous."
It is, in general, not the age which makes history that writes it,-not the age
which builds monuments that merits them. It is in looking back to a past
better than the present that men say, " There were giants in those days."
Reverence and gIatitude for a worthy ancestry characterize, indeed, not
unworthy descendants; praise and adulation of ancestors beyond reason or
measure denote a degenerate posterity. Our fathers have done little for us,
if their equals do not now fill their places. Unless their lineage be undebased, their heritage is of little value.
Fellow-citizens, let us praise our fathers by becoming more worthy of
them. Let this season of commemoration be a revival-season of public and
civic virtue. Let the blessed memories which we rejoice to keep ever green
be enwreathed afresh with high resolve and earnest endeavor to transmit'
the liberty so dearly purchased to centuries yet to come. WVhen another
centennial rolls round, let there be names identified with this, our country's
second birth-time, that shall find fit place in the chaplet of honor which our
children will weave. Some such names will be there,-Lincoln, Andrew,
the heroes of our civil conflict, the men whose prudent counsels and diplomatic skill in that crisis warded off worse perils than those of armed
rebellion. Let these be reinforced by yet other names that shall be written indelibly on the pillars of our reconstructed Union. Fellow-citizens,
heirs of renowned fathers, look to it that in your hands their trust be fulfilled, —that the travail of their soul have the only recompense they sought.