DEMOCRACY 1 HARRIET MONROE (1860- > For, lo! the living God doth bare His arm. No more He makes His house of clouds and gloom. Unveiled His thunder leaps to meet the storm. sway A universe of stars; He bows them down, he bids them go or stay, He scans the burning paces of the sun, He sees in dew upon a rose impearled Voices of hope he hears Long dumb to his despair, And dreams of golden years For now Democracy dares wake and rise From the sweet sloth of youth. By storms made strong, by many dreams made wise, 1 From the Columbian Ode, written by Miss Monroe for the dedication ceremonies of the World's Columbian Exposition, at which it was read on the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, October 21, 1892. Used by permission of the author. Through the armed nations lies his path of peace, The open book of knowledge in his hand. Food to the starving, to the oppressed release, That wondrous day When earth shall sing as through the blue she rolls, His swift foot shall aspire; His soul its watch shall keep, Till love shall make the world a holy place, Not yet the angels hear life's last sweet song. Patient in birth and death, in growth and blight, THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 1 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS (1824-1892) There is no fellow citizen of ours, wherever he may be today, whether sailing the remotest seas or wandering among the highest Alps, however far removed, however long separated from his home, who, as his eyes open upon this glorious morning, does not . . . thank God with all his heart that he too is an American. In imagination he sees infinitely multiplied the very scene that we behold. From every roof and gable, from every door and window, of all the myriads of happy American homes from the seaboard to the mountains, and from the mountains still onward to the sea, the splendor of this summer heaven is reflected in the starry beauty of the American flag. From every steeple and tower in crowded cities and towns, from the village belfry and the school-house and meetinghouse on solitary country roads, ring out the joyous peals. From countless thousands of reverent lips ascends the voice of prayer. Everywhere the inspiring words of the great Declaration that we have heard, the charter of our independence, the scripture of our liberty, is read aloud in eager, in grateful ears. And above all, and under all, pulsing through all the praise and prayer, from the frozen sea to the tropic gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the great heart of a great people beats in fullness of joy, beats with pious exultation, that here at last, upon our soil, here, by the wisdom of our 1 From an oration delivered at Northfield, New York, on the one hundredth anniversary of our national independence. In "Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis," Vol. III. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers, New York. Used by permission of the publishers. fathers and the bravery of our brothers, is founded a republic, vast, fraternal, peaceful, upon the divine corner stone of liberty, justice, and equal rights. There have, indeed, been other republics, but they were founded upon other principles. There are republics in Switzerland today a thousand years old. But Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden1 are pure democracies, not larger than the county in which we live, and wholly unlike our vast national and representative republic. Athens was a republic, but Marathon and Salamis, battles whose names are melodious in the history of liberty, were won by slaves. Rome was a republic, but slavery degraded it to an empire. Venice, Genoa, Florence, were republican cities; but they were tyrants over subject neighbors, and slaves of aristocrats at home. There were republics in Holland, honorable forever, because from them we received our common schools, the bulwark of American liberty; but they, too, were republics of classes, not of the people. It was reserved for our fathers to build a republic upon a declaration of the equal rights of men; to make the government as broad as humanity; to found political institutions upon faith in human nature. "The sacred rights of mankind," fervently exclaimed Alexander Hamilton, "are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records; they are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself." That was the sublime faith in which this century began. The world stared and sneered - the difficulties and dangers were colossal. For more than eighty years that Declaration remained only a declara 1 Cantons of the Swiss Republic, which correspond to the states of the American Union. tion of faith. But, fellow citizens, fortunate beyond all men, our eyes beheld its increasing fulfillment. The sublime faith of the fathers is more and more the familiar fact of the children. But we have learned, by sharp experience, that prosperity is girt with peril. In this hour of exultation we will not scorn the wise voices of warning and censure, the friendly and patriotic voices of the time. We will not forget that the vital condition of national greatness and prosperity is the moral character of the people. It is not vast territory, a temperate climate, exhaustless mines, enormous wealth, amazing inventions, imperial enterprises, magnificent public works, a population miraculously multiplied; it is not busy shops, and humming mills, and flaming forges, and commerce that girdles the globe with the glory of a flag, that make a nation truly great. These are but opportunities. They are like the health and strength and talents of a man, which are not his character and manhood, but only the means of their development. ... The country of a century ago was our fathers' small estate. That of today is our noble heritage. Fidelity to the spirit and principles of our fathers will enable us to deliver it enlarged, beautified, ennobled, to our children of the new century. Unwavering faith in the absolute supremacy of the moral law, the clear perception that well-considered, thoroughly proved, and jealously guarded institutions are the chief security of liberty, and an unswerving loyalty to ideas made the men of the Revolution and secured American independence. The same faith and the same loyalty will preserve that independence, and secure progressive liberty forever. And here and now, upon this sacred centennial altar, let us, at least, |