OCR Text |
Show THE CEHTENNIAL ANMIVEKSABY. To-day the Centennial of the Declaration Dec-laration of Independence will be celebrated more generally and heartily heart-ily than on any previous anniversary of the kind. The round period of a century in a nation's life is a marked event of its history. Although the United States is still an infant when compared with most of the governments govern-ments of the old world, there are rump nt thpm wlin h.ivo rmialled her in practical accomplishments. What other nation has done as much in a century in the growth of population, in development of resources, in education edu-cation of its people, and in layiDg a foundation for luture progress in material ma-terial prosperity, in science and art? Our drawbacks have been serious; we have narrowly escaped many vital perils and have more than once been saved from shipwreck by a good providence and strong arms and timely votes. "We enter the second century of national existence in a hopeful spirit and with confidence in the ability of the people for self-government. self-government. It is to be hoped that the nation has quit trying try-ing such costly experiments as that of civil war, and will hereafter confine itself to the arts of peace, reserving its belligerent propensities for cultivation culti-vation upon some other field than that of our homes. Our federal government has been on trial for a hundred years. Has it proved a success or a failure? It would be difficult yet to tell. There are indications on both ai Jed of the question, and it may be that after the lapse ol another century the subject will still be involved in doubt. What we term republican, or Belf-govern ment, involves so much of the possible possi-ble and attainable which U yet hidden from sight or unrevealed that there ia infinite room for enlightenment and progress. The people are now called upon to recover the political power which they have suffered for a time through the trial of war, to slip from their hands. They have discovered that monarchial institutions in-stitutions cannot be grafted upon a republican stock, and that unless we return to the basis of the Declaration of 1776 and to the constitution of the fatheri, with all the legal guarantees for self-government and individual liberty, the American experiment will be a i.ulure. The Centennial celebration of the Fourth of July Bboukl bo regarded as, a new era for the country a stepping out of the atmosphere of sectional war into that of peace and uniorj. The pesple will probably celebrate it by a new political departure, which Bhall restore wise and honest statesmen states-men of the constitutional school to the management of the government, in order to revive the old prosperity and render the United States the home for the opprwwod of the world. |