Show HEROES ul ALL IH BRONZE greatness Pec recognized d only after death I 1 NO AGE TI maltes 43 itsuo every epoch alm ilm jointed tile the errit e of ita ila own genaus riat ir if great men have elwed thy they th y still exit ln int I 1 measures rea copyright Cory right 10 by john clark rid Did palli pith VL VI on a certain occasion a french orator iu in the nation national al assembly became spas apos and cried out where aro ilia great men of france no ko one scorned able to toll tell lim bini and taking silence for foi applause lie he again cried out 1 I repeat the question M lo Is president abele are arc the great men of france hereupon some one ona solemnly said in bronze the response seemed to satisfy all the requirements of wit and until was there not much philosophy in the sardonic Bar donic answer that the great men are in bronze 0 what does such a question so answered signify are the great men always in bronze it would seem so tho the problem of the great men and of the place which they hold bold in human affairs the question of their heir coming comin and their going ij exceedingly dim colt to solve thus much we wa mar say with tolerable certainty that the great men belong to the agitated epochs epoch s of history there goes an aphorism that peace hath her victories victorias no less ed ad than war this thia would imply that P peace ace hath bath her heroes is as well as war hes ha hai i his but the facts do not seem beem to ansberto answer to the aspiration pistil pieta have hava always song sought to inalda the world think that the calm alm of bur human liall society is better fitter li thin than the storm the stillness of pence peace ma more e sublime than tho the thunder of all violence ce but m mankind an kind does docs botac not accept the dictum as true history goes with the common voice nud and is constrain ed somewhat against her bar loaning and conscience to admit that the great grant men anse adise only in those times when tho the tocsin of battle starts tho frenzy of a cyclone through tho the highlands of the heart the reason of this break in human judgment is no doubt to bo be found in the innate admiration of men for power in in visible ex eltion there is a strange ill indifference to thought and the work of thought however bold and high in the present stage cf our mortal evolution the mind flies from from the sublime tt pa page e pictured with the loftiest loft iest ideality to the roughest forms ol of dramatic action vio ot of every kind is followed with a shout around the world II 11 is action action that thaws the race as the magnet thaws the bar ideality however pure and immortal is not a loadstone to the heart of man it is for tins this reason perhaps that lewis lenvis D H morgan one ot of the greatest american histo rialla is unknown that andrew carnegie Caru esie has wider fame thau than alexander witchell and that budd doble dable with his catarrhal name nama has greater renown than emerson of a certainty the people of 1664 did not think that their leaders were great men at least they did not ag aggeo tee that any an y oue one was great there was only a dim apprehension that lincoln was great it seems amazing that nearly half of the people were evere willing and a large minority of them eager to vote against him lor reelection election re to the presidency grant had then reached petersburg and sherman was waa in georgia the whole horizon of the son south h and west smoked with war A million of men were under arms arma and great armies were in the almost daily grapple of death and yet it was questioned and questionable it if the majority would not put mcclellan in Lincol ns place row few people reck reckoned ad that greatness wag is ort on trial or that there was anything more than the usual politics at stake lincoln was wag able to command tho the voice of the majority but even the majority looked ito to him as a port fort of necessary alist man in the drama without much considering the question of 0 his hia historical stature I 1 the very same opinion was held of ignant and sherman Sher and sheridan and hancock and all the loaders leaders in the field the tha same was held of seward ton to of sumner samner and andrew and morton morion and all the men of the cabinet and council the great men did not exist in tho of t the 11 0 a age 8 yomo 0 n lo 10 thought mar they were beginning to exist there was we think a sort of dim I 1 opinion that hat the great man was wan yet to 1 appear some tall figure that would rise above the turmoil and dwarf not only the common loaders of the army and ithe he senate renate but bet lincoln himself aud and hotly man on in vi hose herculean itile HIP burdens of that stormy aurl and tre ire mentions period were laid according to tho the common voice there I 1 is not at the present timo time one great man a tire united states if so go who is he be of tile of people in our c country 0 u there ought to lie be at least one gr great e rn t but blidt it if ive accept the opinion of the age bleie is ia not one why not it if our auran A 1 1 glo lara itaco is equal ejupi to 0 o tho the jtb other e r races then it ought to bring forth foith as well ell as they there acro great greeks and great romans there have been great and great frenchmen find especially great germans Geroa ui history concedes that there have been great slavs great swedes and great italians there may have been a great spaniard it if so go ile he was vas cervantes we are disposed to thin that there have bave been great negroes aud and groat great indians there is 13 a consensus that great americans have hava billed are they all lead dead that is the question has it ic come to this that party and plutocracy cicci and greed democracy and derad decadence cuce have blotted out the heitic pai t of american amerian life and left ef t us na only lit littleness and imitation and pretense iu in the bottom of the crucible certainly the opinion practically prevails that there theio is not one great man in our cu country except in bronze suppose vo submit the question to those who ho ought to le be qualified to badge we find no concurrent belief of the greatness ot of iny any singla seigle american leave it to the newspapers news pipers and they will answer in wie uia negative lew lea a 0 it to a committee of preachers prea cheis its and the report will be that there ocre great men but brit they are all gene all the great bishops and preachers are dead leave it to tho the Is lawyers and they will decide that tile the great jurists and great chancellors and advocates are in bronze all the great orators and lawyers are of the past suppose we be called on to nominate a great man what would the newspapers say regarding any possible candidate what would the politicians say bay what would the preachers prea cheris say what want would the magazines sil say what would even the literati say the sky would bo be lout lent with vociferous contra frictions americans might agree that bismarck Bie marck is great that gambetta was great and possibly that hat gladstone is if great tint but how bow about cleveland how about sherman how about hill la in particular how bow about carlisle how about charles A dana and rudyard Kip kipling lnig r As for the thousand impo r bili abilities ties we we do riot not venture ventura on the enmor ol of mentioning them A like judgment prevails Is with respect to the products and producers of the intellectual tel world here also there is practical atheism with regard to the greatness of any living american the opinion is substantially this that the ago ag ge is one cue of intellectual decadence the great orators the tha great essayists are arc gone the great poets so EO the critics tell us are gone irving and john quincy adams and fulton and morse are gone practically men do not believe that another webster or clay could exist they positively disbelieve that my any such poet sit or goethe could ba reborn on this earth tharo ore is a total want of faith in the intellectual and moral fecundity of f the age we tell over the names of the giants who iu in their time did something to illumine tile the but bat there is no thought that fat another laplace or another Leib leibiwitz bitz might appear on thi scene of action the idea that socrates or the tha christ might como come again seems absurd and unthinkable thele is not the slightest expectation that a poet like byron could con id again electrify england that schiller might inight reappear in ia germany and as for victor victo r hugo ing his second appa is as s little expected as tile the resurrection of charls charlo magne there is a practical assent throughout the world that wea weakness knes has supervened that genius has disappeared or dwindled into mere talent that all lirong ia 18 no DO moie male than RD an echo cello of son song that is dead that all art is is no more than a reflection of the glories glorie s of tho the art that is past we know from historical data that this inexplicable but certainly fallacious view m ol 01 human greatness has prevailed in ia the tha past as much mach as ah it prevails in the present every epoch has denied tho the existence of the genius and strength which nature and time bestowed upon it il each age lias has sought to disallow and to disprove the claims of every tall son of the morning who has honored th the a ape age with his presence the enthusiastic southern races have not been so vicious in this respect as havo have the strong races of the notte the gaul the celt among modern peoples has been most disposed to recognize a modicum of tile greatness of the passing ago when daniel oconnell was the uncrowned king of ireland he could hardly be said to lack the appreciation I 1 of his bis countrymen the french are not wholly incapable ot of understanding that genius may flourish in the Pr present elent tense but among Engl englisis isil speaking ing peoples and tho the teotonio Teu Ten tonio tonic races generally there is ia either a total oblivion to passing greatness or a positive and acrimonious denial of its existence the germans i would as soon scout expect to see prin prince ce ban wolf coming up again from the slaughter of tho the grondel in his cave as to see humboldt hamboldt on the streets of heidel heidelberg berg or to tall hail blocher on his black horse r riding iding through the brandenburg gate from all this the writer totally dis gerits tho the um unbelief belief of cf the age in i its ts own orn greatness and the greatness of its products it is it fallacy hurtful to civilization cmel to mankind at bottom it Is not net truo true that the great greal men tire are all in bro bronze ulle we doubt whether the tha majority of the great men man have hare taken the form of statu ay arl thero there is a strange delusion in tile mind on this question an ail blindness and weakness with respect to the tha stature and power of men it if we allow ahn greatness of the pst past p st we must also allow the greatness of the present for the lie past was the present or we laut suppose oppose that the universal ovo evo lution is retrogressively and disastrously in man the alia close of the tha nineteenth century centary instead of being barren and in the production of genius has bas wo we doubt not its full share of that sublime cst CA quality known to earth we doubt doub t that the german aerman race bus a er produced a stronger man than prince otto eduard Dis bismarck marck of great britain has bas today a thinker equal to plato and greater than francis bacon he is herbert spencer she has a poet who is superior to milton in all the essentials of great song and ha be is algernon charles she has two or three scientists of this age who the have done mors more forthe for tha natural history of life than newton did tor for the history and I 1 I 1 law w of the planetary worlds america lias has one man wl an unlettered man whose genius has earned carried him further into inlo the arcana of force and has brought forth richer treasures for the benefit of the i human race than has the genius of any I 1 I 1 other single explorer in the wide years of time ame america r ica has 1 a I living orator greater in ilia magic of his power than was everett greater than was webster I 1 I 1 in his best estate america has a living i editor who is greater than raymond Eay moud greater than greeley america has a i I 1 stat statesman esmart in thorest the west those courage I 1 I 1 is equal to that of Patr patrick patrica henry heary and I 1 whose plea for the under man is as incisive as that of jefferson and finally america has a poet vho aho ho is the equa equal LI a of 11 emus JOHN |