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Show CROAKERS AND PROGRESS. Daniel Webster was a marvel among men. When his sombre eyes lighted, when his brain shook off its habitual calm, when fully aroused and his voice took on its majestic tones, he presented pre-sented a picture which made men unconsciously repeat the words: "There were giants in those days." He surely was an intellectual giant; his thoughts were higher thaa most men's thongats and kindly nature had given him tho presence, the voice and the grace to give to his thoughts the fullest expression. He had, too, the Milton-ian Milton-ian gift of so weaving together simple words that when combined the effect was to illuminate the thoughts behind them and make a picture of enchantment. John Quincy Adams was a marvelous scholar. The son of a President of the United States, from childhood his associations had always been among the very princes of the world; when a boy he had listened to Sheridan's arraignment of Warren Hastings "for high crimes and misdemeanor"; misde-meanor"; seven years later he listened to Burke's final awful arraignment of the same man; he was familiar with all the courts of Europe; Eu-rope; he was there during the upheaval of '93; saw the rise of Napoleon, followed his career to the hour when his star went into eclipse and knew by actual contact all the thoughts of men and the policies of all governments. 'By natural selection he gravitated to the Presidency of the United States and when his term expired was great enough to declare that an American owed his best services to bis country, accepted a place in tho lower house of Congress and served there until summoned hence by death. But neither of these men was great enough to outgrow a narrow provincialism which was thelr's from birth to death. So far as their great influence went they op posed any more acquisitions of land in the far H west. With them It wasbut a worthless waste of M sand and rocks, the home only of savage beasts, M the sporting place of howling winds, the posses- H sion of which would be a weakness to the old H states. That was but two generations ago; look H at it now. We wonder if the President thought H of it as he visited the Yellowstone and Yosemite, H as he looked out through the Golden Gate, as H standing on the bank of the Columbia, he' looked H up. at Hood, St. Helens and Ranier; as from H Puget Sound he realized lie was but fifteen days H removed from the Orient; as In the desert he saw H where its reclamation is going on and realized H thai; in fifty years this west which the wise men H wanted to put aside, has poured into the lap of H the nation an amount of the precious metals H the volume of which measures the strength of H nations, and on the increase or decrease of which H civilization itself advances or recedes almost H equal to all that had previously been saved from H the abrasions of six thousand years. And, really, H only a commencement has been made. What will H fifty years more show? Again while the East Is M being smitten by floods,' cyclones and electric storms ,the West is basking under the smilesof , M the early summer, while from every industry H there is promise of a bountiful fruition. M The truth is perpetually being vindicated. M When Webster and Adams talked they believed M they were giving tho nation wise advice. The fl result shows that, of all their recorded words, H those words were the most foolish and stand to- H day an Impeachment of their wisdom that will M dim their fame for all time. The American statesman who seeks to block the chariot of 'progress in this country is liable to quickly find . H himself in the position of the bull who, in his H enthusiasm, or in his determination to make a H stand for right of way, tried tW experiment of ' H butting a rushing locomotive from the track. H |
