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Show INDEPENDENCE DAY. Next Wednesday the American people peo-ple will again celebrate their natal day, their day of independence, when, for the first time in the history of the world the doctrine that all men were created and endowed with the right to freedom compatible with the general good, was enunciated. It may be recalled re-called that when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed its own dicta failed of application in the country coun-try and among the people whose political polit-ical creed it was intended to be. Men j were not free nor equal, nor did they have full opportunity to pursue happiness, happi-ness, for when the fathers of the country were laying its foundations they were convinced, one and all, that the Declaration of Independence was for the white men and not for the black. The wit who therefore said that the old liberty bell cracked when proclaiming pro-claiming the Declaration of Independence Independ-ence because it proclaimed a lie, was a good deal of a philosopher after all. But time gave potency and fact to a document which was originally a possibility pos-sibility and a theory only. It is true this latter condition was secured only after protracted agitation and one of the fiercest wars in history, a war that grew to hatred as it was prolonged, a hatred such as family strife only knows and which ceased only when one party to the strife was completely exhausted. But the close of our civil war gave fullest full-est compliment to the theories of the fathers, and it was supposed that in America for ever after the doctrine that all men are created equal, in so far as the right to enjoy life, liberty and happiness is concerned, would never be denied practical application. That a people who had endured Ihe horrors of a civil war that decimated almost millions of the population, should ever forget the agony they endured en-dured for a vital principle, and be the first to reject the doctrines for which they had contended for a hundred years seems incredible. And yet, if recent events in American history prove anything they conclusively conclusive-ly show that in the present governing classes there is a strong tendency to depart from the principles whose adoption adop-tion and proclamation we with much show and emphasis shall celebrate on Wednesday next. How far the. tendency extends future events must determine. No doubt there will be much Fourth of July oratory of a different charac ter from the past, while there will not be wanting those who will contend that principles of freedom to which Americans Ameri-cans are entitled by divine right, are not to be given to men fighting for freedom in other parts of the world. The spirit of national aggrandizement and vulgar commercialism will find place on the lips of many a flambag-ant flambag-ant orator. We may hope, too, that in many parts of our country there will be found men who, with clarion voices, will recall re-call to the minds of the people the deeds of the past and thus arouse them to a sense of duty which grosser things may for the time obscure in the minds of some. If America has any destiny, and we hear much of destiny these days, it is to do right to so act towards to-wards others and weaker peoples that they, too, may know the fulness of larger life and enjoy the benefits to which , they are justly entitled. Our next Fourth of July will be a failure unless we approach our duty, not alone to ourselves, but to all mankind man-kind as welL |