haracter through nobility of
action: this is Americanism.

"Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these."

Herein are the teachings of this day--touching the heights of man's
glory and the depths of man's duty. Here lies the path to national
preservation, and there is no other. Education, the progress of science,
commercial prosperity, yes, and peace, all these and their accompanying
blessings are worthy and commendable objects of attainment. But these
are not the end, whether these come or no; the end lies in
action--action in accord with the eternal principles of the Declaration
of Independence; the words of the Continental Congress, but the deeds of
the Army of the Revolution.

This is the meaning of America. And it is all our own. Doctrinaires and
visionaries may shudder at it. The privilege of birth may jeer at it.
The practical politician may scoff at it. But the people of the Nation
respond to it, and march away to Mexico to the rescue of a colored
trooper as they marched of old to the rescue of an emperor. The
assertion of human rights is naught but a call to human sacrifice. This
is yet the spirit of the American people. Only so long as this flame
burns shall we endure and the light of liberty be shed over the nations
of the earth. May the increase of the years increase for America only
the devotion to this spirit, only the intensity of this flame, and the
eternal truth of Lowell's lines:

"What were our lives without thee?
What all our lives to save thee?
We reck not what we gave thee;
We will not dare to doubt thee,
But ask whatever else and we will dare."

V

RIVERSIDE

AUGUST 28, 1916

It may be that there would be votes for the Republican Party in the
promise of low taxes and vanishing expenditures. I can see an
opportunity for its candidates to pose as the apostles of retrenchment
and reform. I am not one of those who believe votes are to be won by
misrepresentations, skilful presentations of half truths, and plausible
deductions from false premises. Good government cannot be found on the
bargain-counter. We have seen samples of bargain-counter government in
the past when low tax rates were secured by increasing the bonded debt
for current expenses or refusing to keep our institutions up to the
standard in repairs, extensions, equipment, and accommodations. I
refuse, and the Republican Party refuses, to endorse that method of
sham and shoddy economy. New pr