THE REPUBLIC'S HIGHER GLORY [Delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the new Federal Building at Chicago, October 9, 1899.] It is the glory of our American system that its opportunities and advantages are not limited to any class, but are shared by all the people. With this unmatched growth, what imagination shall put metes and bounds to the advancement of our country? Is it expected that the marvellous development which has come with the wonderful material appliances and forces of the past three decades will now pause and stand still? Are we henceforth to mark time instead of marching forward? Has our incomparable industrial production reached its limit? Is our growing commerce to halt on the frontier of its old domain? Is the opening door of wider fields and enlarged activity, within the broken walls of the Orient, to be unrecognized and unused? American valor and heroism have never touched sublimer heights or shed brighter lustre on the American name than during the past two years. Are the genius of American progress and the fibre of American purpose unequal to the achievements of its heroism, and can it be said that the people who have wrought these masterful triumphs at home and abroad are too blinded to perceive that the waiting opportunity which has come with the high discharge of national duty lies along the true pathway of our commercial expansion? But we do not and cannot think alone or chiefly of material development. Splendid as it has been in its colossal proportions, the higher glory of the Republic is its moral position and its embodiment of the principles of liberty. To that standard it can never be recreant. The flag floats to-day over a domain ten times as great as that upon which its shining stars first shed their joyous beams. Its beneficial rule has been extended from time to time over vast new acquisitions, but it has never broadened its sway without carrying freedom, progress, and enlightenment to the fortunate peoples who were brought under its protecting folds. It is the same flag to-day that it has always been, but with added lustre and higher renown and a far deeper respect throughout the world. It has the same import and the same virtue. It signifies everywhere right, law, justice, and self-government within the limits of national sovereignty. What citizen of the Republic shall so impugn the honor of his country and the integrity of her institutions as to proclaim before the world that her sceptre extended over rude and remote peoples means wrong and oppression and spoliation? What American shall so discredit his own blood as to declare that the American people will either falter in the duty of their trust or fail in the capacity of their task? Our inspiring past is the prophecy of our glorious future. The architect who plans a great capitol or cathedral sees with the eye of imagination the majestic structure in the full grandeur of its imposing proportions, and unless he could thus prefigure its finished beauty he would be unfit to lay its foundations. The builders and promoters of states also see with the eye of imagination. It is the function of creative statesmanship to penetrate the future and discern its course and its needs. This Republic has a mission among the nations of the earth. It should be the highest exemplar of peace, liberty, humanity, and civilization. As the noble statue of Liberty Enlightening the World rises from its great harbor and first greets the visitor as he comes from foreign lands, it is a symbol that our country carries a torch of liberty to mankind, and its light must not be hid. "Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; As if we had them not." Upon the corner-stone laid here to-day will rise the symmetrical and harmonious proportions of a worthy edifice, which shall symbolize the authority of the Government, and become the pride of the city, and so upon the corner-stone laid by the fathers of the Republic, we of this day, like those who have gone before us, are rearing the noble superstructure which, whether it arches the continent or spans the sea, shall represent and perpetuate the principles of law and liberty. EMORY SPEER [Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 18, 1898.] I. "ONE AND INSEPARABLE.” A SOUTHERN man, it is anticipated to-day that I shall respond for the South. The sunny land of my home is very dear to me, and I shall be ever glad to testify to the devoted and genuine Americanism of its people; but now it would appear to be superfluous. Here, in this great American city, where the people with pious hands gathered the ashes of the Confederate dead here where with civic bounty they reared the funereal marble to guard and to immortalize the sacred trust-here before numbers of that noble grand army of veterans, whose comrades reverently attended on the pathway to the tomb, the pale inanimate form of Winnie Davis, the daughter of the Confederacy-here before those who with sons of Confederate veterans, aye, and with Confederate veterans themselves, were aligned under the starry banner of our united country against the common foe-with facts so eloquent no tongue less than divine could add one thought to quicken the fancy or stir the soul of the Union-loving patriot. Let me then speak not as a Southern man, not as an ex-Confederate soldier, but as a citizen of our reunited country. Let me thus speak for other millions of Southern men whose hearts are inflamed with the same patriotism as that which animates yours on this, the national triumph, for the swift victory and glorious peace we celebrate to-day. Spain had long been our near and dangerous neighbor. Its people have a degree of reverence, almost superstitious, for monarchy, and regard republican institutions with great disfavor. It has been said of Spain that some incurable vice in her organization, or it may be in the temper of her people, neutralizes all of the advantages she ought to derive from her sturdy hardihood, her nearly perfect capacity for endurance, and the sombre genius alike for war, for art, and for literature which has so often marked her sons. While this seems to be true, the Spaniard is not only a formidable antagonist, but there is a wealth and charm in his rich, romantic history which command the admiration of a generous foeman. This must be accorded, whether we contemplate that ancient people as they alternately resist the aggressions of Carthage and of Rome, the fierce cavalry of Hamilcar, the legions of Scipio, of Pompey, and of Cæsar, or, in more recent times, the achievements of their renowned infantry, which broke to fragments the best armies of Europe, or the infuriated people in arms against the hitherto unconquered veterans of Napoleon, or, but now as with patient and dogged courage, with flaming volleys they vainly strive to hold the works of Caney and San Juan against the irresistible and rushing valor of the American soldier. The first to recognize the infant republics of South America, our Government took its favorite and accustomed post in the vanguard of liberty. For that recognition that typical American, Henry Clay, in strains of persuasion as sweet as the honey of Mount Hymettus, with burning invectives like those which fell from the lips of Demosthenes, had alternately pleaded and |