JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES

[Extracts from an anniversary speech delivered at Augusta, Ga., July 4, 1898.]

I.

'OUR COUNTRY'S BIRTHDAY

THIS is the birthday of our country. One hundred and twenty-two years have blessed and prospered itat home and abroad, and among all nations in every land its honor is exalted, and its name has been glorified on every sea. The first thought that fills me here is the changed relation that a century has made in our attitude toward the nation from which we sprang.

We celebrate the Declaration which struck the shackles that bound us to our Anglo-Saxon mother, and we voice the blood-bought liberty which, at Concord and Lexington, at Eutaw and at Yorktown, we won from England at the point of our patriot swords. For a hundred years we have made this the hour in which the shriek of the eagle has illustrated our jubilant satisfaction with ourselves and our defiance to the British lion, whose mane we have stroked without affection, and whose tail we have twisted without remorse. But behold the marvel of America, full-grown and militant, with her sword at the throat of a kingdom of Europe, and England, once our historic enemy, standing alone among the nations as our loyal and indispensable friend.

It does not matter what diplomacy may say, or

policy may dictate, or scepticism may protest, I know that the people of this country, reading the facts upon their open face, believe through all their ranks that England, lifting her mailed hand from the deck of her incomparable navy, has kept back from us in this national crisis the meddling intervention of European monarchies and cried, "Hands off," to the military empires of the East. The old mother has forgiven the truant child. She has compassed the Declaration of Independence with fraternity. She has nobly forgotten Bennington and Saratoga, and in the great pulsing tie of blood and memory, she stands as the bulwark of her mighty offspring against the greed and selfishness of the world.

I do not commit myself here to the policy of entangling alliances, which Washington and Jefferson opposed. I am not ready yet to advocate the bond of defence and offence, which is rising like a shibboleth between the races; but standing here in my humble place, and speaking boldly for a people whom I know, I do not hesitate to say that if ever our statesmen shall forget England in her own need and peril and fail to remember the noble service of to-day, then, for the first time in all our history, we shall have cause to blush for the citizenship which has been the pride and glory of our lives. Not in sixty years, Mr. President, have we enjoyed such an anniversary as this. A reconciled and reunited country celebrates the nation's birthday. Not in lip-service nor in platitudinous profession, but in heartfelt reality the States of the Union sit once more at the feast of our fathers, in numbers unbroken and with unfeigned and beautiful fraternity. It is worth the war with Spain to have witnessed the complete and practical unification of the Republic.

Never since Appomattox, and for years before it, have we beheld spectacles so inspiring. Every wound

of the Confederacy has healed and the whole body of the country is sound and glowing with harmonious destiny. Shoulder to shoulder, our boys in blue and our boys in gray are marching against a common enemy. Dixie mingles everywhere its inspiring melody with the strains of Yankee Doodle. The battleflags of the Confederacy, pining in Northern capitals, are lifting their folds at the bidding of the captor, and are coming home to repose forever in the capitals of the South. Joe Wheeler, of the Confederate horse, rides in Cuba at the head of the Union cavalry, and the great green country is ringing with the praises of our cavalier of dashing memories bearing the immortal name of Lee.

No more important, no more heroic, attitude has been assumed by any human government than is represented by the flag of our country at Santiago de Cuba on this anniversary day. For even while we speak, Shafter with the sword and Wheeler with his sabre, and Sampson with his guns are carving and thundering upon the records of human history the highest tribute to national character that has ever been made by glorious purpose and magnanimous war. Not since the Crusaders' lance was levelled against the infidel, nor even then, was a battle waged upon a nobler line than this. We are fighting for an enlargement of the area of human freedom; we fight for liberty; we fight for humanity; we fight for our fellow-men-to free our friends from despotism, to redeem our neighbors from oppression.

For three years we have been giving to Cuba the cup of cold water in charity's name. We are giving now to her enemies-and God's-the yard of cold steel for humanity's sake. In an age of greed and grabbing, in an age of selfishness and apathy-just within hail of the kingdoms who have stood still while the Unspeakable Turk butchered the Christians of Armenia-we

are rebuking the selfishness of Christendom and making a glorious example for them all. Without a thought of conquest or an impulse of aggrandizement, untouched by malice and untainted by ambition, the Republic of Liberty has lifted its arm in the cause of humanity and set its banner far in the fore-front of the moral forces of the world. The nations of the earth behold the spectacle with amazement, growing to admiration, and our own people, scarcely realizing as yet the nobility of their own expression, are following with a confidence that shall deepen to devotion.

II.

OUR LOFTY PURPOSE

Let

THE grandeur of this war is in its unselfishness. Its moral exaltation rests in its disinterested motive. us see to it that it is kept within these glorious limits. Step but a foot beyond this lofty plane; inject an ounce of greed into the noble purpose of the war; grasp but an acre that is not our own, and the glow will fade from our banners and the glory from the beautiful record that we are making in history now.

We may hold the Philippines under a protectorate for a ransom of the war. But its people, misgoverned, debauched and trampled for two hundred years, must be given the liberty which we have promised Cuba and which we enjoy ourselves. We may ask of Cuba a sum to reimburse the treasure we have spent in her service, counting our hero-blood as free. We may divest from Spain the revenues of Porto Rico until our war taxes are relieved.

But the banner of the Republic that has been lifted in the name of liberty must not be stained with the lust of power. The whole faith of the Government,

expressed and implied, is pledged to unselfishness and humanity. The Republic must be true to itself. It must be loyal to its ideals. It is too great to force allegiance upon the helpless, too noble to compel the homage of the weak. This may be Arcadian, but it is right. I take the moral ground because it is the highest ground. It is the ground on which we built the war. If these peoples ask to float our flag and pay tribute to our Government for protection, we may consider the request with honor, guaranteeing the liberty of States shadowed by the flag and consecrated by the Constitution.

But they must be as free to choose as we are free. Our mission is beneficent. Our purpose is peace. One act of coercion would dim the glories of Manila and stain the history of a hundred years. There are men who say that the battle of Manila was the sixteenth decisive battle of the world; that it opens a future we cannot escape; that it presents an opportunity we cannot shrink; that God has put these islands in our hands to hold; that manifest destiny is carrying us onward, forward, to grapple with the powers of Europe, and that wherever "Old Glory" has been lifted to the breeze it would be impious to tear it down.

But I answer here that the battle of Manila decides our moral status in the world; that the future it opens points to duty above temptation; that the opportunity it offers is for our glorious consistency; that God gives the islands, not as a possession, but a trust; that our destiny is pacific, and that if the beautiful banner of our country, consecrated to liberty and humanity, shall stoop to selfishness and greed, it becomes a dishonored flag, flaunting its shameful lie in the face of a perjured government.

I do not believe that public opinion will ever permit us to see that day. We are big enough and great enough to rest in our own possessions for a thousand