32 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



zen, and when the summits of the great principle are reached 

 we shall be able to feel as well as say : — 



O law, fair form of liberty ! God's light is on thy brow. 

 O liberty, the soul of law! God's very self art thou. 

 O fair ideas ! we write your names across our banner's fold ; 

 For you the sluggard's brain is tire, for you the coward bold; 

 O daughter of the bleeding past ! O hope the prophets saw ! 

 God give us law in liberty, and liberty in law ! 



It is the right and the privilege of every American citizen 

 to criticise any public official or censure any public measure ; 

 but there is a wide difference between criticism and abuse. 

 I may use as an illustration the treatment accorded the chief 

 executive of a great people. The President of the United 

 States is certainly entitled to the respect of all those who 

 have any confidence in a representative form of government, 

 for he occupies his high place because the people have con- 

 fidence in him. Yet abuse of every description has been 

 poured out upon our presidents from the first to the last. 

 Their motives have been impugned and their private charac- 

 ters have been attacked in every conceivable way. You 

 have only to recall the last three gentlemen who have been 

 called by the people to occupy that exalted position to cor- 

 roborate what I say. But their share of abuse was no 

 worse than the abuse that our fathers heaped upon Washing- 

 ton and Adams and Jefferson, and that, within the memory 

 of some of us, was heaped upon Lincoln. The people's 

 choice should be respected, and I submit that we who claim 

 to believe in the people have no right to " throw mud" at 

 the representative of the people who has been called to the 

 highest place we have to give. 



The American people cannot be reminded too often that 

 our method of selecting a chief ruler has produced better 

 results than any other method known to history. We have 

 had some twenty-nine presidential elections. Take the 

 twenty-nine kings and queens of England from Henry III. 

 to Edward VII., and I submit, without fear of contradiction, 

 that the people of the United Stales have chosen abler rulers 

 and better men to the presidency than royal descent has 



