SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 159 



I used often to recite at our rhetorical exercises a selection of 

 Orville Dewey's, entitled "Liberty." I appreciated it then for 

 its high-sounding phrases, and still more because it saved me 

 the trouble of committing a new selection, but I am going to 

 repeat a portion of it again today, because I now appreciate it foi 

 its plain statement of our present national needs, and for its 

 spirit of patriotism. He says in the opening sentence : 



Liberty, gentlemen, is a solemn thing, a welcome, a joyous, a glorious 

 thing, if you please, but it is a solemn thing. The subjects of a despot 

 may be reckless and gay, if they can, but a free people must be a thought- 

 ful people, for it has to do the greatest thing that ever was done in the world — 

 to govern itself/ 



Emerson says, "Society is the lengthened shadow of one man." 

 If society, then the state, and you, then, are the state, and to you 

 ■ we are to look for the proper administration of its affairs. Your 

 ancestors, after long years of hardship, suffering, and bloodshed, 

 created an infant republic, which was brought to them by an 

 eagle instead of a stork, and under their fostering care it has 

 grown to be a giant in the community of nations. For its proper 

 guidance and control they formulated the most wonderful docu- 

 ment ever created by the mind of man. 



This is the splendid heritage that your illustrious ancestors 

 have handed down to you; and the question of the hour is, 

 What are you going to do with it, my brethren ? 



Did you ever notice a field of wheat on a June day, as it was 

 kissed by the sun, and fanned by the gentle summer breeze, or 

 frowned upon by threatening clouds, and lashed by the gale that 

 precedes the thunder storm ? And did you notice the heads of 

 rye, that here and there towered above the wheat; and that 

 whether it was the summer breeze that gently swayed the mass 

 of wheat, or whether it was lashed to violent motion by the angry 

 gale, the heads of rye stood erect, unmoved, and seemed to look 

 with calmness and compassion upon their lowly brothers, but 

 wholly unmoved by the influences that disturbed their neighbors ? 



