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REV. S. B. MCCORMICK^ D.D., ON 



educational, social and political ideals — the sovereignty of God 

 and the freedom of man underlying them all — which brought 

 about the Eeformation and were for ever confirmed by it, have 

 been wrought into the warp and woof of American fundamental 

 law, and could not be removed except by sweeping the nation 

 into the sea. The infusion of the Latin will not change its 

 essential character. At most it can only modify and make 

 better. The infusion of the Oriental would not change it. It 

 is, humanly speaking, impossibly to go backward. The move- 

 ment must be forward, and this means simply the triumph of 

 democracy. The sixty or more races in America have entered 

 into the common life of the nation because there has been room 

 for all — only in certain large cities, forced by economic pressure, 

 have large numbers of any one nationality congregated together 

 so as to preserve native language, customs, religion, but they 

 Would have done so in more difficult conditions because of the 

 completeness of democratic conditions about them. In the 

 American Universities the keenest minds are often the sons and 

 daughters of recent comers to America, and they are most 

 enthusiastically American. When the time comes for them to 

 share in the administration of affairs, they will administer and 

 support the institutions enduringly founded by the Anglo- 

 Saxon, but so as to meet the needs of a composite race. 

 America is not static, but tremendously dynamic, because 

 there is no fear of the outcome. It is ever changing, but 

 always advancing toward a higher ideal. Whatever mistakes 

 may be made in the retranslation of politics are soon corrected 

 and progress is ever toward the goal of a people intelligent 

 enough, patriotic enough, self-controlled enough, to bring into 

 being a democracy from which all elements of peril are 

 eliminated. That political problems of grave character are 

 before the nation — the initiative, referendum and recall ; direct 

 nomination of the presidential candidate ; the popular election 

 of senators ; and many others not less vital and fundamental 

 — is a fact whose only significance is that the people are 

 asserting the right of a more direct and more positive political 

 control. They may or they may not insist upon these specific 

 things, but they do insist upon the right to determine every 

 political question for themselves, from the form of government 

 to the erection of a public school building. The final outcome 

 worked out by an intelligent, patriotic, and self-restrained 

 people will be the triumph of popular rights, the vindication of 

 the liberty of a great people, the demonstration of a victorious 

 and enduring democracy. 



