One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed - C. A. Bogardus (some good books to read .txt) 📗

the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not. It will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed by a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission. Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain an enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No; she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging.

And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not deceive ourselves longer. We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the Throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hand of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the Throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight! I repeat it, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left to us.

They tell us that we are weak—unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of Hope until our enemies have bound us hand and foot? We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, are invincible by any force which the enemy can send against us. Besides, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and will raise us friends to fight our battle for us. The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

Besides, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it. Let it come! It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ear the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field! Why are we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!—Speech in Convention, March 25, 1775.

 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH.

SPEECH AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, NOVEMBER 19, 1863.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a large sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead have not died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

 

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN'S SPEECHES.

YALE COLLEGE INCIDENT.—BRYAN SPEAKS UNDER DIFFICULTIES

I am glad that there are students here, because I want to say a word to students. Your college has helped to add fame to your city, and those who assemble here are supposed to come in order that they may better equip themselves for the duties of life. I am glad to talk to students, because, my friends, we have a cause which appeals to students. If the syndicates and corporations rule this country, then no young man has a fair show unless he is the favorite of a corporation. (Applause—and yells for McKinley by a cordon of the students.) If the people have a right to govern themselves and exercise that right, then every citizen has an equal chance and every man may achieve what he desires. We wish to leave all the avenues open so that the son of the humblest citizen may aspire to the highest position within the gift of the people. (Applause and yells repeated.)

I am not speaking now to the sons who are sent to college on the proceeds of ill-gotten gains. (Enthusiastic applause.) I will wait until these sons have exhausted what their fathers have left them and then appeal to their children who will have to commence life where their grandfathers commenced. (Great applause.) My friends, a just government is best for the great masses of the people. Equal laws and equal opportunities are best for nine out of every ten of us. (Yells again repeated.) Therefore, our cause appeals to every young man who wants to make this Government so good as to deserve the love, confidence and the support of every citizen in this land.

We appeal not only to the students; we appeal to business men who have been terrorized by the financial—what may I call it? (Applause.) People have been tyrannized over by financial institutions until in some instances it is more dangerous to raise your voice against the ruling power than it is in an absolute monarchy. (Great applause and yells.) If there is anybody who loves this sort of thing then I shall offend him by speaking of it, but I shall not offend any man who loves liberty and the right of free speech in this country. (Great applause.)

The business men have been told that the free coinage of silver would ruin them. If it can ruin them with more rapidity than the gold standard has ruined them, then, my friends, it will be bad, indeed, because the gold standard has increased the number of failures among business men, and every step that has been taken has been followed——(Yells from the students.) I have been so used to talking to young men who earn their own living that I do not know——(Great applause and cheering.) I say, I have been so used to talking to young men who earn their own living that I hardly know what language to use to address myself to those who desire to be known, not as creators of wealth, but as the distributors of wealth which somebody else created. (Great applause and cheering.) If you will show me a young man who has been taught to believe——(More yells and cries of "McKinley.")

In all my travels I have not found a crowd that needed talking to so much as this crowd does. (Cries of "That's right.") I came to this city something more than a year ago, and I then learned something of the domination of your financial classes. I have seen it elsewhere, but, my friends, the great mass of the people even of this city, will be better off under bimetallism that permits the nation to grow, than under a gold standard which starves everybody except the money changer and the money owner.

We sometimes out West are instructed by your insurance companies. I carry insurance in old line companies and in what are known as the mutual or assessment companies. I carry insurance in fraternal organizations like the United Workmen and the Modern Woodmen, as well as in the old line companies, and I am glad that my assessment companies are satisfied to take my money and give me insurance without attempting to tell me how I must vote. Your old line companies have seen fit to insult the intelligence of the people by attempting to exercise a guardian care, notwithstanding the fact that we are able to look after ourselves without their instructions.

You have laboring men also in large numbers in this city. I do not know whether the advocates of the gold standard here who employ men in the shops insist upon telling their employes how to vote. I have in other places found employers who would put in envelopes the pay for the day's work or week's work, and then print on the outside of the envelopes some instructions to the employes. If the manufacturer, employer, or railroad president feels that there must be something on the outside of the envelope as well as upon the inside, let him write on the outside: "You will find within your wages. They are to cover your work. We recognize that the men who have sense enough to do the work we want done have sense enough to vote right, without our telling them how to vote."

I notice that in some places they