Chapter VII: Conclusion (6)

—During the historic march of General Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, a new term suddenly achieved notoriety and popularity, and it came, after awhile, to be applied indiscriminately and wrongfully to all his soldiers, who were spoken of as “Sherman’s bummers.” In fact, the “bummer” was a character in the Western armies long before the march to the sea began. The name only was a result of that campaign. The army “bummer” was a genuine product of the Western armies. The field of their operations was so vast, their marches so long, their movements so swift, that in time these characteristics of the whole body stimulated and exaggerated the natural restlessness and adventurous spirit of many of the men composing it, and thus the army “bummer” was developed. The term should not be confounded. The army “bummer” was not akin, even remotely, to the lazy, blear-eyed, bloated, worthless vagabond who, in civil life, is designated by this term. The army variety of the _genus_ “bummer” was simply a restless, adventurous, investigating, daring forager; a scout not detailed for scouting duty; an independent exploring engineer, who had a natural instinct for topography and poultry, and an unerring nose for roads, by-paths, and Confederate pork and mutton. He looked with contempt on camp-guards, and regarded picket-lines with disdain. He could, without serious difficulty, make his way through an unknown country swarming with his deadly enemies. Answering “here” to his name at evening roll-call, and evading, with subtle skill, the vigilance of the sentries, he would travel ten or fifteen miles, on the darkest nights, through woods and fields he had never before seen, and, bringing back a full supply of the best the country afforded for his mess, would answer “here” at roll-call in the morning, and be ready for a twenty-mile march that day. He could accomplish the feat—impossible in times of peace—of carrying away, without being stung, a bee-hive loaded with honey and populated by a full swarm of angry bees. He was ubiquitous. In camp or with the column one moment, he was heard of an hour later, miles away, calmly inspecting a smoke-house or cellar, and retailing the most absurd inventions of his exuberant fancy to the startled inhabitants. Possessing marvelous powers of endurance, fruitful in expedients, always cool, courageous and alert, the army “bummer” was at once an enigma and a phenomenon. How he did what he did, was not capable of explanation; that he did it all was wonderful.

To this class or type of soldiers belonged James H. English, a private soldier, from the date of his enlistment until the day of his death, in Company I. Tall and supple, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh; restless under restraints; having the instincts of an explorer allied with the reckless audacity of an adventurer, “Jim” English was a character. He was born in Pike county, Missouri, a region famous for its odd specimens of humanity; was a brickmaker by trade, and twenty-four years of age. The regimental roster says he enlisted December 11th, 1861, and was present for duty until January 1st, 1864, when he reënlisted as a veteran, and was then present for duty until December 16th, 1864, when he was killed in battle at Nashville.

Poor, restless, wandering, good-hearted, illiterate “Jim;” always “present for duty”—that was all. Always asking to go, and going whether he got permission or not. Always keeping on good terms at regimental headquarters so as to shield himself from the wrath of his Captain if the latter discovered his nocturnal absences from camp. Appointing himself forager for the field and staff, his voluntary duty was discharged with zealous faithfulness and tenacity. Queer old “Jim”—I should have gone hungry many a time if his daring and skill as a forager had not been exerted in my behalf. Many were the faults of this odd, slouching, observant, predatory, old-young fellow, but he had many good qualities also, not the least of which were his shy friendliness and his quiet good-nature. In that other and better land I hope he is not only “present for duty,” as he always was on this earth, but that he is serene and content, as he never was.

—Another and an entirely different type of our volunteer soldiers was Orderly Sergeant John W. Long, whose military history is thus recorded in the brief annals of the regiment:

“John W. Long enlisted as a private, September 30th, 1861. Born at
Lemoy, Ohio; a farmer; single; twenty years old at enlistment.
Promoted Corporal, May 1st, 1862. Wounded at Chicamauga, September
19th, 1863. Reënlisted as a veteran, January 1st, 1864. Wounded at
Peach Tree creek, near Atlanta, July 20th, 1864. Promoted First
Sergeant, October 21st, 1864. Killed at the battle of Nashville,
December 16th, 1864.”

A universal favorite was “Johnny” Long, as he was called. He was always in his place, and his brave, cheerful nature was superior to the vicissitudes of the longest tramp or the most desolate bivouac. Through all the eventful years of my service with him I am sure that I never saw a frown on his face, nor heard a complaint from his lips. If extra duty was to be performed, “Johnny” Long was always ready for it. If a forage detail was needed, after a long day’s march, the bright, contented face of “Johnny” Long, if he was a Corporal or Sergeant with the squad, gave assurance that the work assigned the detail would be vigorously and intelligently attended to. In camp, always neat, good-humored, and vivacious; on duty, always prompt, tireless, and intelligent; in battle, always steady, reliable, and brave—“Johnny” Long was at all times and everywhere an ideal soldier.

Twice the enemy’s bullets struck him, inflicting first a slight and then a severe wound, and his comrades joked him about “the third time, and out.” But he only laughed, as he did at all things personal to himself. Sympathetic and tender with the troubles or misfortunes of others, his own he made light of. But, alas! the “third time” did put out the life of this gay-hearted and fearless young soldier. In the last battle in which his regiment took part, and while gallantly charging the enemy’s works at Nashville, he was instantly killed. Some of his comrades say that his face, in death, told no story of pain or of horror. It was smiling, as in life. Hardships, privations and toil could not sour the sweet currents of his nature, and even death failed to chill the generous ardor of his soul. He died, as he had lived, with a smile on his young lips and content in his heart.

“Right in the van,
On the red rampart’s slippery swell,
With heart that beat a charge, he fell
Forward, as fits a man.
But the high soul burns on to light men’s feet
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet.”

—Not all the heroes of the war whose graves will be wreathed with flowers to-day, fell in battle. It has been said that “the crowning glory of our soldiers was their peaceful disbandment.” One day they stood in line, the absolute masters of this land. Throughout its length and breadth there was no power, no authority, that they did not outrank. The next day they had disappeared, silently, peacefully, modestly, and were absorbed into the great body of American citizens. Calmly and serenely they took up the broken threads of their old life, with its toils, its cares and its perplexities, and within a month no signs of the most tremendous and momentous struggle the world has ever known were to be seen.

One of these home-returning heroes was Ferdinand A. Berger. Enlisted as a private in Company A, at Leavenworth, on the 1st of September, 1861, he was finally mustered out, at Leavenworth, January 9th, 1866, having served four years and four months. October 1st, 1861, he was promoted to be a Corporal, and on January 1st, 1862, was made a Sergeant. At Chicamauga he was severely wounded. January 1st, 1864, he reënlisted as a veteran, and was, the same day, promoted to be First Sergeant. October 21st, 1864, he was promoted to be First Lieutenant, and in November of the same year received a commission as Captain, but could not be mustered, his company having been reduced in number below the standard. December 16th, 1864, at Nashville, he was again severely wounded. And on the 9th of January, 1866, he was finally mustered out, with his company, only nine enlisted men remaining. He was then only twenty-four years of age.

Returning to Kansas, he located in Atchison county, and engaged in farming. On the 8th of January, 1879, he came to Atchison city, in the full enjoyment of health, to attend to some business affairs. Shortly after noon, a runaway team attached to an overturned sleigh, came dashing up the street. With characteristic promptness and courage, Captain Berger sprang in front of the frantic horses, and seizing them by their bits, managed to stop them. The owner then came up and caught the reins, but the maddened animals continued to plunge and struggle, and Captain Berger attempted to unhitch their traces. While thus engaged, one of the horses delivered a vicious kick, its iron-shod hoof striking him fair in the face, breaking his jaw in several places, and producing a severe contusion of the brain. Two days later he died from the effects of his injuries.

Thus one of the most faithful and heroic of soldiers, who had passed through the harvest of death at Chicamauga, stormed the blazing heights of Mission Ridge, gone unharmed through the campaign to Atlanta, and charged the rebel works at Nashville, lost his life, at last, on the peaceful streets of a Kansas town, while endeavoring to save the lives of others.

* * * * *

—I might sketch for you many other soldiers, as brave, patriotic and self-sacrificing as those I have named. Every volunteer regiment had in its ranks scores of such men. Indeed, I should like to speak of Capt. John L. Graham, of Robert M. Hale, of William H. Horr, of Gil. M. Judah, of John W. McClellan, and many others among the martyred dead, and of dozens who passed unscathed through the fiery furnace of war and are still among the living. But my purpose is fulfilled. I simply desired to present an outline sketch of a few soldiers, differing widely in temperaments and personal characteristics, but all fair types of the men whose valor and patriotism crushed the greatest rebellion the world has ever witnessed. The pictures are incomplete, I know. I regret that a hand more skillful than mine has not drawn them; that a tongue more eloquent than mine could not have told the inspiring story of their dauntless courage and their sublime self-sacrifice. But as I knew them I have tried to present them to you, not as soldiers of rare or exceptional qualities and services, but as representatives and types of thousands of their comrades, living and dead. In every city, town and neighborhood of Kansas may be found soldiers of these types, for our wonderful population includes more than a hundred thousand men who have marched to the music of a drum:

“Men who were brave to act,
And rich enough their actions to forget, forget—
Who, having filled their day with chivalry,
Withdraw, and keep their simpleness intact,
And, all unconscious, add more lustre yet
Unto their victory.

“Lo! a farmer ploughing busily,
Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain.
I see in his frank eyes
The hero’s soul appear.
Thus in the common fields and streets they stand;
The light that on the past and distant gleams
They cast upon the present and the near,
With antique virtues from some mystic land
Of knightly deeds and dreams.”

I might have talked to you of campaigns and battles, or discussed the causes and results of the war, or spoken of army life in general. But these are harvested fields, in which I did not care to glean after the reapers who had gone before. So it seemed to me that I might interest you, for a few brief moments, by telling this simple story of a few of the martyred dead whose lives and services, although not written in any history, are worthy of record on the brightest pages of fame’s deathless memoirs. The Union army contained a vast host of men such as these I have described. Never in any other land beneath the sun, nor in any other age since the morning stars first sang together, did such an array of brilliant youth and splendid manhood rally around any standard to do battle for any cause. From schools and workshops, from fair country fields and busy marts of commerce, the bravest, brightest, best of all the land came thronging to fields lit by the baleful fires of civil war, to fight, to suffer, and to die for the Republic and for Freedom. The comforts of home, the charms of society, the joys of love, the profits of commerce, the acquisitions of industry, the allurements of ambition, the delights of ease—all these were abandoned for the privations, the hardships, the dangers of a soldier’s life. The world was fair and beautiful to them, the future hopeful and happy. But they gave all they had—the boundless resources of their youth, the potent energies of their manhood, the devotion of their hearts, even life itself—for Union and Liberty. Saint nor martyr never gave more.

“Old Greece hath her Thermopylæ,
Brave Switzerland her Tell,
The Scot his Wallace heart, and we
Heroic souls as well.
The graves of glorious Marathon
Are green above the dead;
And we have royal fields whereon
The trampled grass is red.

“Oh, not alone the hoary Past
Spilled precious princely blood;
Oh, not alone its sons were cast
In knightly form and mood;
Perennial smells of sacrifice
Make sweet our sickened air;
And troth, as leal as Sidney’s, lies
Around us everywhere.

“Though tears be salt, and wormwood still
Is bitter to the taste,
God’s heart is tender, and He will
Let no life fail or waste.
O, mothers of our Gracchi! when
You gave your jewels up,
A continent of hopeless men
Grew rich in boundless hope.

“Renown stands mute beside the graves
With which the land is scarred;
Unheralded, our splendid braves
Went forth unto the Lord;
No poet hoards their humble names
In his immortal scrolls,
But none the less the darkness flames
With their clear-shining souls.

“Beneath the outward havoc, they
The inward mercy saw;
High intuitions of Duty lay
Upon them, strong as law;
Athwart the bloody horizon
They marked God’s blazing sword,
And heard His dreadful thunder’s run
When but the cannon roared.

“Shield-bearers of the Sovran Truth!
We count your costly deeds
Devoutly as a maiden doth
Her consecrated beads.
You thrill us with the calms which flow
In Eucharistic wine;
And by your straight tall lives we know
That life is still divine.”

BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN.

Address of welcome, delivered at Atchison, Kansas, July 1st, 1886,
at a meeting of the “Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.”

MR. CHAIRMAN: Within the past half-century, the employments of men have multiplied enormously. Thousands of people are now eagerly toiling, with hand and brain, at occupations that, within the life-time of many living men, were not dreamed of. The telegraph and the telephone, now furnishing a vast multitude of men and women with employment, are among the most recent contributions to the world’s industry, convenience and happiness. And within the present century that marvelous machine with which you are so familiar, the locomotive, took form and shape in the inventive brain of Robert Stephenson.

It is doubtful whether any invention of any age—with the possible exception of that great motive power of all modern life, the printing-press—has wrought such changes in the life, work and thought of mankind as has the locomotive. It has annihilated distances; it has wedded the oceans flowing on either side of great continents; it has crowded the most remote and inaccessible regions with busy and prosperous life; it has transformed all the methods and systems of human labor and activity; it has so assimilated different peoples by the speedy and direct communication it has afforded them, that the world is becoming cosmopolitan; and it has created a new employment, engaging a vast army of trained and skilled workmen.

One is amazed, on looking up the facts, to learn how brief is the time in which this marvelous revolution has been wrought, and how vast is the business conducted on the iron net which now checkers almost the entire surface of the civilized world. Thousands of men are still living who read the contemporary accounts of Stephenson’s first successful experiment. His queer old locomotive, the _Rocket_, made its trial trip in September, 1829, not quite fifty-seven years ago, and the first successful railroad, that from Liverpool to Manchester, England, was formally opened on the 15th of September, 1830. Contemporaneous experiments were made in this country, however, and on the 30th of August, 1830, a trial was made of a locomotive built by the late Peter Cooper, of New York, on a road from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills. Mr. Cooper’s locomotive, however, was a diminutive machine of only one-horse power, and on the return trip to Baltimore it was beaten in speed by a pair of horses. Exactly four months after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester road, or on the 15th day of January, 1831, a railroad running out of Charleston, South Carolina, was formally opened, the motive power being a small locomotive built at West Point, New York; and on the 9th of August of the same year a trial trip was made on a road from Albany to Schenectady, New York.

These, however, were all mere experiments, and they were not attended with remarkable success. The locomotives used were small machines, difficult to regulate, feeble in power, and dangerous to those in charge of them. The first really successful railroad in this country was not opened until the 16th of May, 1834, and it ran from Boston to Newton, Massachusetts, a distance of about eight miles.

Our railway system is, therefore, the growth of only a little more than fifty years. Thousands of living men have witnessed its beginning and its development to its present vast proportions. And what a marvel it is! There are now within the limits of the United States fully 160,000 miles of railway track, or enough to reach around the globe nearly seven times. Fully 30,000 locomotives drag the commerce of the continent over these lines, and 20,000 passenger cars and fully 900,000 freight cars are employed in transporting the travelers and merchandise of the country. In 1884—correct statistics of later date not having been compiled—the freight trains of the United States ran an aggregate of 334,814,529 miles, and the passenger trains an aggregate of 206,516,118 miles. During that year the railways carried 334,570,766 passengers and 390,074,749 tons of freight. In conducting this vast business—the magnitude of which the human mind can hardly measure or comprehend—250,456 persons were employed.

In this State, which has just completed the first quarter-century of its existence, there are 5,117 miles of railway track, over which more than three million passengers and seven million tons of freight are annually carried; and nearly 700 locomotives and over 7,000 people are employed in conducting this gigantic business.

You are representatives, therefore, of a great army of men employed in the mightiest work of modern times, and it affords me pleasure to meet and greet you. I know of no human vocation requiring greater skill, fidelity, sobriety, endurance and courage than does the work of the men who are employed on our railways, and I am glad to add that, in my judgment, there is no body of men in this country who more fairly and fully meet the requirements of their arduous and responsible station than do those who run the trains of our railways.

And this is especially true of the men who ride at the front, on that marvel of modern mechanism, the locomotive. Theirs is the post of danger and of responsibility, and singularly brave, cool, thoughtful, watchful, intelligent men they grow to be. You will all, I presume, become locomotive engineers. The way to the engineer’s seat, I am informed, is from the fireman’s side. I hope promotion will not be slow. The engineers, it is said, are the best paid body of skilled workmen in America. I hope this is true. If it is not, it ought to be, for certainly no body of skilled workmen in America occupy a more responsible position, nor, in my judgment, is there a body of workmen in America who more faithfully and nobly discharge the duties of their post. The engineers and the firemen who ride with them are employed in a work that is not only arduous but dangerous as well; in a work that requires steady nerve, watchful eye, quick thought, prompt action, and at times, the undaunted and self-sacrificing spirit of a martyr.

In war, an army rests securely in its camp by day, and sleeps peacefully in its tents during the night, trusting confidently in the vigilance, fidelity and courage of the pickets at the front, who never sleep. So the railroad train, crowded with passengers or loaded with valuable freight, rushes along over hills and through valleys, while in the cab at its front sits its pickets, the engineer and fireman, sleepless and alert. Those who ride as passengers place implicit confidence in the vigilance, the courage and the resources of the pickets in the cab. They talk and laugh, read or sleep, never thinking of danger, because they know that watchful eyes are on the track, and that everything that human foresight, care and skill can do to avert disaster, will be done. None of them, perhaps, fully realize the mental and physical strain the men in the cab endure. But when the invisible but ever-present perils of the track take tangible form, and the engineer and fireman at their posts of duty, and faithful to its trusts, even when they look death in the face, are hurled over the embankment or against an obstruction, then all realize the constant dangers they face, and applaud the faithful heroism of their daily life.

To talk to you of your duties and responsibilities is, however, unnecessary. You understand them far better than do I, and the history of railway operations in this country shows how intelligently and faithfully you discharge them. I come before you, not to lecture or instruct you, but at the request of your local committee, to meet and welcome the chief officers of your organization. I very cheerfully do this. In Atchison, where so many of your fellow-craftsmen live, and in this State, which in a few years will have more miles of railway within its limits than any other State of the Union, the representatives of any large body of trainmen will always meet with a cordial welcome. I hope your visit will be an agreeable one, and that you will return to your homes carrying with you only pleasant memories of your brief sojourn in this always hospitable city, and of those whose acquaintance you formed while here.

THE SWEDES IN KANSAS.

Address delivered, July 5, 1886, at the celebration of Independence
Day, by the Swedes of Lindsborg, Kansas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: When I received the invitation to attend this meeting I did not not think of “the day we celebrate,” nor of what might occur here, nor of what I could say to you if I came. The invitation to address an assemblage of Scandinavian people broke down the barriers of time and place, and awakened recollections of a body of men, born on the Scandinavian Peninsula, who, nearly a quarter of a century ago, were endeared to me by the strong ties of common hardships, privations and dangers. For nearly three years the Kansas regiment I had the honor to command, tented, marched and fought by the side of a regiment of Scandinavians. And when the brave but unfortunate commander of that regiment, Col. Hans C. Heg, was mortally wounded at the battle of Chicamauga, I succeeded him in command of the Brigade. I speak from personal knowledge, therefore, when I say that the Scandinavian people who have immigrated to this country, and sworn allegiance to its Constitution and its laws, are thorough Americans. I have seen their loyalty and devotion tested in the fiery furnace of battle, and by the most arduous and trying campaigns. I know, also, something of the work the Scandinavian people have done in developing the resources of this fair young State. Our census returns and our agricultural reports, in telling the story of the wonderful growth and prosperity of those sections of Kansas in which the Scandinavian settlers are located, tell, also, the story of their industry, their enterprise, and their thrift. And so, when I received your kind invitation to attend this meeting, my inclination to accept it, as I wrote Professor Swensson, was very strong. I wanted to avail myself of such an opportunity to acknowledge two important facts concerning Scandinavian Americans—first, the sturdy courage and splendid patriotism I had seen illustrated, by them, during our late civil war; and, second, that as citizens of Kansas they had done their full share in making this a great, prosperous, law-respecting commonwealth. This duty I gladly discharge. With reverent gratitude I recall the services of the men from the Scandinavian Peninsula who mustered under the flag of the Fifteenth Wisconsin, and with admiring wonder I look around me and see the substantial evidences of your industry, energy and enterprise.

One hundred and seven years ago, after the Americans had carried the British works at Stony Point, the Commanding General, Anthony Wayne, sent to Washington a letter which read: “Dear General: The American flag waves here.” That was all. But it told all. To-day the American flag waves here and everywhere, from the Northern lakes to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And wherever it waves it is the symbol of peace, order, education, progress, and freedom. It is the flag of sixty million people, and dear to them, one and all, because it is the flag of a Republic where each man is the equal of every other man, in rights and privileges as well as in duties and responsibilities. It is your flag as it is my flag—mine by birth, yours by adoption. You have a right, therefore, to celebrate the anniversary of our National Independence. The impulse which led you to leave the land of your birth and establish homes in the new world, was that love of Freedom and faith in Humanity which is the soul of the great Declaration. Thousands of men of your race and blood have fought and suffered and died for the flag of this Republic. Their services and sacrifices and your own choice have made you heirs to the common heritage of American citizenship—individual liberty and security, a fair chance to work and win, the sovereignty of electors, and the protection of just laws. No government can give more than this, and no fair-minded and independent man expects or asks more of any government.

In exchanging the rocks and snows of Sweden for the broad prairies and rich soil of Kansas, you have not only benefitted yourselves, but you have benefitted the State. I do not depreciate your native land. I know something of its history and its resources. Compared with the vast areas of the United States, the Scandinavian Peninsula is not a large territory. It includes less than three hundred thousand square miles; it has a population not exceeding six million; and its sterile soil yields grudgingly. But amid its rocks and snows a singularly hardy and energetic people have lived and worked since the dawn of civilization. From the bleak and barren hills of this Peninsula came the earliest forms of constitutional government. There, too, is found not only the oldest aristocracy of Europe, but the sturdiest, most prosperous and well-educated people. For of the Swedes, not one in a thousand is unable to read and write, and the common people are the owners of nearly the whole of the landed property in the Kingdom. This Peninsula, too, is rich in historic names. Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII justly rank among the greatest rulers and soldiers the world has ever known. Among statesmen, Oxenstiern deserves his world-wide fame; and among artists, there is no name brighter than that of Thorwaldsen. In literature, the writings of Tegner, Fredrika Bremer, Carlen and Bjornson are as familiar to English-speaking people as to the Swedes. The mystic philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg has interested and entertained the students of all countries. And among singers, what land or age has ever produced voices so rich in melody as those of Jenny Lind or Christine Neillson? At our Centennial Exhibition, in 1876, I spent many delightful days in the Swedish department, and I remember with still vivid interest its unequalled specimens of wood-carving, and the paintings in which the effect of moonlight on the water was reproduced with such marvelous fidelity and skill. The fair-haired people of the Scandinavian Peninsula have indeed stamped their impress upon the history, the literature, the arts, the industries, and the laws and government of the whole civilized world, and always the influence exerted by their teaching and example has been wholesome and beneficent.

We are interested now, however, in the Scandinavian people in America, and not those remaining on the Peninsula. The census of 1880 shows that there are 440,262 Scandinavians—Swedes, Norwegians and Danes—in the United States, and of these 194,337 are Swedes. The census of Kansas also reveals the fact that 11,207 of our citizens are of Swedish birth. This county of McPherson has within its limits the largest number, or 2,117; Saline county has 1,636; and Riley, Osage, Republic and Clay have each over 500 citizens of Swedish birth within their limits. That they make good citizens is a fact universally acknowledged. Wherever they have settled, improvement and prosperity abound, and schools and churches multiply. They are, too, thorough Americans. They do not want to go back to the bleak, snow-clad hills and the vast forests of their native land, nor do they bring with them to this country that distrust of rulers and of law which arrays them against our government as if it was a natural enemy. They do not figure largely in politics; they prefer to attend to more material and personal concerns—building homes, conducting business and manufacturing industries, establishing schools for their children, erecting churches, and accumulating property. They do not, however, neglect the duties and responsibilities of the citizenship they have assumed; they study to discharge these, not as aliens, but in the true spirit of American individuality and patriotism. Hence, in exchanging the rocks and snows of Sweden for the soil and sunshine of Kansas, our Swedish citizens have, as I have said, benefited not only themselves, but the young State with whose fortunes they have linked their own.

There are some foreigners whose coming to America is a public disaster. These are the men who, degraded and embittered by the oppression of despotic governments, confound liberty with license and lawlessness, and can see no difference between the President of the United States and the Czar of Russia. The tolerance of our laws, the liberality of our system of government, allows such freedom of speech and of action that these men, abusing and outraging the liberty they are permitted for the first time in their lives to enjoy, at once array themselves as enemies of all law and all government. They cannot comprehend the fact that laws are as necessary to the human race as the air we breathe. They cannot understand the difference between an arbitrary despotism and a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” The red flag they unfurl is the flag of the robber and the murderer. Their cry for liberty is the cry of the wolf in the forest seeking for his prey. It is no wonder that public indignation is intensifying against these miscreants, and that the demand for laws that will deal with them promptly and sternly, is swelling into a popular clamor. Less than a quarter of a century ago more than two million men rallied around their country’s flag, and cheerfully offered their lives that the Republic might be preserved. It is a glorious banner—the brave old flag of the stars and stripes. It is the flag of Yorktown, and Gettysburg, and Chicamauga, and Vicksburg, and Appomattox. Every man who lives where it floats is a freeman and a sovereign. It is the symbol of the only real Republic on the face of the earth. It is the flag of the only government where every man is free to do whatsoever he pleases as long as he does not invade the rights and freedom of his fellow-man. It is the banner of the Nation that opened this rich and beautiful land as a free gift to all—native and foreign-born alike. And any man, no matter where he was born, who seeks to degrade this glorious old flag, or to substitute in its stead the red flag of the robber and the anarchist, ought to enjoy, for an indefinite period, the liberty of the penitentiary.

I am glad to say that the Swedish settlers in the United States have never been accused or suspected of either sympathy or affiliation with the wretches who flaunt the red flag, and affect to believe that all government is tyranny, and property is robbery.

This country is not only a free country, but its government is the perfection of human wisdom. From the dawn of its existence, the United States has been heir to the ripest harvests of the world’s learning and experience. England, France, Germany and Sweden struggled through long centuries of barbarism, ignorance and oppression, before they wrested from force and Kingcraft the protection of constitutional government. Our forefathers brought with them, across the ocean, the fruits of this experience. They loved liberty, and they braved the isolation and dangers of an unknown land in order to enjoy it. Transmitted from sire to son, and broadening and strengthening for a hundred years, the ideas and the aspirations of the men who landed at Plymouth and at Jamestown at last found expression in the Declaration of Independence. “This immortal State paper,” says Bancroft, “was the soul of the country at that time; the revelation of its mind when, in its youth, its enthusiasm, its sublime confronting of danger, it rose to the highest creative powers of which man is capable. The heart of Jefferson in writing the Declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind, without any exception whatever, for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident.”

It was inevitable that the successful maintenance of the rights asserted in the Declaration, and the establishment of a government based upon the self-evident truths it affirmed, should not only exercise a potent influence upon the civil institutions of the world, but attract to this country the most energetic, daring and aspiring spirits of all civilized nations. A wide continent, almost boundless in its area and infinite in its resources, afforded human industry and activity such opportunities for the exercise of their powers as were never before known, while the theories and principles of the Declaration, embodied in the organic law of the Republic, guaranteed to every citizen the largest individual liberty consistent with social order, and ample protection in the enjoyment of the products of his industry and skill.

If it was great to be a Roman citizen centuries ago, it is glorious, to-day, to be a citizen of the United States. What Nation enjoys such a splendid fame as ours? What other people is so opulent in the blessings of liberty, intelligence and peace? What country can boast of a happier and more prosperous present, or a more hopeful future? We have no venerable antiquity to look back upon; but what Nation, old or young, has enriched history with so long a list of immortal names—the names of jurists such as Jay and Marshall; or statesmen equalling Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Seward, and Blaine; or orators rivaling Patrick Henry, Webster, Clay, Douglas, Morton, and Sumner; or soldiers equalling Washington, Jackson, Grant, Sherman, and Thomas; or philosophers such as Benjamin Franklin; or poets of nobler fame than Longfellow, Bryant, Lowell, and Whittier; or financiers greater than Morris, Gallatin, Chase, and Sherman; or historians such as Bancroft, Prescott, and Motley? And what age or country, marshalling all its proud names, and blending the splendid qualities of each in a single person, can match the towering greatness of him who was at once statesman, orator, philosopher, hero, patriot and wise ruler—Abraham Lincoln?

The citizens of the United States are heirs to the rights of the Declaration, the guarantees of the Constitution, the protection of the flag, and the fame and glory of all the splendid names I have mentioned. It is, therefore, glorious to be a citizen of this Republic, and in leaving the bleak Scandinavian Peninsula and coming to America, you have made a wise exchange. The true Fatherland is the land of equal rights. The best country is that which affords to all its citizens the best opportunities for acquiring happy homes. The best government is that which makes all men equal before the throne of its Constitution and its laws. This country, this government, as I firmly believe, is the United States. You share in this belief, and so believing, you have taken our National Festival to your hearts, and made it your Festival, to celebrate, to be proud of, to honor and to revere. I greet you, therefore, not as Swedes, but as fellow-citizens. I rejoice in your prosperity. I acknowledge the brave, energetic part you have taken in the work of developing the resources of Kansas. I gladly join with you in celebrating this Festival of Liberty. You and your kindred have witnessed the full fruition of the predictions which one of our great poets attributes to a prophetess of your race, who lived centuries ago: