Clemson University - Taps Yearbook (Clemson, SC)

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THE CLEMSOX COLLEGE CHRONICLE. 339 would strive to relight those smouldering embers of sec- tional opposition and party strife. The bitter cup has passed ; the last stumbling-block has been removed from our path of progress, and we can now move forward with a giant ' s stride to that high destiny for which the chas- tening hand of God has fitted us — the greatest nation and the grandest people in all the mighty tide of time. Still following the history of our own republic, I would bring to your notice, sirs, the h ighest and noblest cause for battle — battle for the sake of humanity — the chastise- ment of an effete and corrupt nation, and the liberation of a brave and struggling people. In Cuba, that Pearl of the Antilles. which Spain had won so proudly, but which she had so sadly misused, she was at last to find her Nemesis. For the murder of her own people ; for the blood of those slaughtered millions during the reign of the Inquisition, whose terrible cry of suffering could not be silenced, but came ringing down through the centuries, Spain incurred a terrible retribution. By the same stroke, the right to push forward in the march of civilization, and to enjoy the blessings of liberty. Spain goaded us by her taunts and insults, and buried our brave sailors in the putrid waters of Havana Harbor ; Cuba cried to us through her widows and orphans. Was war ever more necessary — ever morally more justified ? But consider furthermore, the beneficent results of this war upon our own people. The Spanish-American war has welded the Union together, as fifty years of peaceful days could not have done, and to-day, North and South are side by side, blazing the path of civilization into dis- tant and foreign lands. Whatever sectional bitterness and party strife existed by virtue of the Civil war has been swept away, and we now stand in the close communion of a common brotherhood.

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338 THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. England, but laid the foundations of a magnificent com- monwealth in the New World. Americans fought for liberty. Were they justified ? The glad answer of over seventy millions of people, in the enjoyment of peace and prosperity, is, Yes ! a thousand times, yes ! War has followed, and must ever follow, when one part of a nation denies the inalienable rights of the other part; and so, less than half a century ago, the world was made to tremble, at a struggle between two parts of this natiou which had itself been founded by a war. Sons of the same country grappled at each other ' s throats in support of a cause that each thought to be just. Could either have refused battle to the other ? If the North had not fought for the idea of union which she firmly believed in, or the South not boldly maintained, before the world, rights under a constitution which her representatives mainly had helped to frame, — could the men of either section grasp the hands of the men of the other without a blush of shame ? No ! war, bloody as it proved to be was neces- sary to settle the differences when once they were brought prominently forward in the public consciousness. And to-day the heroism of both armies is the common heritage of the republic. Nor could the unparalleled prosperity of both parts of the nation, since that struggle, ever have been, or the cordial feeling that we may now safely pre- dict, ever have existed, without that struggle ? The Puritan of the North and the Cavalier of the South were cast in different moulds, and it was impossible for two such types of character, so widely divergent in customs and traditions, one or the other of which has stamped its impress on every State of the Union, to dwell together in peace. The contest had to come ; but in that meeting the two discordant elements were welded together into one homogeneous people, and pitiable indeed is he who

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34o THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. Then let us cant no more of war and its horrors, for America, the envied pearl of the western diadem, stands proudly forth as the exponent of battle to the death. And may the time never come when it can be said of America, as of other less courageous countries, The nations do but murmur, snarling at each other ' s heels, And the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honor feels. For when a great nation takes its hand from the sword- hilt to put a penny in its purse, the end of its glory is near. This grand and mighty nation, which has been for the past hundred years gathering strength for the struggle, but yesterday stepped forth in her might, and flinging down the gauntlet, announced a new world-policy and principles of government, and by that act pledged herself to maintain in the face of all comers, not only her own freedom — for that no one will contest — but the freedom and independence of all who turned to her for aid. Shall she turn back to-day, fearing lest she spend a little blood and a little coin in war ; or lest she will not receive the plaudits of the Old World, jealous forsooth, and fearful for their own pet oppressions ? I sometimes dream that God in his mercy raised this nation up unto salvation. I delight to trace in the rise and fall of the past nations the finger of God, and strive to read the Almighty ' s plan in the historic page In the farthest East appeared the first feint light of civilization ' s dawn, and westward ever since, the star of empire hath taken its way ; while each succeeding nation that rose in its luminous path hath reached a higher plane and wrought out a grander destiny. Egypt, whose lofty pyramids stand as a monument to the people who gave to the world the beginning of mathematics ; the Greek, whose beautiful temples but symbolize the art and cul-