fierce democracy; when guardians of the savings which insure the lives
of the poor, use them as a surplus to pay for the extravagances of the
rich; and when men who have climbed above their fellows on golden
ladders, tremble at the crack of the blackmailer's whip and come down at
the call of an obscene newspaper. An age when the python of political
corruption casts its "rings" about the neck of proud cities and
sovereign States, and throttles honesty to silence and liberty to death.
It is such an age, dark, confused, shameful, that the sceptic and the
scorner must face, when they turn their backs upon those ancient shrines
where the flames of faith and integrity and devotion are flickering like
the deserted altar-fires of a forsaken worship.

But not for us who claim our heritage in blood and spirit from
Washington and the men who stood with him,--not for us of other tribes
and kindred who

"Have found a fatherland upon this shore,"

and learned the meaning of manhood beneath the shelter of liberty,--not
for us, nor for our country, that dark apostasy, that dismal outlook! We
see the palladium of the American ideal--goddess of the just eye, the
unpolluted heart, the equal hand--standing as the image of Athene stood
above the upper streams of Simois:

"It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light
On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.
Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight
Round Troy--but while this stood Troy could not fall."

We see the heroes of the present conflict, the men whose allegiance is