There is in our country no real foundation for these wide and sweeping slanders. This, in my judgment, is the best Government, the best country, in the world. The citizens of this Republic are, on the average, better clothed and fed and educated than any other people. They are fuller of life, more progressive, quicker to take advantage of the forces of nature, than any other of the children of men. Here the burdens of government are lightest, the responsibilities of the individual greatest, and here, in my judgment, are to be worked out the most important problems of social science.
Here in America is a finer sense of what is due from man to man than you will find in other lands. We do not cringe to those whom chance has crowned; we stand erect.
Our sympathies are strong and quick. Generosity is almost a national failing. The hand of honest want is rarely left unfilled. Great calamities open the hearts and hands of all.
Here you will find democracy in the family--republicanism by the fireside. Say what you will, the family is apt to be patterned after the government. If a king is at the head of the nation, the husband imagines himself the monarch of the home. In this country we have carried into the family the idea on which the Government is based. Here husbands and wives are beginning to be equals.
The highest test of civilization is the treatment of women and children. By this standard America stands first among nations.
There is a magnitude, a scope, a grandeur, about this country--an amplitude--that satisfies the heart and the imagination. We have our faults, we have our virtues, but our country is the best.
No American should ever write a line that can be sneeringly quoted by an enemy of the great Republic.
A REPLY TO THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE AND CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH.
* The Cincinnati Gazette, 1878. An Interview.
_Question_. Colonel, have you noticed the criticisms made on your lectures by the _Cincinnati Gazette_ and the _Catholic Telegraph_?
_Answer._ I have read portions of the articles.
_Answer._ Well, they are hardly of importance enough to form a distinct subject of thought.
_Question_. Well, what do you think of the attempted argument of the _Gazette_ against your lecture on Moses?
