Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 242, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1920 — Americanism [ARTICLE]

Americanism

By LEONARD WOOD

I kww ato what ccur»* other* s*ay take, bat as fpr are, give liberty er give me death! —-Patrick Heary: Speech before the Viaonda ceaveotiea March. 1778. ~ EVERT American schoolboy know* this speech of Patrick Henry. In recent year* serious speakers hare ■voided it as a text and rarely used it as a quotation. Why? Simply because it is so well known and has been repeated so many times in the years past for public platforms that the thought has been it is worn threadbare. There even have been those who have looked upon it as a bit of “spread-eagleism" and therefore not to Jte Mad in what they call dir nifted discourse. The men who look upon this utterance of Patrick Henry in this way lose sight of the spirit of the times and the Immediate spirit of the occaston which induced its utterance. It was a ringing and a daring speech and it meant Americanism at a time when only the fearless vert thinking of Amerireniwa in all that the word implies. Freedom, equality of men before the law, those inalienable rights of mankind, which the Declaration of Independence, only one year after Henry spoke In Virginia* made as plain as John Hancock’s signature so that all men might read. Patrick Henry in this speech said, that he did not know What course others might take. There were then men who feared to follow the*path which led to independence, and there were ether men who did not believe that liberty with equality could ba attained, or if attained could be maintained. The doubting ones drew leasons from the past and predicted like happenings in the future. America has given the answer to the doubters in this country. There is but one course that men may take if they would insure the preservation of those institutions which were in Patrick Henry’s mind whan he demanded liberty and made death preferable if it were to be denied. Americans bom here or bom etoewbere have liberty in their hands to tas® ar ts Hmrw a way. American* has but ons object, the taachSSjEySZS&gßlgsnflhip which Su. MO pM*