104. Our Government the best on Earth
We all want a good government. If we do not we should have none. We all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be citizens of a government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our government is the best upon this earth.
105. Will the Second Century of America be as good as the First?
Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as good as the first? I believe it will because we are growing more and more humane; I believe there is more human kind-ness and a greater desire to help one another in America, than in all the world besides. We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam engine—the telegraph—these are but the toys with which science has been amusing herself. There will be grander things. There will be higher and wider culture. A grander standard of character, of literature and art. We have now half as many millions of people as we have years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are writing and reading more books. We are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life—trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction. We are investigating, thinking, working! The second century will be grander than the first.