CITIZENSHIP

WILLIAM P. FRYE

Citizenship! What is citizenship? It has a broader signification than you and I are apt to give it. Citizenship does not mean alone that the man who possesses it shall be obedient to the law, shall be kindly to his neighbors, shall regard the rights of 5 others, shall perform his duties as juror, shall, if the hour of peril come, yield his time, his property, and his life to his country. It means more than that. It means that his country shall protect him in every right which the Constitution gives him. What right has the Republic to demand his life, his property, in the hour of 10 peril, if, when his hour of peril comes, it fails him? A man died in England a few years ago, Lord Napier of Magdala, whose death reminded me of an incident which illustrates this, an incident which gave that great lord his name. A few years ago King Theodore of Abyssinia seized Captain Cameron, a British citizen, 15 and incarcerated him in a dungeon on the top of a mountain nine thousand feet high. England demanded his release, and King Theodore refused. England fitted out and sent on five thousand English soldiers, and ten thousand Sepoys, debarked them on the coast, marched them more than four hundred miles through 20 swamp and morass under a burning sun. Then they marched up the mountain height, they scaled the walls, they broke down the iron gates, they reached down into the dungeon, they took that one British citizen like a brand from the burning and carried him down the mountain side, across the morass, put him on 25 board the white-winged ship, and bore him away to England to safety. That cost Great Britain millions of dollars, and it made General Napier Lord Napier of Magdala.

Was not that a magnificent thing for a great country to do? Only think of it! A country that has an eye sharp enough to 30 see away across the ocean, away across the morass, away up into the mountain top, away down into the dungeon, one citizen,

one of her thirty millions, and then has an arm strong enough to reach away across the ocean, away across the morass, away up the mountain height, and down into the dungeon and take that one and bear him home in safety. Who would not live and 5 die, too, for the country that can do that? This country of ours is worth our thought, our care, our labor, our lives. What a magnificent country it is! What a Republic for the people, where all are kings! Men of great wealth, of great rank, of great influence can live without difficulty under despotic power; 10 but how can you and I, how can the average man endure the burdens it imposes? Oh, this blessed Republic of ours stretches its hand down to men, and lifts them up, while despotism puts its heavy hand on their heads and presses them down! This blessed Republic of ours speaks to every boy in the land, black 15 or white, rich or poor, and asks him to come up higher and higher. You remember that boy out here on the prairie, the son of a widowed mother, poor, neglected perhaps by all except the dear old mother. But the Republic did not neglect him. The Republic said to that boy: "Boy, there is a ladder; its foot is on 20 the earth, its top is in the sky. Boy, go up." And the boy mounted that ladder, rung by rung; by the rung of the free schools, by the rung of the academy, by the rung of the college, by the rung of splendid service in the United States Army, by the rung of the United States House of Representatives, by the 25 rung of the United States Senate, by the rung of the Presidency

of the Great Republic, by the rung of a patient sickness and a heroic death; until James A. Garfield is a name to be forever honored in the history of our country.

Now, is not a Republic like that worth the tribute of our con30 science? Is it not entitled to our best thought, to our holiest purpose?

Let us pledge ourselves to give it our loyal service and support until every man in this Republic, black or white, shall be protected in all the rights which the Constitution of the United 35 States bestows upon him.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Biographical and Historical Note. William Pierce Frye (1831-1911), an eminent lawyer and statesman, was born at Lewiston, Maine. He was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1850, and was a member of Congress from 1871 to 1881, and United States senator for Maine from 1881 to 1911. After the death of Vice-President Hobart, and also after the death of President McKinley, he acted as president pro tempore of the senate.

The Magdala affair is a striking example of what a country will do to protect its citizens. Magdala, more properly Makdala, a natural stronghold in Abyssinia, was chosen by its emperor, Theodore, as a fortress and a prison. Having taken offense because a request that English workmen and machinery be sent him was not promptly complied with, Theodore seized the British consul, Captain C. D. Cameron, his suite, and two other men, and imprisoned them at Magdala. Lieutenant-general Robert Napier was sent to rescue the prisoners. For his services in this expedition Napier received the thanks of Parliament, a pension, and a peerage, with the title First Baron Napier of Magdala.

Discussion. 1. Who are citizens of this country? 2. What is the duty of a citizen to his country? 3. What is the duty of a country to its citizens? 4. What incident illustrates the difficulties one country overcame in order to protect a citizen? 5. In the Introduction on page 296 you read that the book closes with "some expressions of love for our Country that sum up what America means to patriotic citizens." What did America mean to Senator Frye? 6. What does the career of Garfield prove about America? 7. Mention some other famous Americans who rose from humble beginnings to high honor. 8. Why should these instances increase your "love of country"? 9. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: incarcerated; Sepoy; debarked; impose.

broader signification, 466, 1

duties as juror, 466, 5

Phrases for Study

brand from the burning, 466, 23 tribute of our conscience, 467, 29

Library Reading. "Better Speech for Better Americans," Willett (in St. Nicholas, June, 1918).

Suggestions for Theme Topics. 1. What our country does for the education of its citizens. 2. What protection it gives to the life and property of its citizens. 3. What protection to public health it gives. 4. What pensions our government gives to its war veterans.

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON

THOMAS JEFFERSON

I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly, and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these:

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very 5 first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke, and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage he derived from 10 councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in readjustment. The consequence was 15 that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and New York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern.

Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence; never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was 20 maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, 25 indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bounds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.

30 In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contribution to whatever promised utility, but frowning and un

yielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature 5 exactly what one could wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.

Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his col10 loquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for 15 his education was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day.

His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricul20 tural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within-doors.

On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did Nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with what25 ever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.

For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils 30 through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.