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coln called “Government of the People, for the People and by the People,” I am not that man. [Applause.] Indeed, our democratic government has had its failures and will have more. Honest and earnest criticism of those failures—even, if need be, the most searching and merciless, is a good citizen’s duty. So is the pointing out of threatening dangers. But criticism and the pointing out of danger must never have the object of discouraging wise and vigorous effort for improvement. [Applause.] If they do, they degenerate into that dreary pessimism which, whenever something goes wrong, cries out that everything is lost. If the pessimist who employs his criticism to prove democratic government a failure, would apply the same spirit and method of criticism to monarchical or aristocratic governments, he would easily prove them failures too—and, in some respects, failures of a worse kind. In fact, he would prove any and every form of government a failure, ending in the demonstration of the failure of the whole universe.
The truth is, taking general results, that you will look in vain for a people that have achieved as much of freedom, of progress, of well-being and happiness, as, in spite of their occasional failures, the American people have under their institutions of democratic government. [Applause.] Whoever has been much in contact with the masses of our population knows that a large majority of the American people throughout honestly and earnestly mean to do right; and also that, the wildest temporary excitements notwithstanding, they wish as earnestly to satisfy themselves as to what is right, and, therefore, welcome serious arguments and appeals to the
