ores and dwellings,
sent all this new blood pulsing through your veins--made you like the
worn Richelieu when, in that moment, there entered his spent veins the
might of France?

Was it the rage you have witnessed among some of your own leaders
against everything that has been done during the past two years--the
warning against everything that is about to be done? Was it the proof
of our unworthiness and misdeeds, to which we all penitentially
listened, as so eloquently set forth from the high places of light and
leading--the long lamentation over how on almost every field we had
shown our incapacity; how unfit we were to govern cities, unfit to
govern territories, unfit to govern Indians, unfit to govern
ourselves--how, in good old theological phrase, we were from head to
foot a mass of national wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and
there was no health in us? Was it the demonstration that what we needed
was to sit under the live-oaks and "develop the individual man," nor
dare to look beyond? Was it the forgetfulness that muscles grow strong
only with exercise; that it is the duties of manhood that take the
acrid humors out of a youth's blood; that it is great responsibility,
manfully met, not cowardly evaded, that sobers and steadies and
ennobles?

Some one has lately been quoting Lincoln's phrase, "We cannot escape
history." It is a noble and inspiring thought. Most of us dare not look
for a separate appearance at that greatest of human bars--may hope only
to be reckoned in bulk with the multitude. But even so, however it may
be with others on this coast, I, for one, want to be counted with those
who had faith in my countrymen; who did not think them incapable of
tasks which duty imposed and to which other nations had been equal; who
did not disparage their powers or distrust their honest intentions or
urge them to refuse their opportunities; to be counted with those who
at least had open eyes when they stood in the Golden Gate!

[Sidenote: Wards or Full Partners.]

I do not doubt--you do not doubt--they are the majority. They will
prevail. What Duty requires us to take, an enlightened regard for our
own interests will require us to hold. The islands will not be thrown
away. The American people have made up their minds on that point, if on
nothing else.

Well, then, how shall the islands be treated? Are they to be our wards,
objects of our duty and our care; or are they to be our full partners?
We may as