2456

FREDERICK KARL FRANZ HECKER

(1811-1881)

HE German Revolution of 1848 was the greatest event of the nineteenth century for continental Europe. It checked the Reactionists of France, and forced parliamentary government, not only on Germany, but on every other country of continental Europe, except Russia and Turkey. Seeming to end in failure, with its leaders in flight for their lives, it was really one of the great triumphs of the civilized intellect against the mediæval. Its permanent moral success was due to the work of a few dauntless young Germans, scholars and thinkers, with Frederick Hecker as one of the most dauntless among them. He was born at Eichtersheim in Baden, September 28th, 1811. After graduating in law at Heidelberg, he began practicing his profession in the supreme court at Manheim. His great eloquence led to his election to the second chamber in Baden, and his liberal sympathies soon brought him into close relations with the opponents of German absolutism - notably with the Turner societies, in which opposition to despotic government had taken a strong hold. After the failure of the Revolution of 1848 and the defeat at Kaudern (April 20th, 1849), he escaped to Basel where for some time he edited a progressive newspaper. Finding the Reactionists too strong for him, he joined the thousands of young German Liberals who were emigrating to the United States. Settling in Illinois, not far from St. Louis, he passed the remainder of his useful life in America, serving as a Colonel in the Civil War and dying in 1881. His speeches and lectures, which are published in German by C. Witter, of St. Louis, are examples of most extraordinary eloquence. When they are better known in Germany,- as they are likely to be before the close of the twentieth century,—they will go far to establish Colonel Hecker's reputation as one of the most eloquent men who ever spoke the German language.

LIBERTY IN THE NEW ATLANTIS

(An Oration Delivered on July 4th, 1871, at Trenton, Ill. Translated by Permission from 'Reden and Forlesungen' by Frederick Hecker, C. Witter, St. Louis)

My Friends:

THE

HE roar of war in the Old World has died away; the shout of victory grows less noisy; graves sink in, blood-pools are washed away, and hard by the ruins of palaces and hovels sit Misery and Heartache and Want, while we hallow the birthday of this great free nation, celebrate the independence of this Atlantis from the power of princes and the yoke of kings, and consecrate this banner, the symbol of the courage of manhood. and the love of liberty!

Independence! a grand word! whose full enjoyment none of woman born can share! And he can hold himself most fortunate, when the greatest measure of dependency has been lifted from his shoulders!

Independence and Liberty are an inseparable pair of sisters. Only he who is independent is free, and the freeman alone is independent!

And this is the higher purpose of genuine Turn-craft-to develop the body and to deliver it from weakness and ailments; to free the intellect from all shackles; with "the wing-stroke of a free mind to disperse the spectres of ignorance, of superstition, of irrestraint, and the spirit of servility! With uplifted banner, with body and with mind to strive towards independence and liberty!" As in the ever-memorable era of 1848-49, the Turners, rank on rank, clear in their might of manhood, stood first in freedom's camp, so here, likewise, they were among the first who battled against oligarchy; who with their bodies defended the unity, the equality, the liberty, the union of this land; who bled for them and joyously marched to their death for them. And as the Turners have ever held it a duty to fight in the front rank for manhood rights and human freedom, so they will fall back from their place and from their flag, emblem of their principles, only when they are carried back-dead!

The Republican form of government is the arch of triumph that leads to the realization of our high ideal! The Republic,

because it has for its foundation liberty and equality,- because it gives the individual man time and room for free, untrammeled development,—is the highway that leads to the temple of true human dignity. And on this holiday, it becomes us to glance around us and to look upon the picture which the Age unrolls before us!

Two nations celebrate their independence this year. We celebrate here our independence from king-craft, from our parent stock beyond the waters, and from oppression which other nationalities exercised over their spontaneity, their individuality, their power, their development!

Germany is no longer obliged now to receive as tantamount to orders the wishes of a Czar and his Nesselrode, or to put up with the culture and civilization dictated by a ruler of Pandours, Croats, Slovaks, and the like, with his Metternich! No longer has she to submit to the trade ordinances of the oligarchical monarchic shopkeepers of Great Britain, with her Castlereaghs, Wellingtons, and Russells! No longer has she to be on the watch. for the crowing of the Gallic cock, for the prey-scream of the eagle, or the fanfaronades of Gaul!

Germany has seized and holds her future in her own strong hand. And as she fought for her national independence against the outside, so on the inside may she conquer independence for the individual citizen, celebrating solemnly, as we do each year, the day of a Magna Charta, and not merely a peace sealed with the pommel of the sword. Treaties of peace are short of breath and short-lived! Free constitutions endure from generation to generation!

On the day on which ninety-five years ago the American people declared their independence and in doing so announced and spread before the whole world the gospel of the peoplefrom that ever-memorable day on, the wages of the trade of royalty steadily fell! Yes, Kingship got to be, as to-day in Spain, knocked down to the lowest bidder, and this great Continent, which almost reaches from pole to pole- this Atlantis, with legends of which Egyptian priests had filled the minds of Solon and of Plato-this our sea-born Atlantis is destined to rejuvenate the world into Liberty! And on the birthday of the American Republic it becomes us well to consider the effect of that solemn act of the Declaration of Independence and to draw comparisons of the conditions of the other nations.

2459

At that time this country had a population of two million eight hundred thousand inhabitants. This immense territory was a wilderness, a home for wild beasts and wilder savages. Today the people number close to forty millions, and before the St. Sylvester night of 1899, when the nineteenth century is rung out and the twentieth is rung in, there will be from eighty million to one hundred million Republicans here to celebrate the day! A shiver creeps along the backbone of Kingcraft and its servitors at the thought!

«

A hundred millions of Republicans—a fearful propaganda! "O my exalted, imperial master! What is to become of us?" stutter the lackeys. With a shrill scream, like a new Phoenix, arisen from brass-slack and ashes, rushes the locomotive through what lately was wilderness, away over hill and abyss, dale and waters, chasm and plain, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is bannered with the Stars and Stripes, and the piercing sound that echoes from its waying folds strikes my ear: "Free, free, free!" On all the seas floats this respect-compelling symbol of free citizenship! On stream and ocean, on a thousand highways, by land-roads, sea-roads, and railroads, there is a rush and activity like that of ants or honey bees; and further, ever further, the country opens its lap and shakes therefrom the riches of the earth! Here only those beg who will beg. And this country is not directed by kings and high-born gentlemen; not protected by mighty standing armies, not governed by a well-clothed and trained body of officials. It is not governed from "on High!" Possibly it is not governed at all! It dispenses with the entire happiness-bestowing paraphernalia of European nations, and still it grows, extends itself, and prospers. In amazement the nations view this resurrected Atlantis and ask: Who has done all this? Who is the necromancer?

It is the Liberty, it is the Independence, which deprives no human being of his opportunity for development and activity!

With a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, the children of antiquated, over-refined, and almost stereotyped culture may gaze on the man from the great Western Continent, and on his rough, often unpolished manners, and point their fingers to outbursts of uncouthness and unrestraint here and there. Where man dwells, there dwell also men's passions. The difference between here and there is only in this. Here passion rages publicly, seen by the world's eyes. There a veil is spread over the corruption of so

ciety. The common people of New York, even when not regarded as a present from the Old World, are not worse, are not more abominable, than the populace of Europe's great centres of humanity. For all that and all this, "we sovereign members of a sovereign people" prefer to move and have our being here under the Stars and Stripes rather than under any tricolor of royal might and splendor of monarchical ordination and subordination.

No doubt there are some few, who, having scraped a sufficiency of mammon together, have returned to the Old World, and there have scattered broadcast their condemnation of this country and its people, telling how differently they feel among polished gentlemen, beautiful women, and the fine lace ruffles of the court under the protection of Imperial Majesty and the royal police. But be it said as a subject for your consolation, my friends, that those, who, to the great joy of every European beadle and beggar-catcher and of his lord and master, thus cast their potsherd ballot of condemnation, of ostracism against the Republic, consist only of three kinds:

Either they are of the kind who stand in admiration before their own greatness and distinction; who recoil before our West, because kid gloves are still so scarce and our unrestrained manners are still so unsmooth and roughly welted; who, in fine, have stuck in the seacoast cities of the East, because there it is a little more like Europe, but principally because there it is easier to pile up money! Their greatness was not a source of wonder! They felt themselves banished, turned back! They took a short look at the Union through New York Paddy, Tammany spectacles, and crawfished back to their mothers! Or, they are those over whom the shell of European customs, convenance, and social formations had grown as tightly as if they were crabs, and consequently they had it always in mind to return-as soon as they had made friends with the Almighty Dollar. The third on this and on the other side of the ocean consists of disappointed ne'er-do-wells, enthused by the hope of the greatest possible amount of enjoyment and, if possible, of no work at all. bers. of the first two classes take pains, however, to invest the savings they have scraped together in American securities. For that object, the Republic is good enough for them.

We will not be broken-hearted, seeing them go back whence they came. They may feel happier among house servants and court lackeys than in our company, and may hurrah in front of