It is time that the law-respecting, intelligent citizens of the United States were awakening to a sense of the dangers that menace our country. They are strong enough to deal with all these dangers—strong enough to throttle, with one hand, the preachers of hate and lawlessness, while with the other they beat down the allied trusts and the grasping monopolies of the land. The people of America are slow to anger, I know. They are patient, industrious, and inclined to laugh at the cry of “wolf.” They did not believe, until the civil war had burst upon them, that it would ever come; and even when the roar of hostile cannon was thundering in their ears, both sides thought the conflict would end in sixty days. But these sober, patient, industrious people, when once aroused, are terrible in their anger, and as remorseless as fate. And they can fight! The bloodiest battles, the most desperate conflicts the world has ever known, attest their valor, their endurance, their sublime patriotism, and their love of our country and its institutions. I trust the coming years have in store for us, and for our children, no renewal of such scenes of strife and bloodshed and destruction as marked the period from 1861 to 1865. But it is not wise to shut our eyes to the dangers that menace our laws and our form of government, nor to fail or refuse to adopt measures for the preservation of the public peace and the punishment of those who are seeking to disturb it. I have, perhaps, wandered away from the subjects you have met to discuss. But your constitution furnished the text, and I am sure you will pardon the digression. You meet, as law-abiding, law-respecting citizens, to organize for the protection of your own interests under the laws. An American citizen can have no higher aspiration than to see his country governed by just laws, justly administered by just men. When this aspiration is realized, the person, the property, the inalienable rights of every American citizen will be safe against aggressors. To realize this aspiration, a healthy, intelligent public sentiment is necessary, and I verily believe that your organization, if its announced objects are kept steadily in view, will have a tendency to create such a sentiment. I trust your deliberations may be pleasant and harmonious, and that you may, one and all, return to your homes and your work inspired with a firm determination to do whatsoever you can to secure just laws, and to see that they are justly administered by just men. ADDRESS. Delivered in Representative Hall, May 25th, 1888, welcoming the “Northwestern Editorial Association.”