The Owyhee nugget. ([Silver City], Idaho) 1905-1984, 1909-11-11
FRIENDSHIP
OF NATIONS

By Col. c. E. s. Wood in the Pacific Monthly
In the davs when man fought against
man, city against city, and ruler against
ruler, when the air wascontinually shak-
en- with the clamor of war and the
rumors Of wars, then it was that the
war-wearied ones best loved to sit at
the feet Of the poets and hear of that
golden age, long past, when over all the
world was peace; when men tended
their hocks and reaped their harvest
unafraid, and youth watched the golden
moon rising over the sweet-smelling
orchards; when the ear was not alright
ed by the screaming fife and groaning
drum, but the night was made precious
by the song OF the nightingale, and the
lark saluted the pale and dewy morn,
and the hum of the hive made restful
the golden noon.
Peace, then, as always, spoke Of glad
ness, rest, abundance, safety. War then,
as always, spoke of hardship, waste,
sorrow and death. But the tabled gold
en- age was only poets dream. 1t had
never been. Will it ever be?
1t will come just so surely as the hu-
man heart continues that throbbng
which each of us has received through
an innumerable chain reaching to the
very dawn OF creation. Is there any
one who will say what has never been
can never be? What has never been is
what is sure to be. Cyrus, or sPerices
or Charlemagne, or that bold bastard
William the Conqueror, or even Henry
VIII, or Charles, would have said Of oul
civilization, as Kiyomori would hav,
said of New Japan, "These things car
never be-" Who is there foolish
enough to say that the progress of man
kind has come TO an end? That from
this year of grace 1909 we shall 90 nc
further?
Man lives by his dreams. His thoughts
are the things which endure. All els,
OF man perishes. He has been called
Sighting animal. Through all the in
finite change Of the past the marvelou
animal, man, kept himself alive, not b,
his strength, but by the dawning 0
what we call mind. In eating, drinking
and fighting man is common brother t,
the brutes. In strength they surpas
him. By thought alone he has com
thus far, and by thought alone he will
progress still farther. Man has but on
predominant passion the will to live
aud from this are born his two vita
ideals; Freedom and Peace. MAJ
Graves freedom that he may live his lii
in his own way and develope his owl
individuality after his own desire
Freedom is part of the instinct to live
He Graves peace that he may enjoy lif
and dream those dreams which soone
or later he makes come true. Peace
also part Of the instinct to live. In tn
countless millions of years he has lived
man has never failed in the accomplish
ment of the ideals which were vita
and necessary to him which were paI
of his instinct to live; and peace is one
these and that is why we believe ths
surely the friendship OF nations wi
come.
Peace is one of the universal hopes
the human heart. 1t is in every philoc
ophy; in all poetry and in every reliI
ion. The heaven of the American sa,
age, or Of the fierce Viking, or of ii
poetic Greek, or the contemplative But
dhist,- every heaven ever born out
the longings of mans heart is an aboC
of peace He that thinks man has n,
struggled very far on this road towal
: his ideal, knows very little OF the hi
tory of man. Whether one turn
China, or Japan, Or to Europe, one cs
within the period of history begin viii
the time when every stranger was {
enemy when every country was he
by numerous feudal chiefs engaged
constant warfare; when every city W
walled abont against the attacks of Il
rest of the world; when every pet
provinee was hostile To its neigh bo