The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1910-06-07

Come y ..at viii. We belong TO peo-
pies who have not yielded TO the craven
| fear OF being great In the ages that
| have gone BY the great nations. the
nations that have expanded and that
have played mighty part in the
world, have In the end grown old and
weakened and vanished. but SO have
the nations whose only thought was to
avoid all danger. all effort, who would
| risk nothing and who therefore gained
| nothing. In the end the same fate
| may overwhelm all alike. but the mem
Org of the one type perishes with it.
| while the other leaves its mark deep
on the history Of all the future Of
mankind.
Nations Born Again.
A nation that seemingly dies may be
born again. and even though In the
| physical sense 1t die utterly it may yet
hand down a history Of heroic achieve
| ment and for all time to come may
| profoundly influence the nations that
| arise in its place by the impress OF
| what it has done.
Best Of all Is it to do our part well
and at the same time to see our blood
!! live young and vital in men and wo-
men TT to take UP the task as we lay
1t down, for SO shall our seed inherit
the earth. But II this which is best
Is denied us. then at least it is ours
| to remember that IL we choose we can
be torchbearers, as our fathers were
before us.
| The torch has been handed on from
| nation to nation. from civilization to
civilization, throughout all recorded
time from the dim years before his
| cory dawned down to the blazing splea-
dor OF this teeming century Of ours.
While freely admitting all OF our fol-
| lies and weaknesses Of today. it is yet
mere pervers:ty to refuse to realize
the incredible advance that has been
| made in ethical standards. l do not
believe that there is the slightest nec-
| essary connection between any weak
ening OF yirile force and this advance
in the moral standard. this growth Of
the sense Of obligation to ones neigh
Dor and Of reluctance to do that neigh
Dor wrong.
that silly cynicism which insists that
kindness OF character only accompa-
| MES weakness Of character On the
contrary, just as in private life many
| Of the men of strongest character are
| the very men of loftiest and most ex-
allied morality SO l believe that in ma
| tional life as the ages so by we shall
| find that the permanent national types
will more and more tend toward those
| In which. while the intellect stands
| high, character stands higher, in which
| rugged strength and courage, rugged
capacity to resist wrongful aggression
by others, will go hand in hand with
q lofty scorn of doing wrong to 9th
| ers.
The Greatest Empire.
You belong to nation which pos
sesses the greatest empire upon which
| the sun has ever shone. I belong to
| nation which is trying on a scale
hitherto unexampled to work out the
| problems Of government for. Of and
by the people. while at the same time
| doing the international duty Of great
| power.
But there are certain problems which
| both of US have to solve and as t.
| which our standards should be thu
same. The Englishman. the man OF
| the British isles. in his various homes
across the seas ard the American both
| at home and abroad are brought into
contact with utterly alien peoples,
some with civilization more ancient
than our own, others still in or having
| but recently arisen from the barba-
rism which our people left behind ages
ago.
The problems that arise are Of well
| nigh uncomfortable difficulty. They
| cannot be solved by the foolish senti
| mentality Of stay at home people with
| little patent recipes and those cut and
| dried theories OF the political nursery
which have such limited applicability
amid the crash of elemental forces.
Neither can they be solved by the
raw brutality of the men who. wheth,
er at home or on the rough frontier OF
civilization, adopt might as the only
standard of right in dealing with 9th
er men and treat alien races only as
subjects for exploitation.
| l hold that the laws Of morality
which should govern individuals in
their dealings one with the other are
| just as binding concerning nations in
their dealings one with the other. The
| application Of the moral law must be
different in the two cases. because in
| one case it has and in the other it has
| not the sanction of civil law with
| force behind it. 1t would be foolish
indeed to pay heed to the unwise per
sons who desire disarmament to be
begun by the very peoples who Of all
| others should not be left helpless be-
| fore any possible foe. But we must
reprobate quite as strongly both the
leaders and the peoples who practice
or encourage or coadone aggression
and iniquity by the strong at the ex-
| pense Of the weak.
1 We should tolerate lawlessness and
| wickedness neither by the weak nor
/ by the strong. and both weak and