The Ekalaka eagle. [volume] (Ekalaka, Mont.) 1909-1920, 1910-08-12

came far quicker than It needed to come.
because Of shortcomings on her part to
which both Great Britain and the United
States would be wise to pay heed. Her
government was singularly ineffective, the
decentralization being such as often to
permit the separatist, the particularist,
spirit Of the provinces to rob the central
authority of all efficiency. This was bad
enough. But the fatal weakness was that
so common in rich, peace-loving societies.,
where men hate to think of war as posi-
BILE, and try to justify their own reluctance
to face it either by high-sornding moral
platitudes or else by a philosophy of
short-sighted m~aterialism. The Dutch
were very wealthy. They grew to be-
(ieve that they could hire others to do
their fighting for them on land: and on
sea, where they did their own fighting,
and fought very we'll, they refused in
time of peace to make ready fleets so eff
ficient as either to insure the Dutch
against the peace being broken or else
to give them the victory when wal
came. To be opulent and unarmed is to
secure ease In the present at the almost
certain cost Of disaster in the future.
1t is therefore easy to see why Holland
lost when she did her position among the
powers; but 1t is far more difficult to ex-
plain why at the same time there should
have come at least a partial loss Of posi-
ton in the world of art and letters. Some
spark of divine fire burned itself out in
the national soul. AS the line Of great
statesmen. of great warriors. by land and
sea. came to an end, so the line Of the
great Dutch painters ended. The loss of
pre-eminence in the schools followed the
loss of pre-eminence in camp and in
council chamber.
In the little republic OF Holland, as in
the great empire of Rome, 1t was not
death which came, but transformation.
Both Holland and Italy teach us that
races that fall may rise again.
Danger Of Race Suicide.
There are questions which we of the
great civilized nations are ever tempted to
ask Of the future. Is our time of growth
drawing to an end? Are we as nations
soon to come under the rule of that great
law of death, which is itself but part of the
great law of life? None can tell. Forces
that we can see and other forces tina are
hidden or that can but dimly be appre-
hended are at work all around us, both
for good and for evil. The growth in lux
ury, in love Of ease. in taste for vapid
and frivolous excitement, is both evident
and unhealthy. The most ominous sign
is the diminution in the birth-rate, in the
rate Of natural increase, now to a larger
or lesser degree shared by most of the
civilized nations of central and western
Europe, Of America and Australia; a dim
mutton so great that If it continues for the
next century at the rate which has OBJ
tanned for the last % years, all the more
highly civilized people will be stationary
population. while many of them will have
already gone very far backward.
There is much that should give US con-
Germ for the future. But there is much
also which should give us hope. No man
is more apt to be mistaken than the
prophet Of evil. I believe with all my
heart that a great future remains for us;
but whether it does or does not, our
duty is not altered. However the bat
tie may go, the soldier worthy Of the
name will with utmost vigor do his al
loted task. and bear himself as valiant
~ In defeat as in victory. Come what
will. we belong to peoples who have not
yielded to the craven fear of being great.
In the ages that have gone by, the
great nations, the nations that nave eX-
banded and that have played a 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 eff
fort. who would risk nothing, and who
therefore gained nothing. In the end the
same fate may W all alike; but
the memory Of the one type perishes with
1T while the other leg ,es it's mark deep
on the history of all the future Of man.
kind.
In the first part Of this lecture I drew
certain analogies between what had oc-
CURED to forms Of animal life through
the procession of the ages on this planet.
and what has ccurred and is occurring
to the great artificial civilizations which
have gradually spread over the worlds
surface during the thousands of years
that have elapsed since cities OF temples
and palaces first rose beside the Nile and
the Euphrates, and the harbors of
Minoan Crete bristled with the masts of
the Aegean craft. But OF course the
parallel is true only in the toughest
and most general way. Moreover, even
between the civilizations of today and
the civilizations Of ancient times there
are differences so profound that we must
be cautious in drawing any conclusions
for the present based on what has hap
pened in the past. While freely admit
ting all Of our follies and weaknesses of
today, it is yet mere perversity to refuse
to realize the incredible advance that
has been made in ethical standards. I do
not believe that there is the slightest nee
essary connection between any weaken
ing Of virile force and this advance in
the moral standard, this growth of the
sense of obligation to ones neighbor and
of reluctance to do that neighbor wrong.
Problems of Modern Nations.
Every modern civilized nation has many
and terrible problems to solve within it's
own borders, problems that arise not
merely from juXtaposition Of poverty and
riches, but especially from the self-con-
seriousness Of both poverty and riches.
Each nation must deal with these mat
tiers in its own fashion, and yet the spirit
in which the problem is approached must
ever be fundamentally the same. 1t
must be a spirit of broad humanity: OF
brotherly kindness; Of acceptance of re-
sponsibility, one for each and each for
}. IL ~ ill., k},- -.
mote as the poles from every form OF
weakness and sentimentalitY As in wal