The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-08
SCHOLARLY LECTURE BY DR. THOS. I. GREEN Auspicious Opening of Annual
 Lyceum Course GREATNESS OF AMERICA Speaker Shows How Westward Tide of Civilization Has Made America
 the Land of Boundless
 Promise
GREATNESS OF AMERICA
BY EDWIN TORGERsoN


 A lecture which in it's scope and schol- arly exhaustiveness, not to mention the speakers eloquence and charm of deliv- cry, perhaps eclipses anything of its na- ture which has ever been heard in Bir- mingham was delivered last night at the High school auditorium as the opening lecture of the Lyceum course by pr. Thomas E. Green of Chicago. Dr. Green has never been heard in Birmingham be- fore, though he has held a prominent po- sitlon among the eclat of platform lec- turers for more than ten years and has been south repeatedly.
 Next to his fame as a lecturer, Dr. Green is perhaps best known In the jour nalistic world, occupying as he does an associate editorship on the staff of a metropolitan magazine.
 The Key to the Twentieth Century-A study in American Dynamics." was the subject of the brilliant discourse which opened the lyceum course last night. The theme was the hilosopehr-sociologist view of the greatness of America, with all Its boundless energy and rich produc- tiveness, and the keynote was the famous quotation from Matthew Arnold, "Ameri- ca holds the key to the future.'
 Dr. J. H. Phillips, Birmingham superin- tendent of education, presided and pre- sented the speaker. What the audience lacked in quantity was more than atoned for by it's quality, and for more than two hours Dr. Greens words were heard with rapt attentiveness.
 In beginning the speaker gave an intro ductory view of human life, and spoke of the relation of the life of the individual to the great network of such lives which comprises history. History, he said. is but the completed monument wrought by individual effort, and history is being made by each individual unconsciously during eevery minute which passes.
 He then traced the progress of civili- zation since the dawn of history demon strating that the march had been always westward. He referred to the Asian plateau of Iran as the cradle of the human race, and pointed out step by step how the center of civilization had moved west ward to Babylon and Assyria, to Egypt Macedonia, Greece, Rome, Europe, and finally to America.
 "As we look back into history" said Dr. Green, i've find that from time to time there have been periods which were pivots in the advance of the human race, at each of which civilization has appeared to turn a new leaf. Again, we notice that each of these pivotal points In history has invariably been foretold by the prophets who were the first to descry the streaks of dawn in the east. But al- though such epochs have all been prophe- sled, we find that the underlying causes have sprung from places where no man dreamed they existed.
 ''The Twentieth century is the begin ming of such an epoch, and America is it's key. Civilization has advanced ever westward and now has reached the far thest west-America, the land of bound less promise and increasing opportunity, the land of the free. the melting pot of the nations
 At this point the lecturer began his treatise on America proper, and with the magic of statistics' held his audience spell bound He demonstrated how Ala bama with it's 5000 square miles of land could be made the nome or all tHe Su, OOO,oOO of people in the United States; how the 52,0oo,00O of people in Japan might be easily accommodated within the area of California, as they are now crowded into the territory of Japan, an even smaller area. He then made the statement which he declared would be the most surprising which the audience had ever heard. He declared that the 1, 400, ,oo0.0oo of people who inhabit the globe could be given ample space Tor homes in the state of Texas, while a strip of land one mile wide encompassing the state would accommodate all the standing armies of the world marching a mile abreast.
 The lecturer closed with the statement that the only "Yellow Peril' which Amer lea shall ever know is the peril of "the itching palm and the eager fingers of avarice." "No nation ever died of old age," he declared; leach died of a rot ten heart, and the heart of a nation be- gins to rot when its hands are filled with lucre It is the lesson of the past; Gods challenge to America"