The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-17

scriptions on the stained glass windows
which he presented to the Marion insti-
tute. Spealxin Nor Princeton and Pres
ident Woodrow Wilson on this note
worthy occasion on the life of the
school, Professor Arson said:
"All the ideas and all the symbols
OF this occasion have to do with life
and the present and the future Moth
ing here speaks of a dead past
When men collect in a cemetery to
dedicate memorial tablets their
thoughts are with the dead. Their mood
is one of reverence for something great
and gone. The very marble of which
the tablets are made is symbolical of
death, cold and pale and chaste. The
inscriptions summon attention to deeds
that have been done and lives that have
been lived. The bowed heads of the
participants in the ceremony imply re-
spect for great memories and submis-
sion to the universal law of DEATH
But this is not our situation today
We traffic only with ideas of life the
opportunities of the present and the
hopes of the future. We are men not
in a cemetery, but in a school where
American boys of the present are pre-
pairing TO the future work of America
We are here not to commemorate the
dead but to honor the living, a living
statesman and a living university, both
in the full noon and splendor of their
usefulness. We dedicate not pale mar
BILE impenetrable to the light but WIN
doWs whose service it is to let in the
day and the sunshine shot through with
crimson streaks like the blood of life
We do not pause with bowed heads to
recall in sorrow the glorious past we
rather collect our strength and reso-
luton to face in confidence great flu
ture.
THE motto of this occasion is in the
words which President Wilson himself
wrote to be inscribed on his window.
America is securely great, not because
she has great men in her now, but
only as she can make sure of having
great men in the next generation
President Wilson, probably more
than any other President who has oc-
cupied that exalted seat is conVersant
and familiar with the noble past of
America. for he has been by profession
an historian of America. and to Amer
ica's past he pays all reverence both
for what il was in itself and for what
it has handed down to be used by
subsequent generations. President Will
son more than any other single indi-
vidual is responsible for the present of
America, for he is President of the
United States, chief trustee of our
country's welfare. President Wilson is
cause he knows the stuff that young
Americans are made of, having asso-
ciated with them for nearly 80 years
as teacher confident of their aspir-
ations, as stimulator of their larger
purposes.
I'm the blending of these three ele-
ments is the true poise and the true
wisdom. Too many men live in the
glory of the past contemptuous of the
present and sceptical of the future
The chief claim anybody has ON their
respect is that he is dead 1t was in
recognition of this human weakness
that an American publicist once in a
cynical mood defined statesman as a
dead politician. Many men have marred
their usefulness by this, preference for
the past, this assumption that what
ever is great is dead and whatever
is alive is useless. Thomas Carlyle was
Such an one, man so richly endowed
with genius and a warm interest in
human affairs that he should have been
guide to his own generation and an
inspiration to the future but he per-
Versely chose to pay his respects only
to the past, to desplse the present and
therefore to distrust the future The
only advice he could give his fellow
countrYmen was to turn England hack
into the middle ages. Ignoring the
many arguments against his solution
we ildy rest lne case on fact il
can't be done. A lawyer stated that
there Were seven reasons why his client
should not be summoned into court.
the first was he was dead: the Judge
ruled that the other six need not be
stated We cannot go backward. Men
talk of reviving the democracy of
Thomas jefferson; you can revive moth
ing in this world but the spirit OF
things. What we received from the
fathers was the spirit of free institu-
tons. To keep them free we must be
always discovering new methods and
appliances. The ancient and eternal
spirit of things is kept alive by a per-
petual change of process. To stop is
to die. The human spirit is active net
passive. only in activity can 1t sur
vive
Wilson's Policies
I'm urs'iing his policies Woodrow Will
son advocated some things that would
nave seemed unirtelligible to Thomas JEFF
ferson, public utilities commissions, city
government by commission WolSingmen's s
compensation acts. But this circumstance
implies neither lack of intelligence in
Thomas Jefferson nor outrageous rad
icalism in Woodrow Wilson. Since JEFF