The broad ax., 1915-06-05
Americas Duty: the
Leadership Of the Union
of Occidental Races.
Speech eliveredFriday
Evening, May %, 1915,
by Former Senator
Albert J. Beveridge
Before the Twilight Club
of New York

despised Asiaties were civilized when
our not remote ancestors were uncul-
tured, if not savage.
Olive Sehreiner truly said that the
eternal analogy holds and that every
thing is like everything else. A man
become exhausted and must rest and
then does good work again; field is
drained of It's fertility and then must
rest, to bloom forth in new luxurianee.
A race achieves great things and then
declines but only to rise once more.
Italy is an example.
May not Asia, the cradle Of human
learning and achievement, also revive
Add now to this fact that, bad as it
seems to be to human wisdom, conflict
appears to be the law Of nature. China
was masterful when she was militant;
and that the warlike blood runs hot in
Chinese veins has long been plain to the
observer Of that wonderful people who
studied them on the ground.
Thirty years ago that White man
would have been scoffed and seorned who
predicted an armed, warlike and trium-
plant Japan; yet by the sword japan
has won the mastery of the East. Only
yesterday the overthrow of the Chinese
dynasty was accomplished by such fierce
fighting as the present war has not yet
equaled. And now the event which all
who have given study to oriental eondi-
tions have known long time ago would
come to pass-China is being reorgan-
lied and again made militant by a
capable power that has learned and i'm
proved upon all that the western world
has had to teach. Does anyone doubt,
therefore, that if the white races were
to disarm oriental domination would not
followi Let anyone who does doubt
this read history.
Thus it is that a duty so high, so
deep, so all-embraeing that we are not
yet conscious of it, nevertheless is upon
Us. That elemental duty is the union
of all occidental races, each distinct in
its culture and yet united for common
defense under a common direction
Just this is bound to come. In Ger
many, in France, in Holland, in every
country I have visited I have found
scholars and philosophers thinking
along this common line.
But how to do i'll How to harmonic
the discords among occidental peoples
which will be deemed transient and ira
tional to the eye of history, however,
they may seem to be consequential to
the eye Of the hourf What nation is
akin to all other occidental nationsi
In the veins of what one people flows
English, German, Irish, Italian. French.
Hungarian, Slav, and every other west
ern> bloodf II such a nation there be,
and if it can 50 overcome blood passion
- " AcoAAIc OCCAucutdA AdCAdA unity
that nation holds in its hands the scep-
ter of the future and the fate of west
ern civilization. Where then is such
nationf
Is it not the United Statesi
So it is that the very circumstance
which. troubles our democratic expert
ment win, If successfully dealt with.
make the American republic the blood
bond Of union among the peoples now
at war-a union which shall form q
rampant against the oriental myriads
gathering behind the coming years.
The slogan Of world peace, the guaran-
tee Of the preservation Of the civilization
Of Shakespeare and Goethe, of Moliere
and Dante, is this: "Get together men
Of the oeeident-h We remain separate
We may be in danger-h we combine
We are seeure.'t