Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-02-10
ny BART KENNEDY.

1t IL all very well to rail at the world
because II erects its mightlest statues
to men Of courage It is all very we'll to
say that poets and philanthropists have
more claim TO honor than mere fighting
men.
belive in the beauty OF poetry. be-
lieve In the nobility OF philanthropy. But
the power OF poetry and philanthropy
never kept a destroying invader from
ravagtng a country and its homes. It
never kept women and children safe.
Tho potent men in times OF stress were
men with firm faces and hard eyes, who
shrank not from thoughts Of blood and
death, but went out and slew the ap-
preaching enemies. The dread. potent
men Of absolute physical courage. These
were the men of value.
And the world rightly accorded to them
higher honors than It accorded to other
men, for the world, hard though It be,
possesses a deeper and sounder wisdom
than Is dreamed OF by the shallow,
squeamish person who forgets that but
for fighting men he would have no roof
over his head.
The wisdom. Of the world Is the mys-
terious and at times sinister wisdom OF the
crowd-mind, which no individual thinker,
however acute and profound. has
ever fully grasped or ever will he able
fully to grasp. For human beings, how
ever near to each other can never fully
understand each other. individuals are
isolated fragments OF an immense being
that Is wonderful and manifold and COM
plex-the crowd-being. And this crowd
being acts on lines outside the compre-
hension OF the wisest thinker. So, sneer
not at nor be impatient OF the wisdom of
the world-the crowd.
Personal, physical Courage is the only
true and real courage. II appeals to all.
All can understand 1t. The things that
are called moral and intellectual courage
are at best but things of comparison.
Physical courage II mans most glori-
Gus gift in life.
IL is the power of absolute control OF
the body at times of Imminent bodily
danger You are unexpectedly confronted
with instant death, and loI you are cool
and calm. Your pulse beats evenly and
regularly. Never have the powers Of
your body lived together with more con-
sonance than now. Within your brain is
a clearness. Nay. It is as II your brain
were clearer and more collected than you
have ever known It. Before you is the
frightful face Of Death. But within you
is sanity and balance and collectedness.
This is physical courage.
And such is its magic that Death itself
shrinks from you.
1t Is not always given to you to know
who Is the man who is possessed of this
wonderful courage-magic. And it may
be we'll that though you possess 1t your
stances in which you have lived have
been such that you have not been put
10 the test. You have never known that
within you lived this cold flame, magical
and divine. You have lived out your life
in an immense, noisome town. You
have wandered not. nor have you mixed
with the fine. hard spirits who live off
in the far. outer world. You are pale.
you are weak. you are one who effaces
himself You are one who knows not
the smile Of fortune. You are perhaps a
submerged slave who lives down in the
lowest deep OF the tremendous town. An
ill-fed. weakling slave.
And 10! you are suddenly put to the
dread test You-the one who is weak,
the one who is nothing-are without
warning. faced with horrible danger.
Your end is upon you.
And all at once there has arisen within
you a force mighty and wondrous. A