Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1916-06-29
gleIO G4unoC

mad not only founded university rHt
had revived the unequivocal declaration
in the constitution of 1777 in favor of one
university In the State, can hardly be
questioned.
The doctrine that sovereignty rests in
the individual lies at tho heart of what we
may call the Anglo-Saxon tradition. II
fegan to take form in Magma Charta. 1t
has come down to us in imperfect and
sometimes illogical form through Oliver
Cromwell and John Hampden 1t found
voice in the bill of rights and the dec
laraton of Independence. It was incar-
nate in George Washington, ana found it's
first perfect expression in Abraham Lin
coin. Under this doctrine tho people Of
the world can have as now, a multiplicity
of Independent soveregntics and war, or
one supreme expression of their authority
and peace. They can create states and de
stroy them. They can fedcrate tho world
whenever they really want to do So We
have apparently reached the time when in
the slow moving process of political evolu-
ton men must either take great step
towards world federation, or go ON fight
Ing until some peoi le or some natiOn,
through force, become masters Of the
world. The existing crisis will finally
compel n more or less definite indication
of what he people really propose to do. If
they finch and say there are too many
difficulties in the wav, that the problem
is too complcx-be sure autocracy and
mlitarism will he quick to seize the op-
portunitv and once the world is read lust
ed on the old basis, with civilization rest
ing on the doctrine OF sovereign States
as now, the outlook for democracy and
for peace will not be hopeful.
This is Amrrioas hour. This is her time
to speak Her Declaration of Independ-
ence demands that she speak. Every line
of her history makes the same demand.
She should speak to end war. But how
may war be ended?
Any program which seeks to end war
must do something beside picture it's hor-
rors Men can never he induced to stop
lighting merely because war Is illogical.
brutal and inconclusive. They know that
now
Man is n fighting animal, but amongst
really civilized men the fighting impulse
demands conquest and not blood. With
civilization organized as it now Is. mans
fighting impulse means war; but the he
roiC quo ties which men exhibit in war
are not, as some claim. the product OF
war. The red blood that leaps at the
hugle's note is n reflex of the divinity that
dwells in man War simply calls it into
splendid but perverted action. The soldier
who bayonets a woman resisting his hes-
tial demands, does not thereby nor in any
way create the virtue which makes the
woman welcome death.
can this fighting impulse he satisfied by
war only? Is that natures law? Is there
no other way by which the moral as well
as physical courage of the common man
can be supremely appealed to? Is there
no way by which these qualities can be
applied always to construction ard never
to destruction?
Men have slain each other like beasts
and died like heroes every day now ror
two years, but their heroism has been OF
n lower order than that exhibited at the
sa ne time by others who unheraded have
also died not striving to slay but to save
their fellows Those who have died to save
life are more truly representative Of the
morally heroic qualities of humanity than
those who have died at the front in the
frenzy of battle.
Has peace no qualities which in a high
er and to greater degree than war give
opportunity to the lighting impulse? What
moral what heroic appeal does peace
make?
For fifty years we have had substan-
TALLY continuous peace. Has the heroic
the fighting impulse been appealed to dur
Ing that period, and. If SO, what have beer
/ the results?
,l,,,.
Of energy in which there was some of the
| fierceness and much Of the ecstasy of hat
tle. The conquest of the West and the
unmatched industrial development of the
nation during that period give us oul
answer and much more. The fighting i'm
pulse found here an appeal that has no
only conquered a continent hut has car
ricd ii far into other fields.
It has
! Built the Panama canal:
! Quixoticaly won freedom for the cuban!
and presented it to them,-for whicl
now wo have little thanks:
Conquered. or partially conquered th
air and made it a larger sea;
Conquered, or at least subdued, the mys
terles under the sea;
Applied the power of steam in loComotiol
to anextent not approached byany othe
peope:
Developed the telephone and bound It Il
the daily uses of life until 1t has becom
almost as necessary as daily bread;
Made the ilimitahle and imponderahl
ether n messenger which takes the hu
man voice half way around the earth
and may ultimately take 1t through tn
silent sDaCeS of the universe;