The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1918-02-01
AMERICA, THE
HARBINGER OF
LASTING PEACE


Southern Society in New York;
"And so all wars which have been
waged for the prestige of Kings or
the territorial extension of empires
fail in their analogy. There is a
quality in this war which evokes a
spiritual response and that will be
new kind of cement for the MAX
ing of a stronger and more triumph
ant people when it is over.
ave are not fighting this battle
alone. | am not even ambitious that
the glory of the final conquest
should come to us alone. / would
far rather have the triumph of de-
mocracy the reward of the associated
effort of democratic peoples every
where, so that when this war is over
neither we nor they can have any
monopoly of that virtue, but will be
partners in it's glory, and so as
sociates in the future progress which
is to be made.
"For we must never forget, when
we speak of democracy, that it is
not an accomplishment, it is not a
thing that has been done, but it is
a progress; it is a system of growth
and though today we might achieve
what our limited vision proclaims to
us as the democratic ideal, it's quail
ity is such that when we stand on
what now seems to US the highest
peak of that range, there will be
greater heights to tempt and inspire
US.
"And so, when this war is over,
and the crude medievalism which at
last brings the Hohenzollerns and
the Hapsburgs to confront their fate
in the young giant of the democratic
spirit; when this contest is over and
the David of democracy has dealt
with the Goliath of medievalism and
autocracy, there will still be work
for David to do worthy of his best
efforts and in the accomplishment
of it large benefits to the race still
remain to be achieved.
SIT is wonderful story, the align
ment of the nations which can truly
be called civilized against the an
cient medievalism which survives in
the heart of Europe. The hope of
mankind, so often frustrated, appar-
emily is now to be accomplished. 1t
could not be done in Napoleon's time,
in spite of the French Revolution.
and its philosophy and its promise,
because of what Danton called The
Allied Kings of Europe 1t could
not be done in 1849 because of the
Metternichs and the Bismarcks. 1t
could not be done in 1870 because
they were still triumphant, but out
of the West, out of this youngest
and latest and most hopeful of the
nations of the earth; out of this
young giant, fashioned out of all the
peoples, who originate in a new phil
osophy, little rivulets of it have
gone over to other peoples in other
parts of the world.
"And now, in the fitness of time.
this giant is full grown, and she
joins hands with other peoples, who,
though older, are yet the children
of her spirit, and we are partners
now with great nations who have
borne for three years heroically the
brunt of this struggle, and at the
end of it, out of the noise of battle
and smoke of the battlefield, there
arises the picture of a new frater-
nifty of mankind the sons and
daughters of civilization joining
hands to protect the sacred princi-
Piles upon which the freedom of man
| kind rests.
"'The American people have shot
through all their preparations for
this war an influence of idealism and
morality which is a new thing in the
world. About our training camps
new conditions have arisen. All sorts
of modern, advanced notions with re-
gard to the amusement and enter
tainment and recreation of young
men, in order that they may be virile,
strong, and high minded, have been
adopted, not because of any particu-
lar wisdom in any place, but because
of the unanimous judgment and de-
mand of the American people, and
so, when our army goes abroad, it
will be knightly army, not an army
of conquest that expects to come
home with chariot and somebody
chained to the wheels and loaded up
with material spoils, but an army