Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-06-03

nave ~ SulCleu, luOuSH hoI 1oPAuiS
enough for our more impatient spirits
The Course Of History.
When, $500 years ago at Marathon
ten thousand Greeks drove back more
than ten times their number of Per
slams under the skillful generalship OF
the great Darius, it may have seemed
like a local and national victory
merely Even when we have celebrat-
ed the victory of Miltiades, we have
seen in it mostly the illustration OF
courage and devotion Of simply ancient
and temporary Importance. AS mat
ter of fact, then and there was settled
ton of history. Or again, in the last
century before our Christian era, when
the more democratic Caesar overcame
the aristocratic Pompey and so gave
new impetus to the struggles OF the
free spirits of aspiring men, it needs
1.-THE large perspective to enable us to
see that here also the course of oil
garchy was checked and the certain
triumph Of free institutions was
prophesied. Not all at once could any
such demonstration be made but "step
by step, since time began, we see the
steady gain of man." and whether it
was Charles Martel driving back the
Saracen hordes and making Europe
Christian and, therefore, ultimately
democratic, rather than Mohammedan
and despotic, or whether it was the
Union forces at Shiloh, in one of the
bloodiest battles of the Civil war turn
ing away the tide Of struggle from the
north, which, seemed certain to be in
vaded and assuring the completion of
that great war upon southern battle
fields; or when the Belgians yielded
to the gray invading hosts slowly to
permit some sort of preparation from
an unready and too confiding western
world; or when the forces at Verdun
stood firm by some miracle of inward
strength and might so that it became
manifest that the French and English
had not boosted without reason when
they said "They shall not pass!"-
whenever and wherever has come a
crucial test, the forces of depotism, no
matter how strong and how skilled,
how outwardly certain of victory, have
been thrust back as by superhuman
hand and the forces of freedom and
progress have held the van.
Character Of Service.
We shall have permitted their sacri-
fees to be in vain, however, unless we
recognize the cosmic, and universal
character of the service which they
rendered and see to it that in our day
we understand as clearly the heart and
character of the human struggle as
they did in their own day. Liberty
and civilization are not inalienable
possessions. 1t is only the right to
these that can not be taken away from
us. To have and to hold them calls
for all that is in us of present devotion
and clarity of seeing The defenders
of human progress and freedom must
be a procession, constantly going for
ward and as constantly recruited.
Not by any means always on the field
of bloody battle, but wherever hearts
beat high with love of the best and
noblest, are the sacrifice made and the
victories won that shall push the whole
world bit further toward the goal Of
universal justice and universal recog-
milton of brotherhood.
We shall have failed of the personal
need of every one of us today if we fail
to recognize that our enemies and the
Instructors of the war are not all on
foreign fields. Nor are we entitled to
impute to the use of other tongues the
Culcl dt AhSiS 81
enemies to our cause whose ancestry
is American for generations and whose
speech is beyond question. For such
we need to be prepared and to watch
lest we be of the company.
Such enemies of freedom are all
those who put something else before
their utmost present devotion to the
present crucial need. That company
of men and women who use their time
and demand our attention for thrash
ing over the old straw of days beyond
recall, telling what we should have
done other than we did do, imputing
motives and responsibilities and
diverting our thoughts from the pres
ent to dead issues are hindering and
delaying us and playing into the hands
of our enemies. History will decide
where lies the burden ct past mistakes