The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1918-04-11
LOYALTY.
By Bliss Carman of The vigilantes.

If tue whole duty OF man could be toll
in one word, that word would be loyalty
the duty of standing by. Loyalty t,
the past, loyalty to the present, loyalty
to the future, is something that is oh
ligatory on all of us
Our duty to the country at this time
implies loyalty TO all its traditions OF
freedom and high hearted justice which
were fought for by our forefathers
which have been preserved for us; and
which we have been accustomed to en-
| Joy all too thoughtlessly until now. Now
is the time to stand by them with every
word and deed.
Our duty to the man in the trenches,
and to every other American at home,
means loyalty to the demands OF the
present. In the first place our loyalty TO
the man in the trenches implies keeping
him in good heart. Not only must We
send him constant words OF cheer, but
the damnable treachery of doubt and
pacifsm and Germanism, which keeps
trying to spread itself through the press
and by spoken rumor, must be stopped
and abolished utterly swamped in pa
triotc enthusiasm. Whenever you hear
doubling whisper of disloyalty, nail
the whisperer as liar and a criminal, and
know you are doing your country a sery-
ice
Part of our duty to the men in France
is to make the profteer and the striker
understand that they are disloyal crooks,
and to block their selfish and disgusting
game by any means necessary. There is
no choice between the man who is willing
to profiteer and the man who is willing
m ufrtLra for tyau in Tho pra
crisis. They are equally despicable, the
lowest of the low. If shame will not
restrain them, they should be drafted
and set to work at decent wage and
profit.
Our duty to American posterity, or
our loyalty to the future, must consist
in passing on to the coming generations
all our national ideals unimpaired, in
leaving to them the institutions of free |
dom which we ourselves have found in
What they may do with those |
institutions under new conditions Is for |
them to say, But at least we must leave
them as good as we found them.
We are fighting now TO preserve our
national life, our civil rights, and our
homes and families from devastation and
ruin When we have succeeded in that,
| believe our first duty to posterity
should be to shut the door on European
The vague and dreamy
deals of internationalism are snare
md delusion. We can best serve the
world by preserving the United States
IS nation, with its laws and institu-
ions and customs and standards un
lebased by the ignorance of those mil
ions of refugees who will wish to fee
n Ila after he war
If we leave the door open we shall be
wamped. The German agent and the
,olsheviki should be barred.
Another immediate duty Co posterty
5 the establishment of universal com
ulsory military training-not for the
urpose of maintaining a huge fighting
orce, but for the purpose of rearing
ace of men who shall be physically fit
or the arts of peace and for all the du
les of citizenship. To perpetuate the
resent lack of universal training of any
ind, would be TO do a great unkindness
D the coming men of America.
These are all immediate duties to
hitch we can set our hands and wills
-hich we can do now.