The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1918-11-08


to have left an imperishable message.
for such is the Interpretation placed
upon the editorial written by Colonel
Roosevelt, his father, in the October
Metropolitan" AS purely literary
expression the Colonel has perhaps
rarely risen higher, and so, in a liter
airy sense, too, his effort, as the con-
tent of his message, is The Great
Adventure" Only these are fit to
live" he writes. who do not fear to
die; and none are fit to die who have
shrunk from the Joy of life and the
duty of life. His words are not on
ly an Interpretation of the soul of
the soldier. but they are a revelation
of the hearts of those who are max
/ ing an equal sacrifice in seeing their
best beloved going to fight and per-
haps to die, and take the sacrifice as
part of the proof of the fitness to
live. The Colonel proceeds
Both life and death are parts of
the same Great Adventure. Never
was a country worth living i'm un-
I less its sons and daughters were of
that stern stuff which bade them die
for it at need: and never yet was a
country worth dying for unless its
sons and daughters thought of life
not as something concerned only
with the selfish evanescence of the in
dividual. but as a link in the great
chain of creation and causation. so
that each person is seen in his true
relations as an essential part of the
whole, whose life must be made to
serve the larger and continuing life
of the whole Therefore it is that
the man who is not willing to die.
and the woman who is not willing to
send her man to die, in war for a
great cause. are not worthy to live.
Therefore it is that the man and
woman who in peace time fear or
ignore the primary and vital duties
and the high happiness of family life.
who dare not beget and bear and
rear the life that is to last when they
are in their graves, have broken the
chain of creation, and have shown
that they are unfit for companionship
with the souls ready for the Great
Adventure
THE wife of a fighting soldier at
the front recently wrote as follows to
the mother of a gallant boy, who at
the front had fought in high air like
an eagle. and. like an eagle. fighting
had died: 1 write these few lines
not of coincidence. for who would
dare to pity you?-but of deepest
sympathy to you and yours as you
stand in the shadow which is the
earthly side of those clouds Of glory
in which your sons life has just pass
ed Many will envy you that when
the call to Sacrifice came you were
not found among the paupers to
whom no gift of life worth offering
had been intrusted. They are the
ones to be pitied. not we whose dear
est are jeoparding their lives unto
the death in the high places of the
field. | hope my two sons will live
as worthily and die as greatly as did
yours |
There spoke one dauntless soul to !
anotherl America is safe while her /
daughters are of this kind; for their
lovers and their sons can not fail as !
long as beside the hearthstOnes stand |
such wives and mothers. And we
have many, many such women; and |
their men are like unto them.
No nation can be great unless its
sons and daughters have in them the
quality to rise level to the needs of |
heroic days. No army was ever great
unless its soldiers possessed the fight
ing edge. So likewise the citizenship
of any country is worthless unless in
a crisis it shows the spirit TO two mil
lion Americans who in this mighty
war have eagerly came forward to
serve under the banner of the stars,
atiOat and ashore and of the other
who would now be beside
them overseas If the chance had been
given them; and yet such spirit will
In the long rup avail nothing unless
in the years of peace the average man
and average woman of the duty-per-
forming type realize that the highest
Of all duties, the one essential duty,
Is the duty of perpetuating the family
life, based on the mutual love and re-
spect OF the one man and the one
woman and on their purpose to rear
he healthy and fine-souled children
whose coming into life means that the I
amily, and therefore the nation, shall
continue in life and shall not end in a
sterile death"
With the implicit duty to die for
country which accompanies all citi-
,enship, the Colonel rates the other
luty to provide the men upon whom ]