The daily progressive-miner. [volume] (Ketchikan, Alaska) 1915-1919, 1918-04-08
WITHOUT AN
ARMED GUARD
By Edward X. Graham

dCCOuuJaUlO 0ONAuCAty IhAo 40 SAO WoA .
inspiring an devon sublime compensa-
ton, that the time is at length ripe
for the final settlement for the whole
world of the conflict between two ir-
reconcilable ideals governing the rela-
tions of men, that are at the roots of
all human progress-a conflict toward
which from thousand detached battle
fields the currents of history have been
converging through all the patient CEN
turtles. From that early dawn Of time
when man made his first accidental
fire captive and nurtured that fire in
his fight against his fellow animals and
.cold and hunger, to his latest conquest
of space with the wireless, mans ex-
banding and aspiring life has been a
fight for just this ideal of freedom
to be freely at home, physically, men
tally, spiritually, and politically on
this planet, and SO master of his en-
vironment.
Through science and invention he
steadily linked the physical world to-
gether and the political world, into
wider and deeper units of understand
ing, and cooperation, and seH-govern-
ment; and the living spring that was
the source of all his restless striving
and suffering and sacrifice was the
God implanted, indomitable belief in
his innate rights to life, liberty, and
the free pursuit Of happiness.
Plagiarism utterly denied such
rights 1t allowed no value to man
as man; man was what wealth, or
place. or power made him. Even deep
visioned Aristotle, you remember,
taught that nature intended some men
to be slaves and chattles." 1t was the
religion of Jesus Christ gathering up
the wisdom Of the struggling centuries
that gave the final status to mans
value in the world of things in the
proclamation of the common father
hood of God and the brotherhood of
man.
That means so indefinitely much
this doctrine of men as the sons Of
God-in every human relation that we
have not even yet caught its full sig
nifcance. The history Of the 1900
year after Christ is the story of mans
effort to understand and digest into
practice that simplest and most won
derful of spiritual doctrines and apply
it to the cooperative enterprise Of liv-
ing together that We call government
This practical attempt to put his civil
and political institutions in accord
with his spiritual faith came at last,
and it came here in America. That is
what America is. We said that by
nature all men are free and equal. and
that governments are of, by, and for
all the people; that rights begin in
and with the people and go upward
from them, and not downward from
the State. To the oppressed of all ma
lions it meant a clear pathway to merit
of whatever kind; it meant having an
infinite chance and knowing you had
it.
The shot that was fired at Concord
as proclamation Of the divine right
of the individual in government was
heard around the world-in England
no less than in America and France.
Following the French Revolution and
the medieval despotism imposed on the
States of Europe by the settlement Of
1S14-15, freedom made it's separate
fight for Italy. Austria and Germany
and by 1S4S there was the vision Of
Europe as one great emancipated
land" But that fabric of the dream of
freedom collapsed, as it had done so
often before, and under the leader
ship of Bismarck in Germany abso-
lutism became once more ascendant,
to remain so for 70 years.
Bismarck, at that time, clearly
stated the issue; it is the issue now
anu Will uc Iii CAO WOAAN 40 WAVAy
free. He said: "The strife is princi.
pies which has shaken Europe Is one
in which no compromise is possible.
They rest on opposite bases. The one
draws its law from what is called the
will of the people. The other rests on
Authority created by Colby which
he meant hereditary military despot'
ism. And he stated the logical method
Of carrying out this policy; the method
of blood and IRON" The issue is the
same, the method is the same; the
glorious difference is that instead OF
it's being a conflict in separate States
or declarations, as 1t has always been
before and as Germany sought to make
| it in 1914-instead even of its being a
night to make merely Europe IAN en-
ancipated land" it is now q clear
fight to finish, and without quarter
between national self-government and
military despotism. humanity. and
Germanity. for the liberty OF the hui
man race and the whole trend Of in.
lternational and civilized evolution"
GETTING A JOB