The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-04-18
THE STRENGTH OF YOUTH


complete demonstration of this fact.
Across the waters of the Atlantic,
the old nations of the world were
hurled into the most titanic struggle
that history has ever known. And, IN
that great struggle it was young men
who won battles. And when the is
sue was decided it was the young ma
ton of America that decided it.
"Old men for council, and young
men for war;, runs the saying. 1t is
only when youth leaps through the
blood that man is strong to fight,
1t is only then that his bones and
muscles will bend and not break.
At the hurdles and in the disc
throwing of the Olympian fields there
were no old men. In the prize rings
of pugilistic encounters the champions
are beaten when they have passed the
thirtieth year of age.
1t is years that make men old. But
with nations it is another thing.
Strange to say, it is not years but
civilization that makes a nation old.
For, civilization as we know it, has
brought weakness with it. When
Rome had reached the acme of civili-
cation it fell an easy victim to the I'M
civilized barbarian.
Wherefore, the problem of the fu-
ture shall be that nation shall rise
ever higher in the scale Of civilization
and still retain its strength. And
this it can do only in one way, which
shall be the way of clean bodily and
spiritual life.
II is in this way, and this way alone,
that a nation will be able to fight off
the weakness of age, the same as a
man who lives clean in soul and in
body is able to fight off longer than
another man the onslaughts of the
years. And there is still another
thing. The young must help the old;
the strong must help the weak. Other
wise the world cannot rise to full
health. And of what avail shall it be
if the world is strong only in some of
its members and diseased and weak
| in others.
Older than history itself, older than
even tradition, are the nations of Eu-
rope and Asia that were embroiled in
the hast great war. And the weakness
VI dSc udu tlCPt hito NtANii SNStAoA'AA
| fabrics even as the inherent weak
nesses of time creep into a mans
blood and bones when the years have
whitened the hairs of his head.
It was a quarrel of old nations,
fought by them in their old age. For
four long years they hurled them
selves against one another in strug-
ole that would have ended in a month
had any single one of the combatants
had youth to call to it's strength.
And It did end in month when
Young America entered the fight with
the glory and the residence of youth
in it's muscles and in its heart.
Like old men in a fight were these
old nations of Europe. To aid the
blows they rained down upon one an
others heads they had summoned the
brain ingenuities that the ages of civ.
ilization had produced. But Their
arms were weak, their steps were
slow.
The same ingenuities in the hands
of youth became thrice more terrible
1t was then as though boy Of 20 and
a man of 80 stood across space hurl-
| ing javelins.
When the giant Soquolias of Cali
fornia were bursting first from their
seeds in the warm earth--and they
are now the oldest living things in ex-
istence-the nations Of Europe and
Asia were old. Centuries and ages
before the shores of the Atlantic in
the West knew the footsteps of a
white man. Europe was hoary with
time, and Asia was older still.
Within the isles of Britain and
within the isles of all the narrow
seas, upon the far-fung continent
that stretches from under the stars
of perpetual nights and the dawns OF
amending morns, old, old races and in
conceivably old peoples wrought Their
dreams and hurled themselves at one
another's heads in that ancient world
From the seed of Adam they seq.
regated themselves into families and
tribes. From the Aryan they formed
themselves then into races-Hindoo
Persian, Greek, Latin, Celt, Teuton
Slav and all.
And yonder there, in that one com
paratively little corner of the world
they huddled apart, ever suspicious
the one of the other, hate and greed
and the craft of subtle barter swaying
them through history as the vino
| SWANS the branches of a tree