The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-05-31

responsibilities if we have not first proved our capacity to meet the mar rower ones. It is our wish to be use full in the greater realms, but If we are to do so, We must have no question Of our devotion to the great principles for which these gave their lives in the struggle which saved the union and rededicated it forever to liberty. 1 counsel no selfishness, no little Amer icanism, no mere parochialism, when urge that our first duty is to our own. and that in the measure of its per- formance we will find the true gauge of our capacity to be helpful to others
 Tt is a good thing to come to this consecrated place and renew the pledges of our loyalty to those whose patriotism gave us our strength and opportunity. They did not know, they could not know, for what greater things they were laying the founda- tions. Yet their instinct led them 10 the judgment that their first duty was to preserve the institution of popular rule, of national solidarity They did not enter the war among the states With primary purpose to end the lnstl' tution of human slavery. Worthy as that might have been, their Inspiration
 was higher for they sought first to maintain the union, to keep it power for the advancement of America and humanity, confident that if they won all other rightful things in due time would be achieved. They were right then. In the end, slavery received It's decree of banishment from this conti- nent, and at last from the world.
 Great Achievement
 But let me repeat that great achive-
 ment for humanity was not the aim with which they entered upon our iIl-
 terecine struggle. They were called to prevent secession; to save the nations unity. They believed that the instltu-
 tions of this country were good; that 1 they deserved to be preserved, that they were worth supreme effort, even all of life itself. In making that CT . | fort and that sacrifice, they did Tar more than save what had already been | gained, they made it possible for slave ry to be ended forever.
 "It was the same in the more recent war of the free peoples against the
 autocracies of the world. In its begin
 ming, men fought to protect that which
 they already had Their countries lives | were at stake; their rights as free
 men were menaced, and for these they
 went forth to. battle. There was no
 thought of crusading for the freedom
 of world, of emancipating distant
 peoples, of rendering a noble service
 to the enemy who had attacked them l They had no time and small oispo- sition to indulge altruisms.
 Case of Civil War
 Yet as in the case of our Civil war, they won far more than they had sought in the beginning. They won for themselves, their homes their
 countries, and in doing so they des-
 troyed we'll nigh the last intrehch-
 ments of the mistaken doctrine of divine right to rule. They gained the | victory for their own grateful cour- fri nd wifi @ 1 whom they defeated, the opportunity of establishing free institutions, of I planting democracies where absolut1sm lad held sway, of making the people
 supreme. True, they were able only to | afford opportunity for the great ad- vance. They could not force free insti- tutions upon the crushed and broken enemy; they could not ensure that those institutions would be permanent,
 even If experimentally adopted. Free
 dom is not to be crowded upon those
 who will not have it; but the privilege
 of adopting and having, and enjoying | it-that privilege was opened wide to
 the vanquished communities which
 had sought to take 1t from others. We do not yet know certainly whether the defeated and unwilling beneficiaries
 will be able to grasp this boon. We cannot tell whether they will pay the price required to maintain the free dom to which the door has been opened. We do know, and we take pride that our sons and brothers af- forded them the opportunity.
 Triumph of Right
 Thus we see that whether in our civly struggles or in the World war the triumph of right Inevitably ap- plies gains that sweep for beyond the immediate issue. These heroes of the Civil war who sleep about us here wrote that lesson in symbols of blood and fire, where all men might read. And they did yet more. They taught the lesson of great community mak- ing it's fight for freedom and ex- elusive business of the whole people. Never before had there been an ex- ample, on such scale of the entire human and industrial power of a people being cast in common cause. Wars had largely been professional affairs in the hands of trained people, waged by conscripts whose knowledge or concern for the cause they served was of necessity limited and doubt
 full Here was found a nation which for four years gave it's very all human | resource, of industrial power, of faith In It's mission and it's future, Ia order that it might maintain an ideal.
 It accomplished that which experts and economists described as the i'm
 possible. It defied the edict that eco
 homie exhaustion and financial dis abilities must prevent a decisive vic tory. It demonstrated that wealth and
 resources of a nation lie not in acres and bushels in bank balances and ton mage, in taxable wealth and going business, but rather in the sinews and souls of its inspired people. And there In the example of our fraternal strug- gle taught the lesson which later
 moved agonized civilization to reject
 an indecisive peace.
 Debt We owe
 "So much, and vastly more, we owe of debt to those who won the peace of union and liberty. It is a debt that has not yet been discharged in full; a debt on which every succeeding gener- ation can only hope to pay in install
 ments; for it ;obligates us and those after us, to maintain for tEis people the high estate which they establishsn.
 We never will yield aught of what
 they won for us. Forbidden by the law of life and institutions, we cannot stand still. We must always move for ward. along the upward paths they
 marked for us. No less is possible un- less we would repudiate tho debt they
 laid upon us, whose covenant they sealed in their blood
 Thus appraising and thus acknowl- edging our responsibility. we will do
 well to consider the particular bur dens 1t lays upon us, we look about us on world troubled and torn .yrop- ing for way back to light and op- portunity. We find ourselves. as a peo- pie, occupying place of vast re- sponsibility in that world. We stand
 among the leaders to whom it looks f<>wr l.-