The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1922-01-12

peTpetuaIlng the family lie, based on
the mutual love and respect of the
one man and the one woman, and on
their purpose to rear the healthy and
fine-souled children whose coming
into life means that the family and
therefore the nation shall continue in
life and shall not end in a sterile
death. I...
Woe to those who invite a sterile
death-a death not for them only but
for the race; the death which is in
sured by life of sterile selfshness.
But honor, highest honor, to those
who fearlessly face death for good
cause; no life is so honorable or so
fruitful as such death. Unless men
are willing to fight and die for great
ideals, including love of country,
ideals will vanish and the world will
become one huge sly of materialism.
And unless the woman of ideals
bring forth the men who are ready
thus to live and die the world of the
future will be filled by the spawn of
the unfit. Alone of human being the
good and wise mother stands on a
plane Of equal honor with the bravest
soldier; for she has gladly gone down
to the brink Of the chasm of darkness
to bring back the children in whose
hands rests the future of the years.
But the mother, and far more the
father, who finch from the vital task
earn the scorn visited on the soldier
who hinches in battle.
And the nation should by action
mark its attitude alike toward the
fighter in war and toward the chill
bearer in peace and war. The vital
need Of the nation is that its men
and women of the future shall be the
sons and daughters Of the soldiers Of
the present.
Excuse no man from going to war
because he is married, but put all
unmarried men above a fixed age at
the hardest and most dangerous task.
And provide amply for the children
Of soldiers, so as to give their wives
the assurance of material safety.
In such a matter one can only
speak in general terms. At this mo-
ment there are hundreds of thousands
of gallant men eating out their
hearts because the privilege of facing
death in battle is denied them. So
there are innumerable women and
men whose undeserved misfortune it
is that they have no children or but
one child. These soldiers denied the
perilous honor they seek, these men
and women heart-hungry for the
children of their longing dreams, are
as worthy of honor as the men who
are warriors in fact, as the women
whose children are of flesh and blood.
If the only son who is killed at
the front has no brother because his
parents coldly dreaded to play their
part in the Great Adventure of Life.
then our sorrow is not for them, but
solely for the son who himself dared
the Great Adventure of Death. If.
however, he is the only son because
the Unseen Power denied others to
the love of his father and mother,
then we mourn doubly with them
because their darling went up to the
sword of Azrael, because he drank
the dark drink proffered by the Death
Angel.
In America today all our people are
summoned to service and sacrifice.
Pride is the portion only of those who
know bitter sorrow or the foreboding
of bitter sorrow. But all of us who
give service and stand ready for sac
rifice are the torchbearers. We run
with the torches until we fallcontent
if we can then pass them to the hands
of other runners. The torches whose
flames are brightest are borne by the
gallant men at the front and by the
gallant women whose husbands and
lovers, whose sons and brothers are
at the front. These men are high
of soul, as they face their fate on the
shell-shattered earth, or in the skies
above, or in the waters beneath And
no less high of soul are the women
with torn hearts and shining eyes: the
girls whose boy lovers have been
struck down in their golden morning
and the mothers and wives to whom
word had been brought that hence
forth they must walk in the shadow.
These are the torchbearers; these
are they who have dared the Great
Adventure.
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