New Britain herald., 1924-10-21
SAYS AMERICA IS
 NATION OF DESTINY
"Set Apart for Duty, Glory and
 ".-PrOi. WetZel


 Every man should improve every opportunity that presents It. self to live up 10 tho highest stand ards Of the age," said Professor John w. Wctzel or Columbia uni- verslty and Hartford Theological seminary In an address today to the New Britain Lions club.
 Professor WetEel was introduced by Prosecuting Attorney Joseph c. Woods, who studied under him in 1 Yale, where the former was pro- lessor Of public speaking and law for 15 years.
 In opening his address Professor Wetzel stated that there is no na- ton with so well defined a destiny as the United States. He said the duty of service is what every man is put into this world for. "We are living in an age when men from all parts of the world | have the opportunity to come here and he first citizens" he said. Every man owes it 10 himself and his friends 10 make the most obviously set apart for duty, for of himself. The facts underlying our own national birth and devel- opment are very significant. There is no nation yet recorded having such a clearly defined destiny, so obviously set apart for duty. for glory and for service. All the streams of excellence taking their rise from sources no matter how , mcagre or how remote in time, have discharged themselves in this virgin world. Here are blended the power Of Egypt, the culture of /! Greece. the organizing and execu- time genius of Rome. Here kings and noblemcn are indigenous. Art and learning. and architecture. and commerce and law and invention are common fields. open to all as pursuihs. Here philosophes of all the ages are sifted and tested and treasured and incarnated in race of new philosophers. free from the limitations under which the older philosophers in all lines Of belief and practice. having promise of hu- man betterment. and, unfortunately sometimes, without any such promise.
 "The past had it's peculiar condi- ! fo bo In,, pI nt nf i hut a few gnniuses. But one Alex ander. one Demosthcnes, one Mich ael Angelo. adorn lhe hist ory Of the older days.
 Road to Excellence Open 10 All "All along the ages-here and thmcre stand forth single geniuses, towering nightly above the rank and file of their day. They domin- ated the thought of their times and gave. each 10 his age and nation, their distinctive glory. But there has always been an infinite distance be- : tween these leaders of thought aIi activity and the masses. But in this ! world the royal road to excellence is 1 open o all. Each for all and all for 1 each is coming 10 be the law, if yet i unwritten. Our civilization is coming to abhor the extremes of the older l time as nature abhors a vacuum. , Not one Raphael but many, not one Plutarch and Nergil or Euclid, but a | nation Of such spirits, chasts, strong, drawn from all walks in society ir- respective of blood or nationality.
 The old ideas of distinction, of aristocracy are slowly but surely yielding to the modern ideas of character and service. Men are known in these later days not so 1 much because of iIlustrious ancestry and wealth as by what of personal
 worth and influence they can pro-
 iect upon the world for it's enlarge
 mrnt in virtue and happiness.
 What are you in character and
 what can you bring to pass? Are
 the searching tests applied to every
 one seeking the esteem of this age
 This is the age of the making of a
 new man. here upon this new con-
 tinent, under new dispensation and
 fostered bv the best government the
 world has yet known. England claim
 cd our original nation and all con- ! ing 10 these shores were expected
 10 merge their nationality into hers,
 We were then distinctly English
 Without national independence came
 inc mingling of the bloods of differ
 with mingled peoples, and new and
 far-reaching laws and principles wat
 born. Then began the new race-a
 composite race, a race with multira'
 cial characteristics. a new composite
 man born of mind and spirit A com.
 posite man, hearing the distinctive
 excellence of all the product of thu
 friction, and thought and heart O
 all peoples
 Think of the motley army of mel that marched under the same fial
 in our Civil war, each impeEceptibl,
 influencing the other, each silent!
 moulding the nature and characte Of the other until. when discharged from the army, it was an army 0
 composite men that sought thei
 homes again.
 "A new nationality one distinctive
 ly American. with strains of English
 French, Spanish, Scotch. Irish snt l many other characteristics enterinI ! into its makeup, a people as new A the spirit and forms of the ,nstitu tions they had evolved.
 Think of the nation1Iidas repre scntod by the ten million mon Wh' were registered within few month after we had declared war agains miltarism, many of whom we hat
 almost learned to despisc-Czecho Slovaks, Poles, Rumanians, Jugo
 Slavs, Negroes, Italians were trans formed apparently in a day into pa triots and heroes, and for the frs limo Uk saw them in their true light