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Show Tn T7 Y7" O I T Fli Q T$7" A T By LEVI EDGAR young, JLjI -Li W V- AX. il X- O VV LX. -LX. Professor of American History, University of Utah. The United States of America The. First Nation of Modern Times; a Government Govern-ment That Is an Outgrowth of the Will of the People; a Democratic Nation in the Truest Sense of the Term; It Has Redeemed Half a Continent Within One Hundred Years and Has Established the Principle That Right Makes Might; the United States to Give the World the Truest Type of Government and Law; Christianity Destined to Grow Upon This . Continent. ARTICLE IV. IN" rny provioun article have endeavored en-deavored to hIiow Hornfthin of thv nature of Kuropan nation today. I havo hul no d'-niro to rolicarm: the actH of 1014 in Borbia, Austria and ' (Jerniany that inflamed all Knropft, and which rt-Hiiltml in war. Kvcry HdiooJ boy may read for himHt-lf thonfi sictn. Evcryono knows well about tint plunder- ing and destruction of Belgium by the Uernmn army. It ia tlio worst rime, in the aunalu of history, and for this a:t atono Germany should never again bo recognized by tho nations of the world. My pu rpoao has been, however, to explain ex-plain Hometliing of tho habits of national na-tional and their ideals of government ami flocial order. lu tliis article I wish to Hhow HumethinK of tho institutional iife of the American people, and why America's entrance into the war in for i the one great purpose of "making the ivorld wril'e for democracy." Tn 17013 a learned French scholar, the A bbe Genty, wrote and published an I I 4'SHay on tho "Kesult of tlio Uiseovery of Ameriea by i-Jnrope, " At tho end of tho eflnay the writer says that the stablishmeut of the government of tho lnitud .States is the event "that is most likely to accelerate the revolution which is to renew the happiness of the world. Tn the bosom of this new na- i I tion aro the treasures -which are to re- j ' now tho world." The Abbe them ! onumratflH some of the blessings that , i will come to mankind by the develop- j : mpnt of the United States. Tie names . ; tho relief to erowded Kuropo, the email- ! i : elpation of slaves and thg end of con- j 1 ' quest, the establishment of universal j peace and the conversion of the. worjd to Christianity. This was certainly a i 1 remarkable statement, and one that has : partly been fulfilled during tho past i ! century. Yet we aro far from the ideal 1 'of that dynamic and spiritual government govern-ment which is the hope of all A-inori-cans. At tho beginning of our history ; wo aaid that there should bo no king i: nor subject; no noble nor vassal. All ( aro free-. This is not only theoretically j' true, but practically true as well. Our I j I nation has been a government for the j ' j people. Its fundamental principles are; , , democratic, and it holds to the law of t ij liberty, equality and fraternity. Ideals Logical Development. j Our nation and tho constitution which I ; governs it, aro not tho result of a siul-' siul-' j den movement in history. When peo-, peo-, pie from Europe first settled in this land, they became free economically, Hocially and politically as a natural con-Hoquenco con-Hoquenco of their isolation from tho old world. Whilo they were subject to England until tho ,closo of tho eigh teenth century, they felt growing within with-in them a new conception of life, and consequent I v declared them selves tree and iadg-ehdent, after which they established es-tablished fhi-ir own national government govern-ment under the title of the government of tho t.'nited States of America. Hold, IVnrlefls, aggressive, tiiey had a sublime faith in God, and even at the first session ses-sion of the first continental congress, Or. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, opened the meeting with a very remark-aide remark-aide praver, which T quote in full: "0 Lord; our Heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings. Lord of lords, who dost from Thy throne behold be-hold all the dwellers upon earth, and reignest, with power supreme and uncontrolled un-controlled over all kingdoms, empires and governments, look down in mercy, we. beseech Thee, upon these American Ameri-can states who have fled to Thee from the rod of tho oppressor, and throwu themselves upon Thy gracious protection, protec-tion, desiring to be henceforth dependent depen-dent only upon Thee. To Thee have they appealed for tho righteousness of their cause. To Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support sup-port which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care. Givo them wisdom in council and valor in the field. Iefeat the malicious mali-cious designs of our cruel adversaries. Convince them of the unrighteousness unrighteous-ness of their cause; and if they still persist in,, thoir sanguinary purposes, O let the voice of Thine own unerring justice sounding in their hearts constrain con-strain them to drop thoir weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle. "Bo Thou present, O Lord of wisdom, wis-dom, and direct the council of tho houorable assembly. Enable them to settle things upon tho best and surest foundation, that the scene , of blood may speedily be closed ; that order, harmony and peace may effectually be restored, and truth and justice, religion relig-ion and piety prevail and flourish amongst Thy people. "Preserve t lie health of their bodies, tho vigor of thoir minds. Shower down upon them and the millions they here represent such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting everlast-ing glory in the world to come. "All this wc ask in tho name and through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Savior. Amen." Prayer Foreshadows Faith. , Thero is something of an idealism iu this prayer that foreshadows the faith of the American people in all time to come. There seemed to be two .forces appealed to by those Revolutionary fathers God and the common man. And these two forces have been the very factors that have made of our bntory a glorious story of intellectual! and social development. Lmring the first years of our hintorv j emphasi- was laid on the rights of the) 'oiuaion inau rather than uon his d'l- j ties. Today we are emphasizing the equality of ' duty, realizing that there ! are duties eomniuii to all that must be j performed in the name of right aDd : liberty. At the beginnim!' of our na- i tional life a fear tugged at the hearts ; of the people the fear of tyranny. I Governments had in all ages been ruled ' kings. Our covernmect was i beginning a nt-w order of things. Jm- j pi if it confidence was placed in the j will of the people, and the preamble of the constitution of the United States expreed thin confidence. It is always al-ways worthy of a careful reading: ' We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect per-fect union; establish justice; insure domestic tranquillity; provide for the common defense ; promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity' do ordain and e-itublish this const itu- f tion for the United States of America." j Liberty Ls Insured. The constitution of the United States, unlike any other "olitical document doc-ument of history, insures liberty to all the people. Lt embodies those fundamental funda-mental human rights that have been I worked out through the ages, and guarantees guar-antees the fullest principles of democracy. democ-racy. This constitution created a socialized so-cialized state, tho like of which had never been known. All are part of the state every man and woman is a constituent con-stituent and not a subject. The people peo-ple are the dynamic factors in all the institutions and no one is placed in office of-fice but by the express will of the people. peo-ple. Certain ethical principles were inculcated in-culcated by the ;rit of the constitution. constitu-tion. The people grew in self-asser-tiveucss anil self-direction. They be- 1 came aporessn e, resourceful and in-: ventive. The individual man rev and no institution was ever established but what all the peori" should have a right to support and partake of its influences and constructive ideals. Take, for example, the public school system. All people look upon the school with sublime faith, and the government gov-ernment annually pays nearly a bil-I bil-I lion dollars for tnc maintenance of this I institution. Its privileges are refused I to no one. You may go into any public grammar school and find the little boy , of wealthy parents sitting by the side of a little negro girl. Our universities universi-ties are free to all. There is no ex-clusiveness; ex-clusiveness; no aristocracy; no class distinction. Our school system is the glory of our democracy. At the beginning of our national history, his-tory, the pioneer plunged into the wilderness wil-derness "with the banner of freedom in his teeth, and leaving behind the sword and faggot.7' This pioneer has ever been on the frontier, and not until 1890 did the frontier come to an end iu American life. The pioneer, ever conquering nature and reclaiming the soil, was democratic aud large-hearted. Yet wherever he went he carried with him law and order, and when he had established es-tablished a local government, all the people gave up any idea o'f sectionalism and became thoroughly nationalistic from the first. Pioneers' Work Unequaled. De Toqueville, tho French historian, in writing on America over seventy years ago, noticed that on every hand throughout America the people lived in communities and acted in such a manner man-ner that their votes and their political lives touched up with the life ot all the nation. The pioneers- throughout America Amer-ica did a great work a work unequaled in history. Democratic as they were, they accomplished much for civilization. These bold, fearless men and women abolished sectarian hatred and fury; they eliminated slaverv from our so-cit-ty; proteotci.1 aad enlarge. i our iiloas OI loaiihood ul'lraL'e. They mitigate. 1 i -?o''ia! inju.stire and developed a tuiiL-h- . j in and ai:nost. ubiicie raitn in the : I po wer of education. Wherever they I ! went they t-reserved the torm of the I i union, and held aloof the constitution j : oi their lathers. They reelaimed a eoa-i eoa-i Uncut, which but a generation a;o wad wild and primitive. They kept alive iu j their hearts the noble sentiment that I ' all rata are created equal, and are en-i en-i dowed by the Creator with certain in-j in-j alienable rights." The public press i was developed and encouraged. No i greater newspapers are published than the American. The Americans, in conquering con-quering the soil, developed the highest types of manhood honesty, integrity to justice and benevolence. Thee men ever kept alive our democracy, and democracy de-mocracy has illumined the reat idea that all men are the children of the same maker, and have the ri'ht to grow more Godlike everv day. "What a lori-j lori-j ous conception of life the American has ' given to the world! Liberty is an ac-I ac-I quireraent, not a gift. Our ideas of Covornment have superseded old world ideas, and our task in this present war is to give these ideas to our brothers across the seas. Our nation has never gone to war for I conquest. Invariably has it been for the freeing of some people from the bondsman's yoke or the tyrant's grasp. When we went into Cuba and the Philippines Phil-ippines in 1S9S, it was for the purpose of freeing the peoples of those islands and giving to Uiein the influences of democracy and freedom. Spain had controlled these islands for over 300 years, and, in some respects, they had liardlv emerged from the customs of the I middle agesl They were static in religion re-ligion and social conditions, and when the American nation took them, by force, it immediately introduced our better forms of government, established schools among them and taught the people peo-ple the modern arts and crafts. Today wo are allowing them to discover their better selves and to develop their society so-ciety into a higher type of civilization. The United StateB has grown into a noble spirit of altruism, which is a result re-sult of our democratic life. It all indicates indi-cates that a new era is dawning in the moral history of mankind. Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia university has said in a recent address: New Era Dawning. "Unless all signs fail, we are entering enter-ing upon a period which may be described de-scribed fittingly as one of internationalism. interna-tionalism. For long centuries the peoples peo-ples of the earth have been obeying the deep impulse to build themselves into nations. With constitutional government gov-ernment has gone hand in hand the conception of the reign of law and the dominance of justice. The reign of law and the dominance of justice mean that might shall not be permitted to seize tho place of right, and that no individual indi-vidual shall be allowed to enact his own claims and ambitions into law or decree." de-cree." Like an individual, a nation has a mind and conscience that may be discovered dis-covered by close observing. The American people have an intra-national mind as well as a high morale. In the great war now raging our nation's mind and conscience have been brought to bear on the great danger of the present that the world's progress for Tlrrli ml rlprnftCMPV 111 1 trh t. bft (le- i stroyed by the greatest military power mankind has ever seen. One of the chief problems of our times is to bring the nations' minds and the nations' consciences to bear on the moral problems prob-lems involved in international relations. rela-tions. This movement, which can never nev-er end, is the result of our broad sympathy sym-pathy for all peoples, and the United States is taking the lead today in the i developing of the international conscientiousness, con-scientiousness, which will ultimately end in what we call, the international mind, when the civilized nations will hold high standards of intelligence and government in common, and will give up the institution of war altogether. "It is," as President Butler has pointed out, "nothing else than the habit, of thinking of foreign relations and business, and that habit of dealing deal-ing with them, which regard the several sev-eral nations of the civilized world as friendly and co-operating equals in aiding the progress of civilization, in ; developing commerce and industry, and I in spreading enlightenment and cul-! cul-! ture throughout the world." I Two great forces are working in ! America the individual common man j and God. I mean by this expression. 1 that no time in all history has man j been so free to develop the powers that God gave him when he was born into i the world. And because of the splendid splen-did faith in the average American heart in God, a higher religious life is fast being moulded, and the prophecy of the Abbe Genty that this nation would see the restoration of Christianity Christian-ity to the world is not impossible of fulfilment. While the American, has been a philosopher, he has discovered that after all no school of philosophy can explain life's meaning as did the school of the early disciples of Christ. "Since the day when Ethan Allen took Fort Ticonderoga "in the name of God and the continental congress," the great and wise men, who have Jed our government in the path of rectitude and truth, have had a living faith in an all-wise -creator. This has kept burning in the breast of every American Ameri-can the three great infinite ideas faith, hope and love. The spirit of our .faith in God is shown in a proclamation proc-lamation issued by Abraham Lincoln in March, 1863: Lincoln's Proclamation. "Whereas, the senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the supreme su-preme authority- and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution resolu-tion requested the president to designate desig-nate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation; and "Whereas, it is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence depen-dence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions trans-gressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the holy scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord; "And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, individ-uals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation refor-mation as a whole people? We have been recipients of the choicest, bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; pros-perity; w:e have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation i has ever grown. But we have forgotten forgot-ten God. We have forgotten the gra- I cious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched aud strengthened us. and we have vainly imagined, in the deceit fulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wi.sdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we nave become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace," too proud to pray to the God that made us. "lt behooves us. then, to humble, ourselves before- the offended power, to confess our national sius, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness." " j In the great war now riming, the United States has entered with a sub- : lime faith in the principle that right makes right, and that our mission is to carry to all the world the truest principles prin-ciples of democratic government ever , developed, lt mav take vears to do the ' work it may take centuries, but the ; end is worth the means that will be ex- pended and the lives that will be lost. ; Truth has always been compiled to make its way to victory by warfare, and the conquering of the peoples of the 1 eartli who have ever preierred darkness j and ignorance to light -and intelligence. ! It was the celebrated Temilrou who 1 wrote: , I "Man's eyes do not focus well enough to-note readily the advent hour i of the world's -Messiahs. By bv-paths, j not bv thoroughfares or by highways, j does Truth come to its kingdom among i men. Good never gallops to victory ; here in this earth, nor in any instance j does Truth march to its crown in a I dress parade. It enters its kingdom ! always by Golgotha, a jeering mob blandishing sticks accompanying, even its best disciples following" afar off, the women staying nearest, and is lifted to its crown on a cross between reviling thieves." a The United States has entered the war to "make the world .safe for democracy." de-mocracy." It has begun a task that wiHtake the best of all that is in our spiritual hfe to accomplish, but when it is all over the age of peace will be established, and men and nations will live for the sole purpose of gaining knowledge and establishing Truth, the Truth that will make men free. |
