Class .in o23 
 Book ^ .' ^ 
 
 Jl 
 
 fekN", 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSET. 
 
FIGHTING FOR A 
 NEW WORLD 
 
 BY 
 CHARLES WILLIAM DABNEY 
 
 President of the University of Cincinnati 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 

 Copyright, 1919, by 
 CHARLES WILLIAM DABNEY 
 
 oUiH 14 blii 
 
 ©CI.A525875 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword 5 
 
 I. A Better Era 7 
 
 II. True Preparedness 30 
 
 III. A Spiritual Victory 49 
 
 IV. Internationalism or Imperialism — 
 
 Which.? 68 
 
 V. Fighting for a New World 93 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 This little volume consists of addresses 
 which were delivered before students and 
 others at different times during the Great 
 War. Each address deals with the question 
 which at that particular time seemed to be 
 uppermost in the minds of the American 
 people. Hence it may be safe to say that 
 each discussion not only represents my own 
 reaction to these problems, but also reflects, 
 at least in a general way, the main current 
 of public opinion in the country during the 
 past four years. Although they were originally 
 written as separate addresses, without any 
 deliberate plan of unity, yet it will be found 
 that they do exhibit a certain continuity of 
 thought, which might be characterized as the 
 growing conviction that America had to do 
 her part in the world struggle for democracy 
 and to take the leadership in establishing a 
 brotherhood of free nations. 
 
 Charles William Dabney. 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 Since the world began men have been 
 thinking and dreaming of a better era. A 
 golden age or a millennium of righteousness 
 has been the goal of the philosophies of all 
 peoples. It was the dream of the Hindus, the 
 prophecy of the Hebrews, the hope of the 
 Greeks, the plan of the Romans, and the 
 teaching of Christ. 
 
 Immanuel Kant, the great prophet of the 
 Germans, expressed the most profound thought 
 of his people in words of lasting significance. 
 His philosophy was founded upon two eternal 
 moral maxims: the universality of the law of 
 right and the supreme consideration due each 
 human personality. He taught that no ne- 
 cessity or particular consideration whatever can 
 be weighed against the universal demands of 
 the law of right. What is right for one man 
 in one place is right for all men everywhere. 
 His second maxim teaches that man is not 
 a thing, but a person, and that to treat each 
 man as a person is the first law of all human 
 
 7 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 relationships; tliat each man has his indi- 
 vidual rights. The law of right is universal 
 and each man's right is supreme. Believing 
 that these doctrines were applicable to nations, 
 as well as to Individuals, Kant taught that 
 the nations of the earth should live together 
 in a federation of mutual respect and friendly 
 cooperation, and thus establish universal peace. 
 Is Kant's teaching false because his people 
 have gone to war? Never! As he spoke to 
 the German people one hundred and fifty 
 years ago, so he speaks to all the nations of 
 the earth to-day. 
 
 Like the German philosopher, the English 
 poet taught us to hope for the "Parliament of 
 Man— The Federation of the World." Tenny- 
 son believed "the thoughts of men are widened 
 with the process of the suns." 
 
 "We sleep and wake and sleep, but all th;ngs move; 
 The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; 
 The dark Earth follows, wheeled in her ellipse; 
 And human things returning on themselves 
 Move onward, leading up the golden year." 
 
 Such doctrines, hopes, and dreams are in- 
 herent in the human mind and heart, and are 
 the foundations of all our thought of human 
 
 progress. We cannot uproot them and con- 
 
 8 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 tinue to think. We cannot give them up and 
 Hve. 
 
 In the course of history man has had many 
 discouragements in his hopes for universal 
 peace and his plans for human progress, but 
 none, perhaps, more crushing than this catas- 
 trophe. For this war shows that we do not 
 really recognize the universality of Kant's 
 Law of Right, and that we are still far, far 
 from the "Federation of the World" of Tenny- 
 son. All the philosophies which promised to 
 bring in the golden era appear now to have 
 failed us. If we must judge from the actions 
 of some nations, there is still no law but the 
 law of the jungle, and no federation except the 
 federation of cruelty and of hate. 
 
 And what a tremendous shock it was to all 
 our theories ! Four years ago many of us could 
 have given a score or more of reasons why a 
 great world war never again could occur. 
 We believed that there were too many eco- 
 nomic and political, as well as moral and 
 religious, influences opposed to war. 
 
 Norman Angell had taught us that the 
 idea that war promoted the material interests 
 of the conqueror was a "Great Illusion," and, 
 therefore, that the bankers and the economists 
 
 9 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 would never permit another war. But money 
 and business did not prevent war. The mil- 
 itarists claimed that great armaments would 
 prevent war. But we know now that the 
 doctrine, "In time of peace, prepare for war," 
 was a horrible falsehood. The supposed instru- 
 ments of law and peace have proved the 
 instruments of murder and destruction. 
 
 Many thought that science would certainly 
 prevent war between educated nations. Biology 
 had shown us the folly of destroying the best 
 of the nations, the seed-corn of the future. 
 But science too sold herself to militarism and 
 became its willing servant in making explosives 
 for destroying this seed-corn. 
 
 Internationalism also failed. In July the dep- 
 uties of the societies in the various countries 
 met in Brussels and passed the usual resolu- 
 tions against war, but in August they were 
 all marching under arms to the fratricidal 
 contest. 
 
 Sad indeed was the failure of the peace 
 
 societies. We did not expect much from their 
 
 social meetings held in magnificent palaces, 
 
 but some of us had hoped that great good 
 
 would result from international peace tribunals 
 
 and courts of arbitration. Although the peace 
 
 10 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 societies were meeting in Switzerland at the 
 time the armies were mobilizing, they had 
 no more influence upon the nations rushing 
 into war than the twittering sparrows have 
 upon the railway trains dashing through the 
 forests. 
 
 The statesmen of some of the nations labored 
 to prevent war, but they too failed. Diplo- 
 macy, looked upon as the trusted watchman 
 of peace, became in those last days the willing 
 tool of the war makers. 
 
 Saddest of all, Christianity, founded by the 
 Prince of Peace, failed to prevent war. This 
 war was man's new fall, his saddest fall since 
 Christ came to save him. The whole drama 
 of this war states in terrible terms the un- 
 Christianity of Christendom. It measures again 
 the awful task that Christ undertook when 
 he came to redeem mankind and called man 
 to the establishment of a divine kingdom by 
 love and sacrifice. Do we ask again with new 
 urgency: "After all, is Christ's program for 
 human society practical .^^ Is he, indeed, the 
 answer to the world's need.^ If he is, per- 
 haps, the answer to the need of the individual 
 human soul, can states be conducted under 
 
 this Christ constitution? Is it possible to 
 
 11 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 govern the world by love?" By dreadnought 
 and submarine, by Zeppelin and aeroplane, by 
 mortar and howitzer; with torpedo and bomb, 
 with shell and shrapnel, with dynamite and 
 poisonous gas, turned against women and 
 children, as well as against fighting men, 
 with a skill never equaled and a cruelty 
 unsurpassed, the nations answered with a 
 thunderous "No!" "No!" said these voices of 
 hell, "there is no such thing as human love and 
 brotherhood." Christendom has yet to learn 
 what the application of the principles of Christ 
 demands in relation not only to personal, 
 but also to social, industrial, and national 
 lives. 
 
 What, then, is the lesson of this collapse 
 of civilization? Religious-minded people think 
 that it is a new revelation of God. This war 
 is, in fact, the most apocalyptic thing in all 
 history. It has broken the entail of the past. 
 Modern European history has been said to 
 date from the Napoleonic Wars. Our new 
 modern history will date from 1914. We are 
 now laying its foundation. The war has thus 
 brought the world a magnificent opportunity 
 to make a new beginning. 
 
 History teaches us that these moral catas- 
 12 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 trophes all have their causes. They are pre- 
 pared by the acts of men and nations. Wise 
 old Dr. Holmes said: "War is no accident, 
 but an inevitable result of long incubating 
 causes; inevitable as the cataclysms that swept 
 away those monstrous births of primeval na- 
 tions." If this be true, the occurrences of 
 August, 1914, the intensification of the strife, 
 the enlargement of its area, and the tremendous 
 issues, should make men look to the larger 
 facts which lie behind these events. 
 
 For several decades our universities have 
 been absorbed with the evolutionary philos- 
 ophy. Up to the outbreak of the war, many 
 of us had been taught to think of the future 
 of mankind in terms of evolution, that is, 
 that progress is made by slow and gradual 
 steps only, or, as one has said, "by the aggre- 
 gation of infinitesimal increments of advance." 
 This way of looking at human things was due, 
 of course, to the triumph of the evolutionary 
 theory in natural science. Since the progress 
 of nature is so inconceivably slow, how absurd 
 it is, they said, for us to be impatient with 
 social wrong! It was unscientific to expect 
 human society to improve any faster. If 
 nature takes so long to evolve the soul, how 
 
 13 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 absurd for the theologians to teach that the 
 soul can be new-born in a moment! 
 
 The historians of human thought will trace 
 the great and all-pervading influence of the 
 theory of Darwin on the whole realm of social, 
 political, and religious thought and action. 
 This newest materialism has blunted the edge 
 of our religious thinking, and is largely respon- 
 sible for the terrible error from which we are 
 suffering to-day. But its end is near. Even 
 before this cataclysm we were coming to see 
 that evolution by infinitesimal increments, 
 while perhaps true up to a certain point in 
 nature, was not a complete account of human 
 life. There is much in science, as well as in 
 history, that cannot be accounted for by its 
 formula. De Vries teaches us now that evolu- 
 tion is not sufficient to account for many facts 
 of plant life, and the bacteriologists tell us that 
 it does not explain many phenomena in their 
 field. All we are learning about the nature of 
 matter leads us to the same conclusion. Tre- 
 mendous leaps have been discovered in nature 
 which contradict the theory of Darwin. We 
 believe now that there is in human history 
 a revolutionary, as well as an evolutionary, 
 element. Just as we believe that there are 
 
 14 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 perfectly new personalities being born in th^ 
 world which are more than rearrangements of 
 the characteristics of their ancestors, so we 
 believe that there have been clean, new be- 
 ginnings, prodigious and sudden cataclysms in 
 human society. Is not this one of them? 
 
 Why do we believe in revolution as well as 
 evolution? Most men still believe that they 
 are free. Then the moment we give a place to 
 human freedom, we realize that the theory of 
 evolution by infinitesimal degrees is insuflScient 
 to describe human life. We borrow evolution 
 from nature, but nature's categories cannot ex- 
 plain human nature. When we come to study 
 men, we must use a new term, we must speak 
 of education, and education is an entirely 
 different process from evolution. If this be so, 
 the apocalypse, the revelation of truth through 
 revolution, is a part of God's plan for the 
 education of man. 
 
 We must believe, I say, that man is by his 
 very nature endowed with freedom. If man 
 chooses, he can go wrong. Sometimes he goes 
 wrong for years together, sometimes whole na- 
 tions go wrong for decades. Thus begins the 
 downward process. See how it evolves. Evil 
 
 appears to triumph everywhere; the wicked 
 
 15 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 prosper more than the righteous, and the fool 
 says in his heart that the wrong works better 
 than the right. 
 
 Under all discouragement, however, the fight 
 for righteousness goes on. There is in this 
 world such a thing as judgment, and all this 
 time judgment is accumulated. When men 
 have been outraged until they will stand it no 
 longer, then comes a revolution. Darkness 
 falls. The wind of death wraps the nations in 
 its wings. Civilizations sink in blood. Once 
 more men see what sin means. All the evil 
 hidden during the years is dragged out into 
 the light of eternity. It is shown once again 
 that evil does not succeed in God's world. The 
 old Hebrew philosophy is again shown to be 
 eternally right, and men realize that this is only 
 another apocalypse, a moment of judgment. 
 
 But history teaches us that such cataclysms 
 are not the end ; they are the beginning. There 
 is in them not merely a possibility, but a prom- 
 ise of progress as sudden and immense as was 
 the coming of the Judgment. Time and time 
 again there has come, breaking out of the wreck 
 of the past, one of these forward leaps in his- 
 tory. May we not in this dark hour look for- 
 ward to such a dawn.? Moreover, what we 
 
 16 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 hope for is not simply a zig-zagging, slow-climb- 
 ing, evolutionary path up the height of civili- 
 zation from which we have fallen, but the 
 beginning of a new era on a new moral basis. 
 Thus it is that as our eyes grow accustomed 
 to the night, we see through the darkness the 
 eternal stars pointing the true way of human 
 progress, which is the way, not of evolution, 
 but of revolution — of revolution directed by an 
 all-powerful and righteous God, who is also a 
 God of mercy and of love. 
 
 What we have now to look forward to is 
 a new epoch which God has initiated by his 
 judgment, and in which he will regenerate and 
 heal, if men will only turn to him. Not evolu- 
 tion, therefore, but the judgment and the 
 mercy of God are the ideas which come to us 
 to-day with new power and hope, as we look 
 through the symbolism of this apocalypse into 
 the eternal truth. 
 
 Will men only respond to God's summons 
 in this judgment .^^ Never in history has man 
 had such an opportunity to learn what pride 
 and war mean. Twenty-five million men have 
 probably experienced it in their own bodies and 
 souls, and perhaps a billion other men, women, 
 and little children have suffered its horrors 
 
 17 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 with them. And, alas! the conclusion of the 
 war cannot end this suffering. Unborn chil- 
 dren will bear its burdens and sorrows for ages 
 to come. Will men learn the lesson and pass 
 from the condemnation of war to the condemna- 
 tion of the spirit that makes war? Will they 
 see the revelation, will they then receive it 
 and learn its lesson .^^ Under the tuition of 
 his Spirit, we believe they will. This is God's 
 apocalypse. Again a tremendous, forgotten 
 biblical truth is receiving transcendent ex- 
 pression. Sin has worked death. 
 
 What, then, is the conclusion of the whole 
 matter .f^ On what ground may we hope for 
 the progress of humanity .f* Only on the ground 
 that God rules. Only on the ground that God 
 so loved the world that he gave his Son to save 
 it. Does history give us hope to-day? Has 
 Christianity failed to influence the lives of men 
 and nations? Have these twenty centuries 
 counted for naught? Let us see. 
 
 When we ask in what respect the modern 
 world is an improvement upon the ancient, a 
 common answer is that the development of the 
 physical forces and their applications in pro- 
 duction, transportation, and the other con- 
 veniences of life are the vital achievements. 
 
 18 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 If this is all, we are not surprised that we 
 have made no progress toward the abolition of 
 war, for the development of physical force only 
 creates more wealth and contributes little to 
 man's spiritual life. Have we, then, made no 
 spiritual progress in modern times? The evi- 
 dences of our material civilization, exhibited in 
 manufactures, commerce, trade, and the com- 
 forts of modern life, are on the surface and 
 apparent to all. It is not so easy to prove 
 our moral progress. The spiritual growth of 
 man is necessarily slower. It is only through 
 labor and sorrow that the soul is saved. The 
 battle of the spirit against the flesh is terrible, 
 in nations as well as in individuals. Often 
 when a new fortress of righteousness seems 
 about to be taken by the white-robed war- 
 riors of the soul, the black hordes of the ele- 
 mental passions burst forth and drive them 
 back to the plains where the battle has to be 
 begun all over. But in spite of all these losses 
 and discouragements, it is still true, is it not, 
 that the supreme glory of the modern world is 
 the development of a sense of humanity, and 
 the realization of the brotherhood of man? 
 Slowly, and through grievous struggles, man 
 is learning that all men "should brothers 
 
 19 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 be," and that "Above all nations is hu- 
 manity." 
 
 The war itself gave many opportunities for 
 the further development of this spirit, proving 
 anew its vitality and power to heal. It is true, 
 is it not, that while on the one side there never 
 was such a cruel war, on the other there never 
 were so many manifestations of the sympathy 
 of man for man.^ The work of the Red Cross 
 and of the Relief Commissions shows that even 
 during this dreadful time the spirit of humanity 
 grew. Never in history was there such an 
 overwhelming outpouring of generous aid and 
 tender sympathy, regardless of the race, rank, 
 and nationality of the suffering. This is the 
 true neutrality; this is the one encouraging 
 thing in these sad months. Strange as it may 
 seem at such a time, the whole world, as well 
 as America, is developing an ever-stronger 
 sympathy. 
 
 We are deeply concerned about the influ- 
 ence of this catastrophe upon our young men. 
 While it is undoubtedly true that war, through 
 service to the sick and wounded, contributes 
 to our spiritual development, its influence 
 upon the young is, in many respects, vicious. 
 The war spirit exalts physical prowess and 
 
 20 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 martial success, glorifying the heroism of the 
 soldier, the professional destroyer of human 
 life. We are bound to admire self-sacrificing 
 courage wherever found, and nothing perhaps 
 appeals to the young like the heroism of battle. 
 But the warrior is not the highest type of hero. 
 Wordsworth, it is said, wrote his "Happy 
 Warrior" as a protest against the attention be- 
 stowed upon the military characters developed 
 in the French war, and especially against the 
 praise heaped upon Lord Nelson, whose public 
 life was even then stained by a great crime. 
 
 "Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he 
 
 That every man in arms should wish to be?" . . . 
 
 "It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought 
 
 Among the tasks of real life, . . . 
 
 Makes his moral being his prime care; . . . 
 
 More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, 
 
 As tempted more; more able to endure. 
 
 As more exposed to suffering and distress; 
 
 Thence, also, more alive to tenderness." 
 
 But the love of fight is an instinct inherited 
 
 from the countless generations of men. 
 
 Through physical contest largely man has 
 
 attained to his present position, and it is to 
 
 this love of contest that the statesmen and the 
 
 generals appeal when they call men to war. 
 
 We are dealing here with something original, 
 
 21 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 natural, universal, and, I believe, also inde- 
 structible — a force that lies deeper in human 
 nature than ambition or love of self. Since 
 this love of warfare is one of the strongest 
 natural instincts, it is hopeless to undertake its 
 total suppression. The impulse is closely re- 
 lated to the instinct of self-preservation, and 
 to that of hunger and of sex, which, we know, 
 can never be extirpated so long as the race 
 lives. The problem, then, is not how to erad- 
 icate this love of contest, but how to direct 
 it into proper channels. 
 
 Just as we have utilized the great natural 
 forces for useful purposes, so we must direct 
 these great natural instincts in such a way that 
 they shall become humanizing and creative, 
 instead of cruel and destructive. Lightning 
 was regarded by primitive man as purely 
 destructive. Jove cast his bolts in anger and 
 for the punishment of men; but electricity, 
 first caught from the clouds by Franklin, has 
 been thoroughly mastered by Volta, Faraday, 
 and Edison, until now it is accepted as the 
 most serviceable instrument of human welfare, 
 operating our machinery, lighting our habita- 
 tions, and flashing our thoughts around the 
 world. Precisely in this manner we have al- 
 
 22 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 ready conquered some of these primordial in- 
 stincts. Hunger, a brutal passion in the sav- 
 age, has been at least partially refined, until 
 now all civilized men eat and drink without 
 fighting, and some of us even in accordance 
 with the laws of dietetics. So too the passion 
 of sex, which among early men wrought fright- 
 ful brutality, and which has been in all ages 
 the curse of civilization, has now become 
 among moral people the greatest constructive 
 force of human society — bringing together the 
 family, which is the unit of society, the unit 
 of government, the unit of church, and the 
 beginning of heaven on earth. In similar 
 manner we must civilize this appalling passion 
 for war and convert this natural fighting in- 
 stinct from barbarous and destructive uses to 
 humane and beneficent ends. The fierce im- 
 pulses that stir nations to war must be applied 
 to mercy instead of to misery, to rescue instead 
 of to ruin, to life instead of to death. 
 
 These humanitarian tasks may be unro- 
 mantic — they are usually unexciting — but they 
 often try men's hearts as severely as does any 
 battle. The courage of the soldier is strongly 
 sustained by companionship. Whether march- 
 ing into battle or lying in a trench, he has the 
 
 23 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 support of his fellows and looks forward to 
 promotion and to glory. But plain men are 
 daily dying in solitude for humanity. The 
 professional soldier leads a healthful and rou- 
 tine life which may last for years, and has 
 in his whole career only one day, or perhaps 
 one hour, of danger, while some of our ordinary 
 workers are daily risking their lives without 
 any suspicion that they are acting the part of 
 heroes. The miner enters each day into the 
 tunnel where he may be crushed, smothered, 
 or blown up; the riveter works at his perilous 
 task high in the air on the skeleton of a many- 
 storied building; the physician faces disease 
 without fear, striving to overcome some great 
 epidemic; the explorer tramps hundreds of 
 miles through trackless swamps and forests 
 filled with wild men and beasts; the mission- 
 ary seeks some far-away land and commits 
 the life of his family to the mercy of a savage 
 people whom he seeks to save — none of these 
 thinks he is a hero. They are only doing their 
 duty. Such men, as well as those who fight our 
 physical battles, are true soldiers. 
 
 "Dream not helm and harness 
 
 The sign of valor true; 
 Peace hath higher tests of manhood 
 
 Than battle ever knew." 
 24 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 The man who stood at the head of my class 
 at the university, a fine classical scholar, 
 immediately on graduation, asked the Amer- 
 ican Board of Foreign Missions to send him 
 to some needy place that no one else would 
 take. It was important at the time, for the 
 sake of humanity, that a station be estab- 
 lished in that far-away corner of Alaska inside 
 the arctic circle, known as Cape Prince of 
 Wales. Harry Thornton accepted the task and 
 went there with his young wife to establish 
 a mission for a small tribe of uncivilized people. 
 After laboring six years without seeing a man 
 of his own race, he was assassinated by some 
 of the people he was trying to help. But 
 before he died Thornton had started a school 
 and a church which have since become the 
 center of civilization for all that region. 
 
 Never was there a nobler band of soldiers 
 than the small one organized by Major Reed, 
 of Virginia, to study yellow fever in Cuba. 
 Reed and his companions, Carroll and Lazear, 
 accomplished their appointed task and then 
 gave up their lives. No deed of battle ever 
 surpassed the self-sacrifice of Lazear, who de- 
 liberately let mosquitoes settle on his hand 
 and infect him with yellow fever. He was 
 
 25 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 willing to sacrifice himself in order that the 
 world might be delivered from a scourge which 
 had caused the death of more Americans than 
 all our wars. 
 
 It is not necessary, either, to go to foreign 
 lands in order to give one's life in this way. 
 Howard Taylor Ricketts, of Rush Medical 
 College, Chicago, and Thomas Brown Mc- 
 Clintic, of the University of Virginia, both 
 sacrificed their lives in similar manner in order 
 to discover the cause and cure of Rocky Moun- 
 tain fever. 
 
 The present war has also brought heroes of 
 science and humanity. The war against typhus 
 in Serbia has been conducted by a noble band 
 of physicians, many of them Americans. James 
 F. Donnelly, of Brookl^-n, and Ernest P. Ma- 
 gruder, of Washington, both oflBcers of the 
 American Red Cross, have already given their 
 lives for this cause. We, of Cincinnati, may 
 well be proud of the heroism of our fellow 
 townsman, Dr. Paul Morton Lane, who, after re- 
 covering from the t\TDhus contracted in Serbia, 
 has returned to help that afflicted people. 
 
 But you do not have to be a soldier or army 
 surgeon in order to give your life for human- 
 ity. Disease and dirt, ignorance and super- 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 stition, are just as dangerous as ball and 
 shrapnel. Brutality and savagery are often as 
 firmly intrenched and as difficult to dislodge 
 from their fortresses as maxims and howitzers 
 behind barbed wire. It is a brave thing to 
 be a soldier, but it is a still braver thing to be 
 a saviour. 
 
 Shall not the time come, therefore, when 
 the application of this fighting instinct to the 
 purposes of war will be considered a base 
 prostitution of a noble force in human nature, 
 a condition from which true men will turn 
 with horror, to devote themselves to the real 
 wars of humanity.'^ ^^^len that time does 
 come, as it surely will, the famous names of his- 
 tory vdW not be those of great generals who 
 have destroyed hostile armies, but those of the 
 foremost leaders of thought who have directed 
 the forces of science and of education for the 
 healing and the salvation of the nations. 
 
 What, then, is the duty of our colleges and 
 universities.^ We found that there was nothing 
 wrong in fighting, provided you were fighting 
 the right enemy, for the right cause, with 
 proper weapons, and in a decent way. The 
 problem before us is to apply this fighting 
 
 spirit to the urgent tasks of science, medicine, 
 
 27 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 education, religion, and mercy. Hundreds of 
 noble causes call for thousands of trained men 
 and women. Our universities and colleges 
 should then constitute the general staff of this 
 world army of philanthropy carrying on cam- 
 paigns for the development of all human 
 resources and for the destruction of the diseases 
 of body and soul. Colleges and universities 
 are not merely places for study. They should 
 be the brains and the hearts to direct the 
 world in action. As Milton said: "I cannot 
 praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexer- 
 cised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and 
 sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race 
 where that immortal garland is to be run for." 
 
 Let the colleges, then, declare a war for 
 civilization; let them call to the colors of hu- 
 manity the heroic youth of the world and 
 join battle with the forces of ignorance and 
 barbarism. 
 
 What shall be the part of our country in 
 bringing in this "Better Era"? Some en- 
 thusiasts declare that we should be the arbiter 
 of the nations in this terrible crisis. This 
 suggests a boastful spirit. By all means let 
 us be peace-makers, if we may, but not Phar- 
 isees, thanking God that we are not as other 
 
 28 
 
A BETTER ERA 
 
 men are. Let us first confess our own sins of 
 aggression and cruelty. Let us be grateful 
 for our situation between the seas, for our 
 institutions, for our freedom, for our ideals, 
 and, especially, for the privilege of ministering 
 to those suffering in the war. If this be our 
 spirit, the opportunity for service to humanity 
 will be even greater after than during the 
 war. We hope it is the mission of America 
 to show the nations how to live together like 
 brethren in a strong federation. If we only 
 keep our hands clean of innocent blood, we 
 may help to make peace among the nations. 
 If we only keep our conscience clear, America 
 may become the conscience of the world, and 
 propagate the ideals of right over might, of 
 law over force, of service over conquest. But 
 America can best serve mankind at this awful 
 time by keeping right herself. The higher our 
 standards of national conduct, the greater will 
 be our power in the "Better Era." In this 
 way only can we prepare our nation to dis- 
 charge the task imposed upon her as the 
 champion of humanity. Not for our own 
 salvation, not for our own glory, but for hu- 
 manity's sake, let us, therefore, now recon- 
 secrate ourselves to truth and righteousness. 
 
 29 
 
II 
 
 TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 Preparedness is the theme of the hour. 
 The newspapers and magazines discuss little 
 else. We have preparedness processions and 
 preparedness conventions; preparedness drills 
 and preparedness camps. Most of us accept 
 military preparedness as an unfortunate ne- 
 cessity in this stage of the world's development. 
 No true citizen would neglect any measure for 
 the security of the nation, I shall, therefore, 
 not argue for military preparedness. But the 
 application of the preparedness idea does not 
 cease there. Caught by a new word, fascinated 
 by a new phrase, men are preaching prepared- 
 ness as a universal measure. Its advocates 
 proceed enthusiastically to apply it to industry, 
 to government, and to private life, as well as 
 to plans for the defense of the nation. It is 
 to be the remedy for every political and social 
 evil, the method of promoting every economic 
 and industrial interest. Attracted by the pop- 
 ular excitement, the reformers and agitators, 
 the politicians and demagogues, the faddists 
 
 30 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 and fakirs are everywhere shouting for pre- 
 paredness. The need of preparedness has come 
 to be spoken of also by serious people as an 
 axiom and an aphorism. Some would make 
 it the criterion of every social program, the 
 shibboleth of every political party. It is a 
 dictum to which we must assent or be out- 
 casts, a creed we must accept or be damned. 
 At such a time it is well to think soberly of 
 the whole subject. 
 
 Let us remember, first, that this excitement 
 about military preparedness has a temporary 
 cause. This cause is found in the two awful 
 tragedies of the day — the bitter tragedy of 
 the war in Europe and the smaller, but to us, 
 nearer, tragedy of the utter breakdown of 
 government in Mexico. The spectacle of so 
 many armed men, equipped in such marvelous 
 fashion to use such titanic forces in such des- 
 perate fighting, naturally arouses much emo- 
 tional excitement concerning military matters. 
 The storm of anarchy raging now for nearly 
 five years in Mexico, which on several occa- 
 sions has thrown its bloody waves upon our 
 shores, also awakens our deep concern, and 
 turns our thoughts to means of defense and 
 
 restoration of order. This is all very natural, 
 
 31 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 but such spectacles and such fears furnish no 
 proper basis for an estimate of our permanent 
 necessities and requirements. They should 
 be considered only as object lessons of the 
 advisability of preparedness everywhere and 
 always. 
 
 This propaganda in favor of preparedness has 
 the fault of every propaganda. Its advocates 
 are so excited that they have only a vague 
 idea of the principle involved. The prepara- 
 tion of a nation is a long process. The military 
 preparation of the Central Powers has required 
 a hundred and fifty years. To say too that 
 their preparation was military is to state only 
 a part of the truth. As a matter of fact, their 
 preparation has consisted chiefly, not in the 
 production of armam.ents, but in the training 
 of their people to believe in militarism. 
 
 In the first place, let us remember that the 
 doctrine of preparedness is as old as nature 
 and history. The preparation of the earth 
 through the ages and the preparation of plants 
 and animals, period by period, is an essential 
 part of the modern doctrine of evolution, but 
 thousands of years before evolution was con- 
 ceived of, men recognized the truth of pre- 
 paredness in nature and taught the law of 
 
 32 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 preparation in government, industry, and com- 
 merce, as well as in war. Nature, history, and 
 practical experience have, in fact, taught men 
 through the ages the necessity of systematic 
 preparation in all departments of life. The 
 course of nature is one continuous process of 
 preparation. Astronomy, geology, and biology 
 all teach us that the material world was pro- 
 gressively prepared, just as history, philosophy, 
 and religion teach us that the minds and souls 
 of men have been prepared through the ages. 
 
 If we consider, first, the material world, 
 and look up into the heavens through the 
 telescope, we learn that out of chaos was 
 prepared a cosmos, and out of nebulae, the 
 planetary systems with their suns, moons, and 
 worlds. If by the aid of chemistry we look 
 down into the minute things of matter, we see 
 that out of electrons are prepared atoms; out 
 of atoms, molecules; out of molecules, crystals; 
 out of crystals, mountain ranges. So physical 
 geology teaches us that each change on the 
 surface of the earth was a preparation for 
 another change, each period a step in the 
 preparation of the earth for man. Mountain 
 and plain, river and ocean, all were prepared 
 by the Creator for the coming of man, the 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 creature made in his image, who was to have 
 dominion over them all. We see more clearly 
 every year that the material world was pre- 
 pared deliberately and with design and purpose 
 to be the home of life, culminating in the 
 life of mind and spirit. As the wise man said, 
 three thousand years ago: "The Lord by wis- 
 dom hath founded the earth; by understanding 
 hath he established the heavens. By his knowl- 
 edge the depths are broken up, and the clouds 
 drop down the dew." 
 
 So it is also in the world of life. Each 
 species of plant was a preparation for a more 
 perfect one — the algae for the ferns, and the 
 ferns for the flowering plants. Every new 
 animal was a preparation for a higher one — • 
 fishes for reptiles, and reptiles for mammals. 
 First the frost and water, then the bacteria 
 and earthworms, prepare the soil for the grass; 
 the grass is food for the ox; and the ox is food 
 for man. The seasons also sing of preparation 
 for the coming life — winter for spring and its 
 flowers, spring for summer and its harvests, 
 and summer for autumn and its fruits. In 
 all our plans we rely upon the orderly sequence 
 of the days, the months, and the seasons — 
 morning preparing for noon, noon for night, 
 
 34 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 and each month for the next, the year round. 
 The farmer rehes upon nature's help in pre- 
 paring the soil and in supplying the rain. 
 Wise husbandmen, like the squirrels, lay in 
 their fruits for the coming winter; "like the 
 ants, a people not strong, they prepare their 
 meat in the summer." 
 
 Now, as it is in the cosmic orders, planetary 
 systems, geologic periods, and genera of plants 
 and animals, as it is with the seasons, so it 
 is with each individual life, whether it be a 
 bacterium, plant, animal, or man. Each has 
 a special period of preparation, a time of incu- 
 bation or a chrysalis stage, as well as a spring 
 of growth and a summer of fruitage, before it 
 yields the stage of life to its successor. 
 
 Of no living thing is this more true than of 
 man. As all nature labored to prepare the 
 world for man, so his preparation for complete 
 living has been the task of the ages. To make 
 man worthy of his Maker is the final end of 
 all natural things — the end of our society, in- 
 stitutions, and governments, as well as of our 
 homes, schools, and churches. Philosophers 
 tell us that as we go up the scale of life, whether 
 it be bird, lower mammalian, or man, the 
 period of infancy and preparation grows con- 
 
 35 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 stantly longer and more important in its 
 influence on the development of the species. 
 The greater the brain and nervous system, 
 the longer is the period of preparation. Prep- 
 aration is the law of education. 
 
 History teaches the same lesson. Each age, 
 each nation, has been a preparation for a 
 better age and a greater nation. To his chosen 
 people God said: "Behold, I send an Angel 
 before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to 
 bring thee into the place which I have pre- 
 pared." True to his promise, through all his- 
 tory the angel of the Lord has led his people 
 into one prepared land, then into another — 
 first into Palestine, then into Greece, then to 
 Rome, then into continental Europe, and now 
 to America. Throughout all ages the command 
 has been: "Prepare ye the way of the people; 
 cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the 
 stones; lift up a standard for the people." 
 
 The solemn question for us to-day is: 
 Whither shall the angel of the Lord lead his 
 people next? It will surely be into a prepared 
 land, into the land where men are ready to 
 do the Lord's work. The leading people of the 
 future will inhabit the land best prepared to 
 develop men. Will it be Europe, will it be the 
 
 36 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 Orient, or will it be America? If science and 
 history teach us anything, they teach us that 
 the great civilization of the future will de- 
 velop in a prepared land among a prepared 
 people. Whether Americans shall be that 
 people will depend upon how they are pre- 
 pared in body, mind, and soul. 
 
 This law of preparation governs the spiritual 
 as well as the material world. The minds and 
 the spirits of men are being prepared, together 
 with their bodies. Men were given a church 
 and religion for the development of their 
 spirits. As he made an earth for training 
 their bodies, so God built a temple for train- 
 ing the souls of men. Through the ages his 
 spiritual temple has been preparing. Abraham 
 built his altar at Bethel. With the stone that 
 was his pillow when he had the vision of the 
 ladder into heaven, Jacob built his house of 
 the Lord. After the plans given by God in 
 the mount, Moses built the tabernacle in the 
 wilderness. We read that "All the work of 
 Solomon was prepared unto the day of the 
 foundation of the house of the Lord and until 
 it was finished. So the house of the Lord was 
 perfected." And the prophet declared: "And 
 it shall come to pass in the latter days, that 
 
 37 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 the mountain of the Lord's house shall be 
 established in the top of the mountains, and 
 shall be exalted above the hills; and all na- 
 tions shall flow into it. And many people shall 
 go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to 
 the mountain of the Lord, to the house of 
 the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his 
 ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out 
 of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word 
 of the Lord from Jerusalem." So in due 
 course of time John the Baptist came "to 
 make ready a people prepared for the Lord," 
 and Jesus taught that his heaven was to be 
 a prepared place for prepared men. "Come, 
 ye blessed of my Father," he said, "inherit 
 the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
 tion of the world." 
 
 There has always been, in every age, a 
 leading people in a specially prepared land. 
 Assyria, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, all had their 
 day of glory and service. Do we desire that 
 our land may be this prepared land, the land 
 of peace, the home of progress and the mother 
 of the coming race.^ What, then, is our ideal 
 for America? Are wealth and power our only 
 ends? Shall we be satisfied with mere quiet 
 
 and the chance to feed and multiply? Or have 
 
 38 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 we a higher ideal? "Broad-based upon her 
 people's will," America has a higher destiny 
 than to breed men and make them fat with 
 ease. Theodore Parker has given us the 
 classical definition of the American idea. In 
 1850 he said: "This idea demands, as the 
 proximate organization thereof, a democracy 
 that is a government of all the people, by all 
 the people, for all the people; a government of 
 the principles of eternal justice; the unchanging 
 law of God. For shortness' sake, I shall call 
 it the idea of Freedom." This is the American 
 idea, this is the purpose of our nation, the 
 realization of freedom in a democracy, the 
 embodiment of eternal justice in a government 
 of the people. This government which our 
 fathers left us it is our duty to preserve and 
 develop. How, then, shall we, their descend- 
 ants, do this? Can we do it merely by mar- 
 shaling our industries and drilling our people 
 as some propose? Can we by "scientific 
 efficiency" save America and make her a moral 
 power in the world? Preparedness is not 
 merely the training of the people in "scientific 
 efficiency," that is, "mechanized efficiency." 
 True national preparedness is something far 
 
 different from and much larger than engineering 
 
 99 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 skill or industrial organization; it is socialized 
 energy, it is the intelligence and character of 
 a people organized for service. This kind of 
 efficiency cannot be drilled into a people by 
 autocratic authority. Social efficiency is a 
 human, a spiritual quality. 
 
 Moreover, such a quality becomes a social 
 force only through democratic agencies. A 
 machine may be efficient in a certain sense, 
 but it cannot be efficient in the sense that a 
 human being is; for a machine cannot con- 
 form itself to conditions, but must, when not 
 directed by a man, perform one process at all 
 times and under all circumstances. Only a 
 human being can direct himself, guiding his 
 actions by a mind and a conscience. In an 
 autocracy the people need no conscience, for 
 the sovereign orders what shall be done. Only 
 in a democracy, where men are free to use 
 their own minds and consciences, can true 
 social efficiency exist. In an autocracy the 
 people cannot possess this socialized energy; 
 they cannot be truly efficient. As Shelley says: 
 
 "Power, like a desolating pestilence. 
 Pollutes whate'er it touches, and obedience. 
 Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth. 
 Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame 
 A mechanized automaton." 
 40 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 As I have said in another place :^ There is a 
 wide difference in the point of view toward 
 education in the monarchy and the repubHc. 
 Founded upon the "divine right" to govern, the 
 monarchy begins the training of its people by 
 building universities and technical schools to 
 educate agents to rule and officers to drill its 
 subjects. It molds and trains rather than edu- 
 cates its citizens from above downward, until 
 each one is made to fit exactly into his appointed 
 place and to do in the most efficient way his 
 prescribed work. In such a government, the 
 university for the classes comes first in time; 
 the free public school for the masses comes last. 
 In the democracy the order of procedure is ex- 
 actly reversed. It begins with the free school 
 and educates its citizens from below upward, 
 through high schools and colleges, lifting all 
 up, and up, in proportion to their quaUfica- 
 tions, and finally sending the fit to the univer- 
 sity to be made the leaders of thought and 
 action. The democratic system of education 
 gives every man the freest opportunity to be- 
 come in the fullest measure all for which nature 
 has fitted him. It aims to educate each indi- 
 vidual so that he may attain the maximum of 
 
 1 The Forum, February, 1900, p. 663. 
 41 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 his possibilities in the direction of his peculiar 
 talents and opportunities. This system pro- 
 duces not a few classes of type men, as the 
 system of the monarchy, but a world of freely 
 developed souls, possessing infinite diversity of 
 potentiality and purpose. The democracy gives 
 a chance to the poor boy, as well as to the rich, 
 and demands of each that he be the best and 
 do the best he can. It aims, thus, not to trim 
 the man to fit a httle place, but to educate him 
 to carve out an ample place for himself. 
 
 How, then, can the democracy develop this 
 true efliciency? Only by educating and train- 
 ing its individual members and giving them 
 character, as well as intelligence. Where each 
 individual is a part of the sovereign power, 
 he must have not only intelligence, but con- 
 science. The efficient democracy is embodied 
 conscience and heart. 
 
 In the sense in which the Germans conceive 
 it, we have in this country no national system 
 of education, and we are glad we have not. 
 Such a system would be totally inconsistent 
 with our free American institutions. We have 
 no place in this country for a machine for man- 
 ufacturing civil officials, soldiers, diplomats, or 
 even legislators, much less scholars. We have 
 
 42 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 no such national system, but we have a great 
 body of educational institutions; not a ma- 
 chine, but a living organism, potent to beget, 
 nourish, and train men competent to discharge 
 all the duties which belong to them as mem- 
 bers of a free republic. 
 
 This body of institutions is, as we have just 
 seen, a growth, not a creation; the product^ 
 not of any government or series of men even, 
 but of the genius of the whole American peo- 
 ple, working for two centuries in their own 
 field, with the help of the whole world, to be 
 sure, but guided by the spirit of their own in- 
 stitutions.^ 
 
 The paramount issue, then, that is brought 
 home to us by this European war and by this 
 anarchy in Mexico is not merely military prep- 
 aration. That is necessary, but that is not 
 enough. The paramount issue is the issue of the 
 development, through the education and the 
 moralization of the people, of a more perfect 
 socialized energy. A state is truly great only in 
 the moral qualities of its members, and moral 
 qualities can be developed only by the mutual 
 interaction of minds and hearts. The primary 
 
 1 Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Johns Hopkins University, February 21, 
 22, 1902, p. 55. 
 
 43 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 business of the state is not war, it is the making 
 of men. Character and courage are the first 
 characteristics of the prepared people. Even 
 in war it is not the big gun that wins the 
 battle, it is the man behind the gun; it is not 
 even the high explosive which actuates the 
 gun, it is the character of the man. Not 
 munitions but morale won the war. 
 
 I have said enough, I hope, to show that 
 we have much to do in the preparation of this 
 nation, besides drilling soldiers, training nurses, 
 or paying taxes for guns and munitions, war- 
 ships and forts. It is by preparing ourselves 
 that we can best prepare our country for the 
 struggles ahead of her — by preparing ourselves 
 in mind, heart, and conscience. Proud as we 
 are of what has been done, it is my duty to 
 say that our preparation has only just begun. 
 We desire to become cooperating citizens of 
 a nation prepared for the greatest tasks to 
 which any people was ever called. Then we 
 can best prepare this nation to meet these 
 tasks by making ourselves noble men and 
 women. 
 
 "A people is but the attempt of many 
 To rise to the completer life of one; 
 And those who live as models for the 
 Are singly of more value than they all.' 
 44 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 The opportunity to serve comes to every 
 prepared man and woman, and when it comes 
 it will call for all the talents and all the char- 
 acter one can muster. Prepare! Success is 
 never accidental. There is no luck in the 
 moral world. True success is always prepared. 
 
 I have tried to show that education is not 
 all, and efficiency is not enough; that there 
 must be character back of education and 
 efficiency. Man is something more than body 
 and mind — he is a soul. 
 
 Tolstoy said, "It is necessary for man to 
 have a soul." Why.? Because there are many 
 things which it is impossible to explain with- 
 out a soul. One of these things is man's 
 progress. In order to move forward the race 
 has through all the centuries regularly had 
 to sacrifice the body to the soul. In wars and 
 martyrdoms, on the block and at the stake, 
 man has given his body to make way for his 
 spirit. The soul has been marching over the 
 body through these thousands of years. Be- 
 hind and above all human progress has stood 
 the regnant soul. For this reason no other 
 animal has progressed like man. Hogs to-day 
 are just the same as the Gadarene swine which 
 
 ran down the bluff of the Sea of Galilee. The 
 
 45 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 horse is to-day no nobler than he was when 
 Alexander drove him to his chariot. But man 
 is still pressing up the heights of progress, 
 holding in his hand the lamp of liberty that 
 lights the path to the home of the immortals. 
 
 It is also necessary for a nation to have a 
 soul. Has America a soul.^ Our fathers made 
 the great sacrifice that we might have souls, 
 but are our souls marching on? What are 
 we sacrificing for the souls of our children? 
 Have we met the large issues of the last two 
 years as we should have done? More than one 
 nation has found its soul in these last terrible 
 years. While their souls are marching on so 
 grandly, some of us are wondering if Amer- 
 icans have not been selling their souls for 
 Mammon. Have we not failed to take the 
 moral leadership we should? Morally have we 
 not lost our way? 
 
 Upon us will be the duty to lead this people 
 back into the right way. Some of us will be 
 called upon to sacrifice that the soul of this 
 nation may go marching on. Are we ready, 
 ready in spirit, as well as in mind and heart? 
 We must prepare our souls, as well as our 
 minds and hearts. The supremest prepared- 
 ness is soul preparedness. 
 
 46 
 
TRUE PREPAREDNESS 
 
 How shall we get this soul preparedness? 
 Only by the pursuit of truth and righteous- 
 ness. Then must we have an ideal of the 
 truth and a standard of righteousness; in 
 other words, we must have a religion. With- 
 out religion neither man nor nation can make 
 any progress in righteousness, justice, or 
 brotherhood. Religion is the only safe founda- 
 tion of personal and national life. This is 
 true of all forms of national life, but it is 
 above all true of the democracy. Our whole 
 American system rests upon the moral judg- 
 ment and right feeling of the people, and 
 religion is the only means of cultivating moral 
 judgment and right feeling. I sincerely be- 
 lieve that the only hope of the democracy is 
 that the people shall believe in God and shall 
 learn from him to live righteously and to 
 love their fellow men. 
 
 Saint Paul has taught us that the man 
 whose light and strength is God can stand 
 alone. He may be abused, vilified, persecuted, 
 but he will not flinch. He will regard duty 
 as a finer thing than life, prefer death to dis- 
 honor, and stand face to face with grim terror, 
 fighting on when all others have fled the field. 
 
 We are told that the noblest thing Pompeii 
 47 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 has yielded to the explorer was that "figure 
 of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor, 
 who, true to duty, true to the proud name 
 of a soldier of Rome, full of the stern courage 
 which had given that name its glory, stood 
 to his post by the city gate, erect and un- 
 flinching, until the hell that raged around him 
 burned out the dauntless spirit it could not 
 conquer." Such, doubtless, was the Roman 
 soldier Paul had in mind. Magnificent example 
 of the man now needed to withstand the vol- 
 canic eruptions of these times! Like that Ro- 
 man soldier, may we stand, having our loins 
 girt about with truth, and having on the 
 breastplate of righteousness; and our feet shod 
 with the preparation of the gospel of peace. 
 
 48 
 
Ill 
 
 A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 The great war in which we have been en- 
 gaged is only one phase of this same age-old 
 contest between the spirit and the flesh, be- 
 tween right and might, which has been going 
 on since the world began. The "will to power" 
 led Cain to kill his brother, just as it led men 
 to-day to kill their brethren. But this brutal 
 lust for power will not conquer in the end. 
 The desire of the human soul for liberty and 
 righteousness cannot be killed. Little by little 
 man is winning the freedom and justice which 
 is the only basis of permanent peace. It was 
 a desperate struggle from the beginning, but 
 the champions of the Spirit are winning to-day 
 as they have always won. For God has given 
 them the pledge of his support. To the sol- 
 diers of liberty his command comes again. 
 
 We are indeed fortunate to be living in such 
 times as these. For nineteen hundred years 
 there has been no such high moment as this. 
 And the entry of America into this struggle 
 was its supreme event. Whether as volunteers 
 
 49 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 or selected men for the army and navy, phy- 
 sicians and nurses in the Red Cross, makers 
 of munitions, or producers of food, those who 
 are able to take a hand in this tremendous 
 struggle are to be congratulated. 
 
 First, think of the vastness, the stupendous 
 force, and the significance of this war. Behold 
 how the single countries, one after another, 
 fell into the crucible, until nearly the whole 
 world was in the vast, fiery furnace. The 
 times were mad, and every shore of humanity 
 was swept by the fury of this conflagration. 
 It was Armageddon indeed. 
 
 The world is ripe for a true victory for lib- 
 erty and righteousness. When human insti- 
 tutions are in the melting pot, men's long- 
 repressed aspirations have opportunities for 
 free expression in the formulation of new sys- 
 tems such as never existed before. A mighty 
 process of preparation has been going on for 
 years. Never was there so much knowledge, 
 so widely spread, and with such means of 
 still wider dissemination. And never before 
 did the world have so many new and excellent 
 means for remolding itself upon lines of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 For a century we had been living on such 
 60 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 a level of comparative monotony that short- 
 sighted people thought the soil of the earth 
 was exhausted and the seed of life dead. The 
 development of freedom had ceased, they said, 
 and the progress of righteousness had come 
 to a halt. Such is human nature that peace 
 does not produce great moral triumphs. Induc- 
 ing idleness, soft living, and corruption, peace 
 is sometimes more deadly to spiritual interests 
 than war. Poverty and toil make men strong; 
 suffering and sorrow make them true; trials 
 and temptations make them wise. 
 
 But the war has already made a prodigious 
 change in the world. History is now being 
 made at a tremendous rate, not merely in the 
 shifting of national boundary lines, but by the 
 springing to life of seeds of hope planted ages 
 ago. Fertilized with the rich blood of the 
 world's best men, the fields of earth are pre- 
 paring a new springtime. 
 
 I do not fail to recognize the horrors and 
 the sorrows of this most tragic war of his- 
 tory. War has indeed become in this day the 
 most frightful evil of the world. We shuddered 
 at the abominable cruelties and barbarities 
 perpetrated, and we felt unspeakable detesta- 
 tion for their authors, but we recognized at the 
 
 51 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 same time that this contest would decide the 
 issue of the ages. We knew that when the fires 
 had burned out, autocracy and imperiahsm 
 would be dethroned, and that democracy and 
 brotherhood would reign and bring in a new era 
 of peace and progress. 
 
 Neither do we forget the sorrows of the 
 people in the stricken countries. Already vast 
 multitudes of old men and women in many 
 lands walk sorrowfully in funeral processions, 
 mourning their dead. We cannot forget them. 
 It may be their eyes are holden, not knowing 
 that One walks with them who is reproving 
 them for slowness of heart to believe all that 
 the prophets of old have told of the divine 
 method in the creation and education of man. 
 But the lesson is being learned. The reve- 
 lation of the prophets is meeting to-day its 
 parallel revelation in the vision of a world 
 learning through suffering the duty of brother- 
 hood and the beauty of righteousness. There- 
 fore, even in these hours of awe, we should 
 lift up our hearts with the thought that "many 
 prophets and kings have desired to see those 
 things which we see, and have not seen them; 
 and to hear those things which we hear, and 
 
 have not heard them." 
 
 52 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 Doubtless it is too early to reap the harvest 
 sown in blood and tears. But it is not too 
 early to recognize that a vast new crop of 
 ideals is growing which it is our duty to culti- 
 vate. Even if we cannot gather them ourselves, 
 we can at least enjoy the faith that others 
 
 "The issue of our toil shall see; 
 Young children gather as their own 
 The harvest that the dead had sown." 
 
 In spite, then, of the horror and the sorrow 
 of it, we must remember that for Americans 
 it was a spiritual war — a war of ideas, a war 
 for liberty and equality, a war for the estab- 
 lishment of law and the rights of the weak, 
 a war for democracy as the basis of world 
 peace. Never was there, in fact, a war for 
 truer spiritual ends. It was only for these 
 causes that America was in the war. Nothing 
 less could have brought her into it. Not for 
 material reward, not for indemnity, not for con- 
 quest, not for territory, not for anything save 
 the high duty of succoring democracy, so 
 desperately and outrageously assailed, did we 
 enter this war. We went into the war only 
 for the ideals of the republic, to defend before 
 the world the faith of the fathers who gave 
 
 to us this government. 
 
 53 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 For what is this our country? What does it 
 stand for? A great stretch of territory with 
 wonderful resources? A vast aggregation of 
 arts and industries? A hundred million of 
 happy and prosperous people? Yes, our coun- 
 try is all of these. But the United States of 
 America is vastly more than this. This re- 
 public is a scheme of life, a system of society, a 
 plan of freedom, a pledge of peace, and an 
 ideal of opportunity — the organized expression 
 of the belief that every human being shall have 
 the freest opportunity for his own development 
 in accordance with the powers his God has 
 given him, and that nothing shall be put in 
 the way of that free development either in 
 men or nations. This is what the republic 
 stands for. This is America — Opportunity for 
 all men, all races, all nations! It was for 
 this that the fathers died, upon this foundation 
 they established this government. This we 
 have not forgotten and this we shall never 
 forget. It is to make sure that this ideal shall 
 not perish from the earth that America went 
 into this war. As our President said, "God 
 helping her, she can do no other." 
 
 It was for America a spiritual war, because 
 it brought her an unprecedented opportunity 
 
 54 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 for service and sacrifice. For three years we 
 stood, watching this awful contest for the Hb- 
 erty and peace of the world, and doing nothing 
 to help beyond selling munitions. Doing only 
 this we were in danger of selling our souls. Had 
 we seen it through to the end in this way and 
 not taken our share of the burden, we should 
 have been damned eternally. We should be 
 ^xda that the course of events at last made it 
 our privilege to join in this struggle for freedom 
 and democracy. 
 
 "Let Freedom's land rejoice! 
 
 Our ancient bonds are riven. 
 Once more to us the eternal choice 
 
 Of good or ill is given. 
 Then praise the Lord Most High, 
 
 Whose strength hath saved us whole. 
 Who bade us choose that the flesh should die 
 
 And not the living soul." 
 
 We should be glad of the opportunity for 
 sacrifice in such a cause. Great spiritual 
 revivals come not by seeking. They are the 
 product of unselfish efforts. True nobility is 
 born only of service and sacrifice. America 
 needed for her own soul's salvation to join the 
 nations fighting for these most precious things 
 of life. Every consideration of honor and 
 principle required that she unite with them. 
 
 55 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 As enduring friendships do not come of mere 
 avowals of regards, but of a common struggle 
 m some high and dangerous contest, so winning 
 a righteous war together will, by revealing brave 
 hearts to brave hearts, unite all true men in 
 common aims. Such a mutual struggle will 
 do more to unite the nations of freedom and 
 peace than all the international treaties ever 
 made. 
 
 Two things our American fathers hoped to 
 give the nations of the earth— liberty and peace. 
 They believed that these two things could 
 be established only through democracy. Amer- 
 icans hoped always that all the nations would 
 m time become democracies. We have watched 
 for a century and a half, therefore, with in- 
 tensest interest, the extension of liberalism and 
 freedom throughout the governments of the 
 world. We have indeed sympathized with all 
 men everywhere who have dared to fight for 
 liberty and the right of self-government; but 
 It has been chiefly by words, not deeds, that 
 we have expressed our sympathy. This war 
 gave us the first real opportunity to help the 
 other people of the world in their struggle 
 for democracy. It gave us also the biggest 
 opportunity we have ever had to promote the 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 second object of our fathers — the estabhsh- 
 ment of world-wide peace. For only in a world 
 of democracy can we hope to have permanent 
 peace. 
 
 But we faced it! We were called to sacrifice 
 as well as to service. The war cost us much 
 in suffering and sorrow, in precious blood and 
 lives. But we remember that all the spiritual 
 good that has come down to us was paid for 
 by the bloody sweat and tears and suffering 
 of myriads of nameless martyrs. Like a great 
 gulf -stream "of moving waters at their priest- 
 like task of pure ablutions round earth's hu- 
 man shores," the tide of sacrifice flowed 
 through the world to redeem and cleanse and 
 sanctify it unceasingly. It flows now upon our 
 shores. 
 
 This redemptive work is not a single act 
 in time and place. Standing as it does for the 
 supreme sacrifice, the cross is indeed the Rock 
 of Ages, the foundation of all that makes life 
 worth living, the foundation of life itself. But 
 the whole of humanity was not saved by that 
 one sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is a never-ending 
 and divine process, in which the inmost heart 
 of the universe is constantly breaking out in 
 fresh flower. The cross is indeed its ever- 
 
 57 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 living symbol, but it is not fixed forever on 
 Calvary. Borne by heroic hands at the head 
 of the endless consecrated procession of man- 
 kind, the cross is still marching down the ages, 
 calling men to suffer and to die for their fel- 
 lows. And it came to us on Good Friday, the 
 sixth day of April, 1917. Did we shrink from 
 taking it up.^ We did not. Where would the 
 world have been if men, our elder brothers, had 
 been afraid to die.^ Where would we be to-day, 
 if our fathers had been afraid to die.^ 
 
 The constant necessity of sacrifice, the eter- 
 nal reappearance of the cross, its ceaseless 
 reenactment in history, is the surest proof of 
 man's inalienable birthright of inward freedom 
 and, as we see now more plainly than ever 
 before, it is the only guarantee of his outward 
 liberty. For this reason we made our con- 
 tribution of sacrifice, our gift of blood and 
 tears and life for the good of men. 
 
 The call to sacrifice came to Belgium, and 
 she gave her sons by the thousands for the 
 protection of her honor. It came to France, 
 and she has given the lives of a million sons 
 already, that liberty, equality, and fraternity 
 may live in the world. The call came to 
 Britain, and her sons on all the continents 
 
 68 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 rallied to defend the freedom of the world. 
 And the call came to us to take up the Cross 
 for Freedom. 
 
 *'0 dearest country of my heart. 
 
 Make clean thy soul for sacrifice on Freedom's altar fire; 
 
 For thou must suffer, thou must fight until the war-lords 
 
 cease 
 And all the peoples lift their heads in liberty and in peace." 
 
 Think of the searching changes this war will 
 make in human society. This world of men will 
 never be the same again. As a result of this 
 terrific cataclysm all the wrong things, the things 
 without foundation and the improperly adjusted 
 things — all the things that can be shaken will be 
 thrown down. Laws that are not equitable will 
 be altered; constitutions not founded on justice 
 will be changed; monarchies having no founda- 
 tion in right will be overthrown. 
 
 This woeful emergency has already driven 
 all the people of the nations together as never 
 before. As a result, the world is learning to 
 live a family life, in which the only thing that 
 counts is service. What a magnificent exam- 
 ple of united service and sacrifice these Euro- 
 pean nations are setting for us! For the time 
 being the people belong to their nations with 
 everything they possess. The motto "Get, and 
 
 59 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 gain, and grab" has been replaced by "Give, 
 and serve, and love." 
 
 Moreover, social distinctions are lost sight of 
 in the supreme distinction of a common duty. 
 Whether in uniform or out of it, whether rich 
 or poor, educated or ignorant, men are esteemed 
 more and more for what they are and can do, 
 and not for names or positions. Property is 
 regarded not so much as that which a man 
 can keep to himself as that, whether in wealth, 
 in capacity, or in skill, "being proper to the 
 man," he can give to his country's needs. 
 It is not a "Liberty Loan" they are making, 
 it is a "Liberty Gift" of all they are and have. 
 This is the spirit of the European peoples and 
 this is the spirit we must have in America, 
 if we do our duty by them and by our country. 
 
 Now, men are already asking: "Why may 
 this way of looking at the nation as one big 
 family, realized under the stress of war, not 
 continue when the danger is past and peace 
 has come.^ Is not this, after all, the prime 
 moral lesson of the war.^^ Why may not men 
 give themselves and all they have to the 
 service of their country? Why may not the 
 comradeship of the trenches, where rich and 
 
 poor, lord and peasant, are fighting on an 
 
 60 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 absolute equality, continue after the war as 
 a comradeship in office, farm, and factory? 
 Was not the war sent to teach us how to live 
 together as brethren in one great economic, 
 social, and spiritual state? Shall we not learn 
 the lesson and apply it in peace?" 
 
 But the important thing is that all the 
 thoughts of men will be changed. Men will 
 hereafter take a more spiritual view of life 
 and all that belongs to it. Twenty millions 
 of men who have faced the realities of life 
 and death, of time and eternity, in the trench 
 or in the charge, will return to civil life in the 
 allied lands. These men will have found new 
 ideals and new values in life. They went in 
 lightheartedly and bravely, only perceiving 
 dimly the issues. But they will come home 
 changed men. On the day that permanent 
 peace spreads her white wings over our world 
 again, these men will come home tested, 
 purified, exalted, with new ideals of life and 
 duty. If they have learned nothing else, 
 they will have learned that freedom is better 
 than riches, service better than ease, sacrifice 
 better than selfishness. 
 
 War purifies men. Men hitherto entirely 
 
 enslaved in self-indulgence and sensual living 
 
 61 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 will find themselves sobered, liberated, and 
 redeemed. The spiritual impulses which they 
 thought cast off with the clothes of childhood 
 will reassert themselves, and the old ideals 
 of loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice will become 
 compelling again. The fire will try "every 
 man's work of what sort it is," and though 
 "his work shall be burned, he himself shall 
 be saved, yet so as by fire." 
 
 The sense of man's dependence on his God 
 and of his duty to his brother in the trenches, 
 the recognition of the Fatherhood of God and 
 of the brotherhood of man, will become real 
 and vital in millions of lives. Much has been 
 lost in this war, but God the Father and man 
 the brother will be found by multitudes. 
 
 Men who are ready to die for humanity will 
 insist on having a chance to live for humanity. 
 Such men as these will certainly demand not 
 merely a free world, but a just world. They 
 will insist that the children of the future shall 
 in their day have a better chance to live and 
 be happy, and will demand that government, 
 industry, education — the whole social organ- 
 ism — shall be re-formed. 
 
 The war thus unquestionably made men 
 
 more religious in spirit and life. But what 
 
 62 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 effect will it have on the organization of re- 
 ligion, that is, on the churches? Such a bap- 
 tism of fire will purify the churches as well 
 as the people. But it will do more than purify, 
 it will simplify and unite them. Undoubtedly, 
 many phases of religion, hitherto deemed im- 
 portant, will lose their interest for the men 
 who face these realities. The multiplication 
 of sects, the assumptions of sacerdotalism, the 
 elaboration of creeds, the ritualism and sesthet- 
 icism of worship, which so occupy the minds 
 of some ecclesiastics, seem unreal and foolish 
 to men kneeling in the trenches, thinking on 
 death and eternity. But, if the testimony 
 of the thinkers at the front be true, the realities 
 of religion, the recognition of the Fatherhood 
 of God, of communion with him, of the brother- 
 hood of man and the duty to him and the 
 faith that leads to self-effacement and sacrifice 
 never had such a strong hold on men. 
 
 The war has taught the people, those at 
 home as well as those in the trenches, that, 
 as Wells says, "only the complete simplifica- 
 tion of religion to its fundamental idea, the 
 world-wide realization of God as the King of 
 the heart and of all mankind, will bring men 
 
 security and happiness. The kingdom of God 
 
 63 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 over a world-wide system of republican states 
 is the only possible formula under which we 
 may hope to unify and save mankind." This 
 is the sane, simple, and convincing type of 
 religion for which the world waits. This, we 
 believe, is the only solution of the problem 
 of the ages — the complete liberation and de- 
 velopment of men. This is the hope that 
 breaks upon our vision as we grope our way 
 through this night of horrors — a setting free 
 of all mankind, "a simplification of religion," 
 "a kingdom of God over a world-wide system 
 of republican states" — this is what our armies 
 and navies fought for, and this is what we must 
 verify and realize in our day. 
 
 Such will be, must be, the spiritual victory. 
 No material victory will bring the world a 
 peace worth having. It is not the new map 
 to be made of Europe, it is not indemnities 
 or alliances, that are going to matter. The 
 Vienna Congress made a new map of Europe, 
 and the terrible war was the result. The 
 victory over Napoleon was a material victory, 
 but a spiritual defeat for Europe. If this war 
 is not to be a mere overture to another and 
 more dreadful war, a material victory must 
 
 not satisfy us. It is not enough to defeat 
 
 64 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 imperialism and militarism; we must destroy 
 throughout the world the spirit of which 
 imperialism and militarism are the embodi- 
 ment. For these ideas have no geographical 
 limit. They are indifferent to all political 
 organizations. They are common through all 
 belligerents. There is danger that even we 
 may become subject to the same wicked am- 
 bitions. Ours must, therefore, be a spiritual 
 victory, a victory of ideas, a victory of peace 
 and good will: a victory of love, not of hate; 
 a victory of gifts, not of spoils; a victory that 
 shall not rob any nation of a single right, 
 but shall give all men the blessings of freedom 
 and brotherhood. 
 
 It is to affirm a human bond stronger than 
 any racial tie, stronger than any national 
 union, or any confession of faith, that we 
 went to war. It is not for the Fatherland 
 of any one people, but for the Patrie des Ames 
 — the Fatherhood of All-Souls, that we fought. 
 It is to establish the brotherhood of all men, 
 that communion of souls which is the essence of 
 all religion, that we are contending. It is the 
 idea of the larger communion, enlarged to em- 
 brace all men in all lands, which is already emerg- 
 ing from the welter and sacrifice of these days. 
 
 65 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 The war was, of course, won on battlefields, 
 but the war against militarism was already 
 won in the domain of the spirit. What else 
 meant the entrance of America, the revolution 
 in Russia, the declarations of the neutral na- 
 tions, if not an outpouring of the desire of man- 
 kind for a more perfect realization of the 
 brotherhood of man? What else mean these 
 voices beginning to be heard above the din of 
 war to which men everywhere are listening, if 
 not a new dispensation of peace and good will? 
 Viviani in France, Lloyd George in Britain, 
 Woodrow Wilson in America, are merely the 
 voices of their people, demanding liberty and 
 fraternity "in the widest commonalty spread." 
 In all countries the builders of the new world 
 order are emerging from the darkness; another 
 and mightier army is organizing, the army of the 
 rebuilders of the world ! Already the war of 
 ideas is won! The spiritual victory is ours! 
 
 These are some of the reasons why, shocking 
 
 as the times were, we should feel it a privilege 
 
 to have lived in them. These days are so 
 
 fraught with vast possibilities that while we 
 
 recognize that frightful dangers are lurking 
 
 within them, nothing is too great to hope as 
 
 their fruition. It seems, verily, as if God had 
 
 66 
 
A SPIRITUAL VICTORY 
 
 gathered up all the glorious ideals, dreams, 
 hopes, and visions of men out of all the centuries 
 and was holding them out in overflowing hands 
 to the people of this age as the reward of right- 
 eous war. 
 
 The future of this world assuredly belongs 
 to the people who act truly and hold out 
 bravely in this awful struggle. In such times 
 no one dares live lightly. Each one of us has 
 a definite and serious task to perform. Act- 
 ing our parts thus in the fierce spotlight of 
 this day, we should be inspired by the thought 
 that the "choir invisible of those immortal 
 dead," who poured out their blood so freely 
 for these ideals, is watching now from above 
 the clouds to see how we act our part in this 
 great drama. Shall we fail to act our parts 
 as they did theirs? 
 
 Shall we not, rather, praying the blessing 
 of God and consecrating ourselves for any 
 sacrifice, take our places in the army of these, 
 our own loved ones here and those in Bel- 
 gium, in France, in Italy or wherever they 
 may be, who have fought for the honor of 
 the past, the salvation of the present, and 
 the hope of the future? 
 
 67 
 
IV 
 
 INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIAL- 
 ISM— WHICHP^ 
 
 As I stand before this body of students of 
 all nations, I am deeply impressed with the 
 thought that to you, and to those like you in 
 your home lands, the civilized world must 
 look for salvation from the confusion that 
 threatens it to-day. The students of to-day 
 must save the world of to-morrow. Although 
 the happenings of the last few years do not 
 encourage us much to trust to the professors 
 and intellectuals to determine the great issues 
 of civilization, we still hope that on the mor- 
 row, after the passion of the hour is past, 
 reason and conscience will rule again, and 
 scholars will decide the destinies of the nations. 
 We must still believe that we can trust the 
 interests of the world to men who, like you, 
 are seeking sincerely to know the truth that 
 is to make free all the people of the earth. 
 
 1 Address before the national convention of the A .ociation of Cosmopoli- 
 tan Clubs, the Corda Fratres of Europe, at Columbus, Ohio. These Clubs 
 are made up of university students devoted to the cause of intemational- 
 iam and peace. 
 
 68 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 If we cannot trust men such as these gathered 
 here to-night, whom can we trust to save the 
 world from destruction? 
 
 As I look into the faces of these young people 
 of many countries another thought comes 
 strongly to my mind. You young men from 
 all the nations seem to me to represent those 
 other young heroes now lying in the trenches 
 upon a hundred fields, or sailing upon the 
 seven seas, defenders of their respective lands 
 in this unholy war. What a noble host they 
 are! Who will deny their heroism, or, what- 
 ever we may think of the causes for which 
 some of them fight, deprive them of their 
 glory? We all recognize that these young men 
 from different nations, though opposing each 
 other with all their splendid energies, are 
 moved to this conflict by a common idea. 
 Each thinks he is fighting for his country's 
 salvation; each is actuated by the same feeling 
 of patriotism, and each, therefore, has our 
 hearty admiration. The young Servian, fight- 
 ing for the independence of his country; the 
 Austrian, striving for the extension of his land; 
 the Russian, hastening to the aid of his brother 
 Slav; the German, battling to advance the 
 
 Fatherland; the Englishman, fighting for honor 
 
 69 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 and the right of small states; the Frenchman, 
 resisting the robber of his home land; and 
 bravest of all, the Belgian, fighting the Teu- 
 tonic colossus for the very life of his country 
 — all these sincere young men are patriots, 
 all are heroes in their places. 
 
 You join with me in acclaiming the splendid 
 spirit of these young warriors. Whether we 
 approve their course or not, we admire their 
 courage and heroism. We have no denun- 
 ciation for these noble young heroes. It is 
 not they who have brought this plague upon 
 the world. The guilt does not rest upon 
 them, but upon the teachers who have taught 
 them false doctrines and upon their govern- 
 ments which have long been plotting to bring 
 about this war. 
 
 But why this conflict of patriotisms.^ How 
 
 can we explain the fact that all these earnest 
 
 young men, now fighting for their native lands, 
 
 are actuated by the same motive, patriotism.'^ 
 
 Holding as they do a common ideal, how can 
 
 they thus fight each other .^ Is not this a 
 
 situation worthy of our consideration? Is there 
 
 not something wrong about this thing we call 
 
 patriotism, which makes worthy young men of 
 
 common ideals strive to murder each other? 
 
 70 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 For ages we have been taught that war 
 exalts the virtue of sacrifice, and is, therefore, 
 a necessary part of the discipHne of the hu- 
 man race. Luzzatti said the other day: "In 
 this universal disaster patriotism alone tri- 
 umphs," implying that the patriotism de- 
 veloped by this war made it all worth while. 
 Certainly patriotism is splendid; it is the only 
 splendid thing in this war; all else is horror. 
 But even conceding this, we cannot agree with 
 Luzzatti that it is good that the demon of 
 international war should be let loose on the 
 world, to the end that the pure and simple 
 sentiment, love of country, shall be the better 
 illustrated and understood by men. Is it 
 indeed true that love of country can grow 
 in our hearts only through the hatred of other 
 peoples and through the wholesale murder of 
 those who sacrifice themselves in the defense 
 of their own lands .^ Is there not in this theory 
 a ferocious absurdity that moves the very 
 depths of our being? No, this is a hellish 
 doctrine; love of country does not demand that 
 we hate and slay all those good and faithful 
 souls who also love their countries. True 
 love of country grows out of our love for our 
 fellows, for all humanity. It begins with love 
 
 71 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 for those next to us, but extends to all good 
 men everywhere. True patriotism should there- 
 fore lead us to respect the worthy men and 
 women of all lands. Instead of leading us to 
 hate them, true patriotism should teach us 
 to honor them and to seek to unite ourselves 
 with them in striving for the common good 
 of men. 
 
 No, it is not true patriotism, then, that has 
 brought on this war. These youths who are 
 fighting so bravely did not provoke this war. 
 The monster responsible for this carnage is 
 the monster of imperialism. It is the will-to- 
 pride and the will-to-power which seek to 
 subdue all, to absorb all, which will suffer 
 no greatness except their own, that have 
 caused this war. Imperialism is the menace 
 of the whole world to-day. It is the curse, 
 not of Germany alone, but of all the nations 
 who put their own weKare above the general 
 good of mankind. All the ambitious nations 
 have to a greater or less degree an imperial- 
 ism of their own, whether feudal, financial, 
 or military. Imperialism is everywhere the 
 same terrible octopus seeking the best blood 
 of the peoples of all lands for its own nourish- 
 ment. This spirit of imperialism we must 
 
 72 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 destroy wherever we find it, and in order to 
 do this we must educate the young men of all 
 nations in the higher patriotism, which shall 
 see in the good of all men the highest good 
 of their own nation. 
 
 William James has told us that if we would 
 abolish war, we must first find some substitute, 
 some moral equivalent, which will give to men 
 opportunities to make an equal, or even a 
 nobler, sacrifice of themselves than they can 
 make in brutal war. It cannot be true that 
 there is no better employment for the pa- 
 triotism of one people than the destruction of 
 another. Can we not sacrifice ourselves for 
 the good of mankind without killing our 
 neighbors.^ Surely, there is enough misery 
 in this world to fight without adding the 
 misery of war! Why not conscript our young 
 men for an army to fight the evils of our pres- 
 ent society, or to lessen the toil and pain and 
 hardness which nature imposes on most of 
 her children? Why not sacrifice ourselves for 
 human improvement rather than for human 
 destruction? 
 
 The nations are more closely bound to- 
 gether than ever before in the history of the 
 
 world. United by the many civilizing forces, 
 
 73 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 trade, science, literature, and art, and by the 
 physical appliances of intercourse, railways, 
 telegraphs, and mails, which are at once the 
 cause and effect of other and stronger spiritual 
 bonds, the vital interests of the peoples are 
 largely common. The business and working 
 men of all countries realize more clearly every 
 day that these common interests are more 
 important than their few remaining national 
 antagonisms. But this war has cut squarely 
 across a rapidly growing international organ- 
 ization and has shown us in an appalling 
 manner that when patriotism is appealed to, 
 kings and emperors can still count, even in 
 this twentieth century since the coming of 
 the Prince of Peace, upon an overwhelming 
 response from their young men. 
 
 Did these international bonds, these forces 
 for union — literature, science, commerce, and 
 communication — all disappear at once upon 
 the call to war, or do they still exist, held 
 for the present in abeyance? As a matter of 
 fact, we know that most of the commerce 
 and communication are still real and vital. 
 The international postal union, the railways 
 and telegraphs, are still working, and all these 
 
 other bonds are ready to resume operations 
 
 74 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 at once on the close of the war. The people 
 of all nations are intensely eager to set them 
 to work again. The intellectual forces of 
 internationalism, art, literature, and science, 
 are represented powerfully here to-night. The 
 bonds of internationalism have not yet all 
 been broken even between belligerents, and our 
 faith leads us to believe that the international 
 mind, against which the national mind is now 
 so strongly arrayed, will again erelong pre- 
 vail, and that all men will be reunited in a 
 brotherhood of nations. 
 
 No doubt there are those in Germany and 
 in Austria who desire and intend, if possible, 
 to destroy internationalism and to perpetuate 
 hatred and war between the nations as a 
 means of advancing their own selfish ends. 
 But we believe that there are still those in 
 every nation who, like the members of this 
 Association of Cosmopolitan Clubs, are deter- 
 mined, in spite of this catastrophe — ^yes, be- 
 cause of this catastrophe itself — to work for 
 the internationalism which shall bring a per- 
 manent peace among the nations, and for a 
 basis of cooperation in the great work of 
 civilization which shall engage the worthy 
 
 energies of all peoples. Such internationally 
 
 75 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 minded persons believe that cooperation, not 
 conflict, peace, not war, is the true destiny 
 of nations. 
 
 To state the matter in a different way, 
 back of this physical war among the nations, 
 there is another war, a war between two ideas, 
 a war between the idea of nationalism on the 
 one side, and the idea of internationalism on 
 the other. This deeper struggle is at present 
 an intellectual and spiritual one, but we in- 
 tend to see to it, do we not, that this war 
 shall continue until the basis of a permanent 
 peace is established in this world. Thousands 
 of generous youths have, we believe, gone to 
 battle in this present war in the belief that 
 they are making war upon war, that they 
 are fighting against militarism and imperial- 
 ism, in behalf of peace and internationalism. 
 Though we may think their methods wrong, 
 we claim all such as our allies in this war on 
 war. Yes, we call to you to-night, ye brave 
 young heroes in the trenches on both sides. 
 Though you know it not yet, if you are fight- 
 ing against war, you were made to be our 
 brethren, and we reach out our hands to you 
 and hail you Corda Fratres! 
 
 I am glad to have the opportunity, there- 
 76 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IIVIPERIALISM? 
 
 fore, to discuss with you, representatives of 
 the students of many lands, the subject of 
 the true patriotism. If our conception of 
 patriotism leads to such world chaos as we 
 see to-day, certainly there must be something 
 wrong with it. Nothing is more needed than 
 a careful study of the philosophy of patriotism 
 and of the prevailing doctrine of nationalism. 
 At the present time we find everywhere the 
 most confused notions as to the duties of na- 
 tions to each other, and the relation of na- 
 tionality to humanity at large. Our theory 
 of patriotism should be not a mere abstraction 
 of philosophy to be discussed in lecture halls. 
 It is too vitally practical for that. Never was 
 the supreme importance of the correct view 
 of patriotism better illustrated than to-day. 
 Must we not believe that if these noble young 
 men of the different armies had been cor- 
 rectly instructed as to what constitutes true 
 patriotism, the nations of the world would not 
 now be engaged in this greatest of wars.^ 
 This war is simply the wholesale murder of 
 the flower of the manhood of the nations in 
 the name of patriotism. If such slaughter of 
 our best is necessary for the salvation of man 
 kind in this period of the world, where then 
 
 77 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 is our boasted moral progress? W^here is our 
 Christianity? Are we better than the savages 
 of five thousand years ago? As a matter of 
 fact, the peoples of the world are not the 
 murderous fiends they appear to be. They 
 do not in their consciences believe in these 
 methods. They do not practice them in their 
 private lives, and they do not believe that 
 they are necessary to the preservation and the 
 development of the nations to-day. 
 
 What, then, is the error? The answer to 
 the query is not hard to find. The error is 
 that we take our ethics from two entirely 
 different sources, according as it has to do 
 with individual or with national life. Our 
 individual morality we take, or pretend to 
 take, from the Sermon on the Mount. Our 
 national morality we take from paganism. 
 When once we have crossed the national 
 frontier, our neighbor ceases to be our fellow- 
 man and our brother, and becomes at once 
 an alien and an enemy. What was vice in 
 private life becomes virtue in international re- 
 lations; what was brutality in private life be- 
 comes bravery in war. Deceit and lying, 
 which would dishonor the private man, are 
 dignified into diplomacy, and science and en- 
 
 78 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 gineering skill are utilized for butchery. Covet- 
 ousness of the property of others, which in 
 private life would be recognized as a horrible 
 crime, becomes a political virtue, a legitimate 
 national ambition. In a word, collective 
 egotism has become a virtue, and national 
 lust has become devotion to the fatherland. 
 A cynic has parodied this continental theory 
 of national morality in these terms: 
 
 "Ye have heard how in old times it was 
 said: Blessed are the meek, for they shall 
 inherit the earth; but I say unto you. Blessed 
 are the valiant, for they shall make the earth 
 their throne. And ye have heard it said: 
 Blessed are the poor in spirit; but I say unto 
 you. Blessed are the great in soul, for they 
 shall enter into Valhalla. And ye have heard 
 that He said also: Blessed are the peace- 
 makers, but I say unto you. Blessed are the 
 war-makers, for they shall be called, if not 
 the children of God, the children of Odin, 
 who is our Teuton God." 
 
 What, then, is true patriotism? So far from 
 being the simple thing that it would seem, 
 patriotism has become, in these last days, very 
 complex and contradictory in character. The 
 
 fact that it is so perverted is due in large 
 
 79 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 measure to the sophistication of our modern 
 philosophers. The moral perversion which has 
 led us into these frightful conditions is based, 
 in part, on an intellectual confusion. Let us 
 try, then, to analyze the principle we call 
 patriotism and to distinguish the different 
 elements it contains. 
 
 Primitive patriotism, the love of home and 
 country, has its source in that most beautiful 
 of sentiments, mother love. A powerful prompt- 
 ing of nature makes us love the place where 
 we were born. It is instinct, habit, association, 
 not a moral principle, which produces this ele- 
 mental love of our native land. Nor do we 
 love our country because it is beautiful or 
 comfortable — the frozen mountains of the 
 North and the hot deserts of Sahara are 
 both dear to men who call these home — 
 but we love our country simply because it is 
 our native land, the soil from which we sprang 
 and which nurtured us. Such is the feeling 
 of the individual in a primitive state. 
 
 As men begin to form communities and to 
 lose the point of view of the individual, pa- 
 triotism becomes the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion. It is the collective instinct to defend 
 the motherhome and the fatherland from the 
 
 80 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 foreign invader. It is the same natural reaction 
 which prompts the bee to sting the intruder 
 in his hive, or the Indian to slay the trespasser 
 on his hunting ground. This instinctive feel- 
 ing may, of course, lead to brave deeds, just 
 as an attack upon her cubs causes the tigress 
 to assault furiously the hunter, or as any 
 interference with his wife prompts the savage 
 to slay the violater of his home. Such feelings 
 are noble and such acts are heroic. But it 
 too often happens that these feelings are ap- 
 pealed to by wicked leaders, and men are led 
 into the most flagrant violations of right in 
 the name of patriotism and self-defense. The 
 naturally noble feeling behind the act does not 
 always make the act a righteous one. In the 
 belief that they are defending home and coun- 
 try men may be induced to invade and rob 
 their neighbors. As was said by a renowned 
 statesman, patriotism is often "the last refuge 
 of the scoundrel." In the history of nations 
 it has often been the excuse for the most 
 infamous brutality, for the most cruel viola- 
 tion of the rights of others. 
 
 In our modern complicated civilization, how- 
 ever, patriotism is much more than this prim- 
 itive and instinctive feeling. Mixed in it are 
 
 81 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 many other elements which give it a very 
 complex character. This modern patriotism is 
 not only the native love of the man for the 
 land that gave him birth and nourished him, 
 it is not only the instinctive reaction against 
 the invader of the home or community; pa- 
 triotism, as popularly understood to-day, has 
 become an abstract principle, an ideal of public 
 duty, which should be the noblest and most 
 comprehensive of virtues. This true patriotism 
 is founded in intellect and supported by the 
 love of mankind as a whole. It is the ideal 
 of this higher patriotism that I present to you 
 to-night. 
 
 In order to understand this higher patriotism, 
 it is necessary to study further the foundations 
 of the modern European conception of na- 
 tionality and especially of the grounds for its 
 defense. When we try to separate the natural 
 and instinctive elements in patriotism from the 
 unnatural or developed elements, we encounter 
 serious diflficulties. One of the first of these 
 is the question of what constitutes nationality. 
 What is the moral foundation of nationality .^^ 
 What is a nation, and what is our duty to it.^ 
 Should we consider the nation as an absolute 
 being, a kind of personality with a morality of 
 
 82 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 its own, as some modern philosophers teach us 
 we should? Is not the nation often a mere geo- 
 graphical expression, a territory to be defended 
 against invasion, or to be the basis of action 
 against the people of another territory? More- 
 over, is the state based merely on physical 
 force? Is patriotism nothing more than the 
 "will-to-power"? Why, I say, should the moral 
 law direct and guide us in private life and cease 
 to command us in international life? Does the 
 right to claim the sacrifice of our lives in times 
 of danger give our country the right to command 
 that we surrender our conscience? I should 
 like to discuss briefly two answers that are 
 made nowadays to these questions. I shall 
 describe these as the answer of the politician 
 and the answer of the casuist, and shall try to 
 prove to you that the answer of the former is 
 superficial and immoral, and that the answer of 
 the latter, when not vague and unreal, is posi- 
 tively pagan. 
 
 The answer of the politician, based, as it is, 
 entirely upon the commercial needs of the 
 nation, can be easily disposed of. He argues 
 that we must go to war in order to expand 
 our sphere of influence. Though he may say 
 
 in poetic language that his nation is merely 
 
 83 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 seeking a "place in the sun," he is really seek- 
 ing commercial and military advantage. Such 
 statesmanship, moreover, strives to seize new 
 territories and to establish colonies, for the 
 sake of the profit to be gained by exploiting 
 them. 
 
 The assumption underlying the casuist's doc- 
 trine of absolute patriotism is that a people 
 can realize its highest moral ideals only in the 
 state and through the state, that only in the 
 state can men move, live, and have their full- 
 est being. This conception is nothing new in 
 the world. It is merely a restatement of a 
 very old idea derived from a time when the 
 ancient state absorbed all the activities of its 
 citizens, industrial, intellectual, and spiritual, 
 from the time when the state was, indeed, 
 the source of all knowledge, morality, religion, 
 and art. This German idea of the state is 
 only the pagan conception of patriotism and 
 nationality revived and clothed in philosophical 
 cant. It was the idea of Nebuchadnezzar, of 
 Alexander, of Pericles, and of Caesar. It was 
 the system broken up by Christianity when 
 it set man free by teaching man that he is the 
 son of God, and thus established the lasting 
 
 struggle between the flesh and the spirit that 
 
 84 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 has been going on ever since. Jesus taught 
 the world through the voices of Peter and Paul 
 that God is the Father of Gentile and Jew, 
 and that all men are brethren. . Since every 
 man is free to work out his own salvation, 
 every race and nation must be free to develop 
 its own peculiar characteristics in accordance 
 with its own opportunities. 
 
 The blow which Christianity struck to the 
 pagan idea has been repeated by modem 
 science. Science teaches us now that so far 
 is the state from being the foundation of 
 morality that all moral progress has, in fact, 
 been obtained in opposition to national law, 
 and so far is the national state from absorbing 
 all our activities, that, as a matter of fact, 
 nearly all the higher activities of man, science, 
 literature, religion, and art, are to-day not 
 national at all, but international. As the 
 years go by this becomes increasingly true of 
 more elements of civilization. 
 
 The so-called philosophical idea, the old 
 pagan idea, provides far too narrow a founda- 
 tion for true patriotism. We believe now that 
 each race has its inherent excellences and 
 virtues, that every nation has its opportunity 
 and its duty, and that every culture has noble 
 
 85 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 elements to contribute to the civilization of 
 
 the world. This, then, is our thesis: no nation 
 
 has a right to impose its culture upon any 
 
 other people on the theory that it is superior. 
 
 The Germans have no right to impose their 
 
 culture upon the Poles; the English have no 
 
 right to impose their culture upon the Hindus; 
 
 /the Japanese have no right to impose their 
 
 culture upon the Chinese; and the Russians 
 
 have no right to impose theirs upon the other 
 
 Slavs. Every people has the right, because 
 
 of this difference in talent and opportunity, 
 
 to develop its own culture in its own way, in 
 
 accordance with the conditions of its own 
 
 environment. This is the Christian doctrine, 
 
 this is the scientific doctrine, and we must 
 
 defend it to the last if we would have liberty 
 
 and peace in this world. 
 
 As this is the heart of our subject, let us 
 
 consider a little more carefully the grounds of 
 
 this contention that each race has the right 
 
 to develop its own culture. In the first place, 
 
 we affirm that no such wide and permanent 
 
 superiority of any race exists, and that, even 
 
 if it did exist, that race would not be justified 
 
 in imposing its culture on others against their 
 
 will. History teaches us that every assumption 
 
 86 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 of superiority of one race or nation over all 
 others is purely subjective; nobody believes it, 
 except the people who affirm it for them- 
 selves. Every such assumption of a single 
 race or people is at once challenged by every 
 other. Each people is naturally proud of its 
 national achievements. The Chinese, Japanese, 
 as well as EngHsh, Russians, French, Italians, 
 Germans, and even the Turks, all boast of 
 their superior culture. If one culture is the 
 best, who shall decide which one.? Will these 
 philosophers dare say that the merits of in- 
 tellectual and spiritual culture should be de- 
 cided by a contest of brute force? That is 
 practically what the German says. 
 
 Shall we judge a people by their attainments 
 in science, by their works in painting and 
 music, or by their morals and their religion? 
 No nation in the history of the world has ever 
 been found to be superior to all other nations 
 in all of these respects. The fact is, as a result 
 of natural law, we generally find that where 
 one nation is superior in one of these respects, 
 it is inferior in another. As the result of the 
 universal law of differentiation in nature, races 
 of men differ in talent, and the same races 
 develop different abilities under different con- 
 
 37, 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 ditions. Nature intends that each shall differ 
 from the other, so that one people will be su- 
 perior in one way and another people in some 
 other way. Count Von Buelow himself said 
 that the German is, as the result of his nature, 
 inferior in political ability to the Englishman. 
 If, then, we make political ability the cri- 
 terion, as we might well do, in deciding which 
 nation should govern the world, then, according 
 to Von Buelow, the Anglo-Saxon should rule 
 us all. Believing that our Anglo-Saxon fathers 
 gave the world in the American constitution 
 the best program for self-government mankind 
 has yet seen, we might be tempted to join in 
 this conclusion. 
 
 But even if the superiority of one nation 
 over all others could be proved, as it cannot 
 be, this does not justify that nation in at- 
 tempting to impose its culture by power of 
 arms on another people. Because the German 
 is superior to the Pole, he is not justified in 
 depriving the Pole of his land, his language, 
 and his liberty. History shows that in con- 
 quering the Czech, the Austrian does not and 
 cannot improve him, but by this very act 
 debases himself below the level of the Czech. 
 
 The experience of Austria since she conquered 
 
 88 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 the Czech, the Pole, and the dozen or more 
 other races she has attempted to govern, is 
 complete proof of what we here assert — that 
 superior culture cannot be imparted by physical 
 force. Her deterioration as a nation now 
 approaching its dissolution is directly traceable 
 to a wicked imperialistic policy based upon 
 this false conception of patriotism and of 
 nationality. Does Germany want to run the 
 same career.^ If she does, hers will surely be 
 the same end. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the principle 
 of nationality must be justified on other 
 grounds than the "will-to-power" of the people 
 supposed to have the superior culture. We 
 believe in the principle of nationality properly 
 limited, but the ultimate reason for the exist- 
 ence of individual nations lies not in the su- 
 periority of any one nation. We believe in 
 the principle of nationality not because any 
 one nation has all the virtues, for this is never 
 true; we believe in nationality for the very 
 opposite reason; that is, because every nation 
 has its peculiar virtues which deserve to be 
 cultivated. The Creator made this a world of 
 diversity. Diversity is the universal law of 
 nature, and integration and differentiation are 
 
 89 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 the most important processes of evolution. 
 There is diversity of nationaHty for the same 
 reason that there is diversity of individuality 
 and personality. Just as we have many lands 
 with different geographic features, one made up 
 of mountains, and another of plains, one pas- 
 toral and artistic, another agricultural and 
 scientific, so we have many peoples with dif- 
 ferent characteristics. As no land can produce 
 all the fruits of the earth, so no single nation 
 can produce all the fruits of culture. This 
 law applies to the political world just as it 
 does to the moral. God has made us different 
 men, with diverse languages, manners, cus- 
 toms, and arts, in order that each might fill 
 a place and do a peculiar work in the world. 
 For each should react upon all others, and so 
 make all nobler and better. Each nation, 
 therefore, has its own right in its own place. 
 Each, by virtue of its position and intellectual 
 powers, its agricultural, industrial, and social 
 activities, has developed a culture of its own, 
 limited, no doubt, and necessarily imperfect, 
 but its own. For this very reason, because 
 of these limitations and imperfections, and in 
 order to do a diverse work for a complex 
 
 humanity, as many nations as possible should 
 
 90 
 
INTERNATIONALISM OR IMPERIALISM? 
 
 be allowed to retain and develop their indi- 
 viduality and personality. We believe in 
 nationalities, then, not in order that all nations 
 shall be of one culture, not in order that there 
 may be one great empire, but for the very 
 opposite reason, that there may be many 
 nations with many cultures, each comple- 
 mentary to the other. 
 
 True patriotism is the very opposite of this 
 evil jingoism of the Germans. The ideal 
 nationality is born not of pride, but of hu- 
 mility. Nationality is not based on the su- 
 periority of any one people, but upon the 
 limitations common to all humanity. Nation- 
 ality does not justify the supremacy of the 
 strong. On the contrary, it imposes and pre- 
 supposes a scrupulous regard for the equal 
 rights of the weak, who may be as superior 
 in moral culture as they are inferior in mil- 
 itary power. The nation, like the individual, 
 is entitled to influence only by virtue of its 
 goodness, not by virtue of its might, not by 
 its "will-to-power," but by its will-to-service. 
 
 This selfish theory of nationality is thus 
 fundamentally wrong. Man does not exist 
 for the nation, but the nation exists for the 
 man. Nationality is a means and condition 
 
 91 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 of human advance, but it is humanity which 
 is the end; and not merely one part of human- 
 ity, but all humanity. "Above the nations 
 is humanity." 
 
 92 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 What will the world be now the war is 
 over? W^ill the result be worth the stupendous 
 price we have paid? Will all be waste and 
 chaos, or will it be an ordered world fit to 
 live in? Materially and physically speaking, 
 the world is seriously affected. Vast desola- 
 tion exists in many places. But what of 
 the moral and the spiritual condition of the 
 world? What about liberty, democracy, hu- 
 manity, and righteousness? What will the 
 war bring us of these? In short, what will 
 be the characteristics of the moral and spiritual 
 world. 
 
 In the May, 1918, number of the Atlantic 
 Monthly there was a remarkable article en- 
 titled "The New Death," in which the writer 
 analyzed the idea of death as it appeared in 
 the letters and lives of the young heroes who 
 had been facing it for four years in France. 
 The old death, which we have tried to shun 
 all our days and to conceal when it came, is 
 
 revealed by these latest prophets, says this 
 
 93 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 writer, as "a mere portal of an eternal pro- 
 gression," and the immediate result should be 
 "the consecration of all living." "As we step 
 into the future, we test our ground for its 
 spiritual foundation. If our faith is to lead 
 us where our dead boys have gone, it must 
 be a faith built like theirs, on spiritual values. 
 This is the lesson that the supreme splendor 
 of youth has taught to a moribund world. 
 To construct a new world on the faith that 
 their word and their sacrifice attest is the 
 sole expression permitted to our mourning; it 
 is the sole monument beautiful enough to be 
 their memorial." 
 
 The "new death" which our writer discusses 
 so eloquently is thus the opening of a new 
 life for the world. Through death the world 
 comes once again to its resurrection; into a 
 life richer, more abundant, and more perfect 
 — a life eternal. The real teaching of these 
 prophets of the trenches is therefore not of 
 a "new death," but of a "new life." 
 
 Let us consider some characteristics of the 
 
 new life of the world that is to come out of 
 
 death. Let us think not of death, but of life 
 
 — of the new life for America, the new life 
 
 for you, its heirs, the new life for the afflicted 
 
 94 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 peoples of Belgium, of France — of that new 
 life for all the world, for which we are willing 
 to give our lives. 
 
 In the first place, what will be the character 
 of the new world politically? What of the 
 new state that is to be? It is evident that 
 "the Lord hath a controversy with the na- 
 tions" to-day. What is the meaning of this 
 tremendous controversy? 
 
 Let us begin with confession. The war 
 marked the failure of our old civilization, for 
 that old civilization brought forth a calamity 
 that threatened to engulf the whole world 
 with the black night of barbarism. For the 
 moment chaos, brutality, and unreason reigned 
 supreme. To prevent this calamity from ever 
 occurring again there must be a new political 
 order, a new world state. 
 
 What shall this new state be? We, of 
 America, believe it will be a democracy, made 
 up of equal members cooperating for mutual 
 benefit. The old state, which at first was the 
 community organized for the purpose of se- 
 curing law and order — a mere policeman — has 
 in these modern times become the guardian 
 of all our economic, political, and social inter- 
 ests as well as of oiu* lives and property. The 
 
 95 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 result has been an increasing centralization of 
 power in the state, and a subordination of the 
 interests of the individual to the welfare of 
 the group. Out of this has grown the big 
 illusion of the day — the German conception that 
 the state has a sacrosanct character before 
 which the individual must bow in abject hu- 
 mility. A learned German scholar, long a 
 resident but never a citizen of this country, 
 comparing the German theory of government 
 with ours, said, "For the German the state is 
 not for the individual, but the individuals are 
 for the state." "And," he adds, significantly, 
 "the very scope of the German idea can afford 
 no other sphere than the world itself." 
 
 This is the theory of the state that we 
 fought, the theory that would make the indi- 
 vidual a mere cog in a machine more remorse- 
 less and more insatiate than all the inhuman 
 Tamer lanes of history. This is the reason why 
 we said that if Germany won, freedom would 
 perish. As for us, then, we declare "we must 
 be free or die who speak the tongue that 
 Shakespeare spoke and hold the faith that 
 Milton held." Our mission as Americans, as 
 defenders of individual liberty, is to bring a 
 moral realism into the state. The citizen is 
 
 96 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 not for the state, but the state is for the 
 citizen. 
 
 This does not mean that the state is not 
 necessary or that it does not possess author- 
 ity. The state is necessary and it must have 
 authority. It is necessary because no society 
 can cohere without organization, and it must 
 have authority in order to do its work. The 
 state possesses, however, no authority except 
 that wilHngly conceded to it and vested in it 
 by those who constitute it. It is, as our great 
 Declaration says, a "government by the con- 
 sent of the governed." 
 
 The authority of the state is further limited 
 by the universal moral order. There is a 
 single universal moral order in this world. 
 It is one and the same order for all men every- 
 where. The crime of Germany is that she 
 professes to believe that the state is a law unto 
 itself, that it can do no wrong. The result of 
 this doctrine is to shatter the moral universe 
 and introduce a pluralism of moral orders, 
 which leads to desperate and permanent chaos. 
 
 History is, first and last, a record of the 
 operations of the law of moral sequences. The 
 one sure thing in this world is the principle of 
 moral continuity which links up the sowing 
 
 97 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 of evil with the harvest of tragedy. "What 
 a man sows, that shall he also reap," is just 
 as true of nations as it is of individuals. The 
 chief sin of the times is that we do not apply 
 the moral code among nations as we some- 
 times do among men. As Lord Morley has 
 said: "Not only is truth made a subordinate 
 department of daily politics, but there is 
 something in the atmosphere of traditional 
 statecraft which paralyzes the moral sense. 
 The terms alter, but the issue is constant — 
 force against right, reasons of state against 
 principles of ethics; policy against justice and 
 truth; serpent against dove, fox against lamb; 
 narrow and local expediency against the broad 
 and the eternal." 
 
 Now we see how Germany has carried these 
 abominable principles to their logical, their cruel 
 conclusion. The Ten Commandments do not 
 apply between Germans and outsiders. General 
 Von der Goltz, for example, formulated and 
 promulgated Ten Iron Commandments for his 
 German soldiers. "Grow hard, warriors," reads 
 his new Iron Commandment. "The soldier 
 must be hard. It is better to let a hundred 
 women and children belonging to the enemy 
 die than to let a single German soldier suffer." 
 
 98 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 In modern Prussia the Beatitudes have become 
 a derision, the Sermon on the Mount a laugh- 
 ing-stock. Such is the result of this hideous 
 theory that the state can do no wrong. 
 
 Now we believe that a new type of state 
 will be established in the new world which 
 our boys conquered for us, and the founda- 
 tions on which this state will be built will 
 be not might, but right; they will be not 
 authority and efficiency, but good will and 
 justice. We cannot have peace in the world 
 anywhere without good will, and good will 
 cannot long continue without justice, and 
 justice cannot prevail unless there is righteous- 
 ness among the nations as well as among their 
 individual members. 
 
 Yet all history shows that individuals, classes, 
 and nations have been under the constant 
 illusion that they could get good for themselves 
 through despoiling or exploiting other indi- 
 viduals, classes, or nations; that they can get 
 something from others for which they do not 
 give or seek to give an equivalent return. 
 From this illusion has also sprung the devilish 
 belief that wrong should be repaid by wrong, 
 that we may remedy evil by returning evil. 
 
 That is the doctrine of hell. 
 
 99 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 This line of thought brings us to the very 
 heart of the social problem — the problem of 
 the relations of men and groups of men to 
 one another. The true formula on which to 
 organize all human relations is the formula of 
 service. Only as the ideal of mutual service, 
 of full reciprocity in conferring mutual benefits, 
 is realized by men in their living together, 
 is there a chance for stable and harmonious 
 and worthwhile human living. 
 
 The only cure for injustice is righteousness. 
 "The work of righteousness shall be peace; 
 and the eflPect of righteousness quietness and 
 assurance forever." If, therefore, we would 
 save the nations from eternal wars and de- 
 struction, we must "look for a new world in 
 which dwelleth righteousness." Such a world 
 our boys have conquered for us. 
 
 But war alone cannot end war. Might does 
 not rule the real world, the world of souls; 
 mankind must finally be governed by the 
 moral law. No mere military defeat of au- 
 tocracy can purge the nations of greed of 
 power, of the lust of conquest, of the pride of 
 mastery. We must, indeed, destroy autocracy; 
 and we must do justice to its victims, including 
 
 its own oppressed at home. But we must do 
 
 100 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 more than this: the will to power, which was 
 the cause of this war, must be replaced by the 
 will to love. 
 
 If this be a moral universe, as we believe 
 it to be, then the Europe which conducted its 
 affairs on the basis of lying, intrigue, and 
 spoliation could not possibly have escaped the 
 hell into which it was plunged. It might, by 
 increasing armaments, have safe-guarded itself 
 temporarily against the results of its wicked- 
 ness, but its mad struggle in the vicious circle 
 of repeated intrigue and chicanery and of 
 growing mutual menace, was doomed from the 
 beginning to bring on a terrible catastrophe. 
 
 These tremendous tragedies of history are 
 thus the self-vindication of the moral order 
 against those who deny it, in the conduct of 
 the affairs of the nations. The most awful 
 thing about it is that the moral stupor of 
 the statesmen plunges whole multitudes of 
 innocent people into death and destruction. 
 The statesmen arrange the game, fix the prizes, 
 and order the feast that is to follow, but the 
 people pay the price of it all with their blood 
 and their lives. 
 
 At such a time as this we must try to think 
 clearly and speak plainly. The curse of the 
 
 101 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 old statecraft was its atheism, its denial of 
 God. This atheistic statesmanship has again 
 and again plunged the world into misery and 
 destruction. From Babylon to Berlin the de- 
 velopment of the race was interrupted con- 
 stantly by catastrophes which were the di- 
 rect result of this atavistic faith in fraud and 
 force. It is the atheism which ignores this 
 overruling power for righteousness, that leaves 
 the moral order out of its reckoning and thinks 
 it can escape the consequences of evil doing by 
 a combination of clever statesmanship and of 
 military power. It is this atheism which turned 
 all Europe into an intolerable inferno. 
 
 I affirm, therefore, that our whole argument 
 falls to the ground if there be no God. If 
 there is no God, there is no universal moral 
 order. In a world without a God and without 
 a moral order the only law that pays is the law 
 of the jungle. The Germans are right: the 
 only statesmanship for a world in which there 
 is no God of righteousness is this combination 
 of craft and force, of treaty-breaking and mil- 
 itary conquest, which we saw so dreadfully 
 illustrated in their course in bringing on and 
 in carrying on their hellish war. 
 
 But our reading of history teaches us that 
 
 102 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 there is a God of righteousness, there is a moral 
 order that governs nations as well as men. 
 This is the teaching not only of past history 
 but also of present history. It is the teaching 
 of the events that are happening in this very 
 war. Abominable and frightful as are most 
 of the occurrences of this war, there are some 
 phases of it which ought to give us much en- 
 couragement. It is true that we saw on the 
 one side Germany and her allies carrying out 
 their hideous doctrine that the end justifies 
 the means, that treaties are only ^'scraps of 
 paper," that might makes right, that necessity 
 knows no law, that the earth rightfully belongs 
 to the nation that has power to take it, that 
 terrorism is a fine military measure, and the 
 murder of innocent women and children legit- 
 imate warfare. But on the other side we saw 
 a splendid array of nations, including almost 
 all the other peoples of the earth, united in 
 the defense of liberty, of the rights of indi- 
 viduals, races and peoples to determine their 
 own destiny, of the integrity of a moral law 
 between both men and nations and of the 
 principles of righteousness and humanity. It 
 is our joy that America was one of these nations. 
 This is the glorious sign of the times: that 
 
 103 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 there are nations who believe that God is still 
 in his heavens and still holds the balances be- 
 tween the nations. 
 
 The difference, then, between this war and the 
 ancient wars is that the last struggle was not 
 merely a conflict of arms; it was also and in 
 a larger sense a conflict of ideals. On the 
 fields of France right grappled with might, 
 justice with injustice, truth with treachery. 
 We believe that a new day has dawned upon 
 this old world because we saw so many na- 
 tions fighting for righteousness and justice, 
 liberty and humanity. 
 
 We believe that the new world is here, more- 
 over, because we see throughout the whole 
 world of humanity to-day a vast new mobiliza- 
 tion going on— Germany made a mobilization 
 of military power; we see a mobilization of 
 moral power. The events of the last four 
 years have blasted the old materialistic philos- 
 ophy. Racial barriers are being eliminated. 
 Class spirit is giving way to the spirit of de- 
 mocracy. A new understanding of brotherhood 
 IS dawning upon our consciousness and a deep- 
 ened respect for the rights of men is being 
 incorporated into our laws as well as into our 
 creeds. 
 
 104 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 Therefore, though victory for a time attended 
 the banners of the adversary, and the thrones 
 of the wicked seemed as soHd as the ever- 
 lasting hills, "nevertheless, we, according to 
 his promise, look for new heavens and a new 
 earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 Another most encouraging sign of the times 
 is the character of the leadership developed 
 in the nations fighting for humanity. The old- 
 time statesmanship was a statesmanship of pure 
 intellectuality, of little more than cunning. 
 But true statesmanship is not altogether an 
 affair of the mind. Mentality has its limita- 
 tions; an intellectual colossus may be a spiritual 
 dwarf. Cunning is no substitute for justice. 
 The soul has a right to a hearing. We may 
 crucify the soul, but we cannot destroy it. 
 We may ignore the conscience, but its voice 
 will not be stilled. We may scorn the laws of 
 the Almighty and make laws for ourselves, but 
 the laws of God will continue to operate. High 
 mentality coupled with low spirituality makes 
 the most dangerous combination conceivable. 
 We have witnessed the disastrous results of 
 such a combination. We may look, in fact, 
 upon that contest as a struggle between the 
 spiritual statesmanship that enthrones God in 
 
 105 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 the hearts of men and an intellectual states- 
 manship that makes power its god. The 
 philosophy of life, however, that ignores con- 
 science, honor, and the fundamental virtues is 
 doomed to defeat. "By their fruits ye shall 
 know them" is just as true of leadership as of 
 anything else. A leadership born of barba- 
 rism, that violates every principle of honor, 
 wrecks the fortunes and happiness of countless 
 thousands, that teaches men to worship at 
 the shrine of militarism — a leadership that 
 maims and kills and tortures, that thinks only 
 in terms of Zeppelins and submarines — this 
 leadership belongs in hell. 
 
 But a new order of statesmanship has come 
 into existence — a statesmanship that links 
 morality with intellectuality, that demands 
 nobility of soul as well as nobility of mind. 
 This new statesmanship, this spiritual states- 
 manship, is destined to play an ever-increasing 
 role in the affairs of nations. To this leader- 
 ship you will belong. 
 
 And what shall America be in this new 
 
 world of righteousness? AVhat will the new 
 
 America do to incorporate these principles of 
 
 righteousness and brotherhood into her life? 
 
 Our service of humanity must begin at home. 
 
 106 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 All our millions for the Red Cross and the 
 Red Triangle, all our billions spent for mu- 
 nitions—yes, all the thousands of precious lives 
 given for the salvation of others— will be for 
 naught if we do not learn through this war 
 to deal justly with our own people here at 
 home. Wliile fighting for liberty for others, 
 we shall not fail to win a larger liberty for 
 ourselves. 
 
 This, then, is the lesson which these times 
 bring us. This war has taught us that we 
 have souls, created in the spiritual image of 
 the Almighty, souls with immeasurable re- 
 sources waiting to be developed, and that 
 their development is the cardinal object of 
 our existence. Just now, however, we have 
 a more immediate task to perform; we must 
 first make this world a safe and decent place 
 to live in, a place in which the souls of men 
 can find their true development. 
 
 As we neared the end this war became 
 chiefly our war. Belgium, France, Britain, 
 and our other allies saved civilization for us. 
 But the sword passed to America. Ours was 
 the duty, the privilege, the honor, to take up 
 the flag of freedom and carry it on to victory! 
 
 Our task has been to put an end forever 
 107 
 
FIGHTING FOR A NEW WORLD 
 
 to Prussianism. By fraud and force Prussia 
 sought to conquer the world; if not by this 
 war, then, as General Von Freytag of their 
 General Staff has written in his book, by an- 
 other war soon to follow. To have listened to 
 proposals for a Prussian peace, to have com- 
 promised with this butcher of men and na- 
 tions and let him have all the spoils of his 
 crimes to fatten on, would have been as in- 
 famous as it would have been foolish. That 
 war for democracy had to be fought to a 
 successful finish, or we would have robbed 
 our children of their heritage of liberty and 
 would have left them to fight a still more 
 hellish war later. The contest was merely 
 the continuation of the struggle for liberty 
 begun by the fathers in '76 and carried on 
 through all our wars since. As our fathers 
 gave liberty to America, so it was our duty 
 to give liberty to the world. It is, then, the 
 spirit of America that fills us; in us the spirit 
 of America conquers again. The spirit of 
 America will bring in that "new world wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 108 
 
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