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PATRIOTISM IN PEACE.

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT,

WILLIAM H. BARRETT,

OF AUGUSTA.

When in July, 1914, Germany declared war upon Russia and France it seemed to be the culmination of its decades of preparation to dominate Europe and to establish beyond possibility of overthrow the rule of force. Nothing since then has occurred to warrant the alteration of our belief as to such purpose. Austria-Hungary, in full sympathy, cordially complied with its obligations to its ally. Turkey and Bulgaria were subsequently convinced that their own selfish ambitions could be best attained by cooperating in the establishment of a rule of force, to be administered by "the courts" of the Central Allies.

What may have been the ambitions of the huge Russian Empire we cannot certainly know, but the evidence thus far adduced does not prove that Germany, or its ally, AustriaHungary, was in danger of attack from it at that time. France was left no choice in honor save fight, and with such glory has she fought as to equal not only her best past accomplishments but the highest ideals of a proud nation of freemen. Whether Great Britain fought because Belgium was invaded, or because she owed such duty to her allies, or because her best chance of ultimate safety was to fight at that time and thus render impossible the confident boast of military Germany: "Paris three weeks, London three months, New York three years," we do not know, but we do know from every fair examination of the record that she made the greatest efforts to avoid war, that she had no willingness to destroy the rights and liberties of free peoples and that her participation in the war was in accord with the wishes of her people and not

merely a result of the ambition of a few. And Belgiumwhat wonderful inspiration now and for all time to nations and to individuals do we find in her resolutions and achievements! With the certainty that she could not successfully resist the invader, with the bribe offered that, if she would but remain acquiescent, no harm would come to her, or, if it came, full compensation would be made, with the knowledge that, even if after harryings and destruction she should be restored, there would ever be over her the dreadful menace of this unrelenting neighbor, she disregarded her knowledge of the inequality of the conflict, she scorned the bribe that would substitute safety for honor, she took counsel of only those high principles that would preserve the soul of her nation, and so conducted herself that every drop of the blood of her soldiers and her martyred citizens that imbrues her soil, every devastated and desolated sanctuary and hamlet, every agony of her starved, persecuted, and ravished people now and will always furnish an imperishable example of what courage, fortitude, and high spiritual conviction can and should endure and accomplish.

Since that momentous beginning the events have been of such colossal magnitude, and at the same time of such infinite variety, that every emotion of every being having knowledge of such events and touched by them-and who but of the dullest clay has failed in this?-has been swept and swept again until it would seem that there could no longer be response; whole nations to arms with the exactness of mechanism and with the promptitude of the passing hour, with every detail of the most complicated of modern organizations, a stupendous army, thought out, at hand and effective, have elicited our admiration for efficiency raised to the highest power; a whole nation for weeks in retreat-apparently overwhelmed by superior numbers, superior guns, and by repeated defeats-with nothing to make victory possible except the inspiration of patriotism, which responded to the exhortation of its Commander in Chief, that, if you cannot stop the enemy, you here can die, and the miracle of the Marne was accomplished; the ruthless murder on the high seas of women and

children; whole nations driven from their countries and every horror of barbarity practiced upon the defenseless non-combatants; heroism on all sides with such utter disregard of life and sufferings as to make it almost commonplace; skill and tenderness and self-sacrifice in the care of the wounded to an extent never before known, because never before so necessary; reprisals of such awfulness and scope that they warn us how multitudes of brave and splendid men can be quickly reconverted to almost original savagery by acts of ruthless cruelty; the dreadful revelation of a nation's soul professing before mankind, even with the desecration on its lips of calling God to its aid, that no obligations of honor, no regard for the rights of innocents and non-participants, no foulness in the murder of helpless women and babes, no limitations on atrocities, no rights of man or God shall be permitted to thwart or delay the accomplishment of its ambition to establish the sway of might over right.

For a time these purposes were not clear to us, we did not know that "the fight was not a sordid scrimmage for power and possession"; we did not in our wildest imaginings conceive that a nation professing the virtues of civilization could be only savages concealed by hypocrisy; we did not know that even amidst protestations of amity, the perfidy was being practiced against us through intrigue and spies of attempting to destroy the very unity of our own people; and with a real division of sympathy among us we were willing to follow our leader's counsel and preserve neutrality.

And then we came to know that we had been blind. We had to some extent appreciated the awfulness of the crimes. and the magnitude of the conflict, but we had not realized that it was not a question of war or peace but a question of war now or war later and that the real issues at stake were the freedom of the world and the possibility of future peace. To many of us this came, though slowly, finally with overwhelming conviction. In the breast of those thus convinced and in the breast of those to whom this realization first came from our President's message, there must always be a reverential gratitude to Almighty God for the marvelous endow

ments of brain and heart that made this message possible. Its lucidity is such that it is understood without labor; its strength is such as to again prove that he who withholds his blow by reason of self-control and not cowardice ever strikes the hardest; its wisdom is such as to carry conviction of reason, as well as of emotion; and its profound sympathy with liberty makes it sublime.

And nothing in our national life could be more heartening or reassuring than the deep satisfaction and mighty response that surged from every section of our country in approval and support of the declaration of ideals and principles made by our President in behalf of the American people. And this national spirit cannot in fairness be ascribed to aught else than a fervent and fundamental love of liberty, an instinctive sympathy with human rights that is the product of our history and our institutions, an unselfish willingness, as declared by our President, "to fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own. governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free."

In the midst of war it may seem strange that I should ask your attention to some aspects of our life in times of peace. Conscious as I am of the tremendous impressiveness of the very magnitude of our contributions and sacrifices; that bigness marks every move and effort; that the glamour which is ever present with military effort lends its allurement to discussion of war; and that it is most difficult to lead the mind from the contemplation of the colossal and dramatic, the apprehension has come to me that an effort to discuss the more or less commonplaces of peace might prove rash, if not foolhardy. I have sought comfort, however, in the hope that the very contrast might lend some force to what I might say; that high principles are the same whether manifested in peace or war, in small matters or in great.

For many years I have been impressed with the belief, con

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