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§ 43

THE ARMY OF DEMOCRACY

By John G. Doyle

(Address before Vera Cruz Council, Knights of Columbus, New York City, Feb. 22, 1918.)

On this anniversary of the birth of George Washington, well termed "the Father of Our Country," your Council meets under inspiring circumstances. This day we have seen the ten thousand drafted men from Camp Upton parading in this city. The snow was falling as they marched. It clung to their shoulders. It made soft white flecks upon their hair. It filtered down their rifle barrels. They marched with erect heads. They were bronzed, vigorous, confident, virile. They swung down the avenue with precision and power.

And as we looked at them on this Birthday of Washington we saw in them the army of democracy. They were our brothers, our sons, our relatives, husbands and sweethearts of American women, members of American households. But a few months ago they were clerks, artisans, workers, producers, part of the great American people engaged in the pursuits of peace. They were called into service, not by the mandate of any military despot, not by the coercion of soldiery already in arms. They were summoned because their own elected representatives, men chosen directly by the people, had decreed that the fight for the liberty of the world and the safety of democracy should be made by the army of democracy, the able-bodied citizenry of the United States, called forth in the name of all the people to defend the liberties of all the people.

The snow on which they trod softened the sounds of their footsteps. It filled the vision with the thought and sight of winter. And as that great army marched, snow-covered, and treading through the white flakes, we saw, in fancy, another army marching above them. That ghostly army was clad in rags and tatters. The men marched with shoeless feet, and at every step the crimson stain left upon the ice over which they painfully passed told mutely of their sufferings. And at the head

JOHN GRANT DOYLE. Born Brighton, Mass., December 1, 1868; educated Boston Latin School, Harvard College, and New York University; M.D., 1891; lecturer New York City Board of Education, 1894-1897; lecturer at the Catholic Summer School of America; decorated by the Pope in 1909 with the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. Present address, 226 East 31st Street, New York City.

of that ghostly army marched George Washington, who was leading the starving patriots of the American Revolution in the winter at Valley Forge.

Seven score of years have passed since that patriot army made America free. Their deathless valor and sacrifice placed in the free air of heaven a new banner, the emblem of a new nation among the nations of the world, a nation "conceived in liberty" and calling upon all the world to grasp the message that American sacrifice and American blood had here destroyed hereditary government, the rule of caste, the restriction of opportunity, and had planted here forever equality before the law, government by the people, and ordered liberty, which give fullest expression to the best aspirations in political and civic life.

We rejoice in that heritage of freedom which American patriots won for themselves and for us, their posterity; that freedom which has inspired the advance of democracy throughout the world. We declare our unfaltering allegiance to the principles of government embodied in our constitution. These principles embrace government by laws enacted by elected legislators directly chosen by and responsible to the people, which laws are enforced by an elected executive, chosen for a brief term, and answerable for his acts to the people. These principles include protection of the rights of life and property and determination of equity by courts chosen directly by the people or confirmed by the people's elected representatives. In these principles we recognize the voice and the control of democracy itself.

In this great world-war we pledge to ourselves and to the world that American democracy represented on the battlefront by the sons of a free people is actuated by no selfish motive of aggrandizement of wealth or empire. We send forth that army that the honor and safety of the United States and its free institutions may survive, that despotism shall not crush democracy, that the sword shall not dominate the world, but that this, the greatest republic in the world's history, may continue its destiny of expanding and preserving free institutions and of bringing hither the peoples of the world who seek liberty and opportunity in peaceful development and prosperity, that they may here fuse into a great nation of freemen who shall advance the ideals of democracy in the world.

For these principles the army of democracy, a part of which we this day saw and felt inspiration from, and the greater army yet to go forth on foreign fields, march to the battle test. They and we pledge our unquestioning and wholehearted loyalty to these principles and the hopes and institutions of the United States. They and we unite in declaring

that we shall hesitate at no sacrifice of blood, suffering or treasure to bring victory to American arms, and to win a just and lasting peace which shall prove our America to be the hope of the democracy of the world.

CHAPTER IX

AFTER DINNER SPEECHES

8 44

LIBERTY UNDER THE LAW

By George William Curtis

(Speech at the seventy-first anniversary banquet of the New England Society in the city of New York, December 22, 1876.)

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY: It was Izaak Walton in his "Angler" who said that Dr. Botelier was accustomed to remark "that doubtless God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless He never did." And I suppose I speak the secret feeling of this festive company when I say that doubtless there might have been a better place to be born in than New England, but doubtless no such place exists. [Applause and laughter.] And if any skeptic should reply that our very presence here would seem to indicate that doubtless, also, New England is as good a place to leave as to stay in [laughter], I should reply to him that, on the contrary, our presence is but an added glory of our mother. It is an illustration of that devout, missionary spirit, of the willingness in which she has trained us to share with others the blessings that we have received, and to circle the continent, to girdle the globe, with the strength of New England. character and the purity of New England principles. [Applause.] Even the Knickerbockers, Mr. President-in whose stately and splendid city we are at this moment assembled, and assembled of right because it is our home-even they would doubtless concede that much of the state and splendor of this city is due to the enterprise, the industry, and the genius of those whom their first historian describes as "losel Yankees." [Laughter.] Sir, they grace our feast with their presence; they will enliven it, I am sure, with their eloquence and wit. Our tables are rich with the flowers grown in their soil; but there is one flower that we do not see, one flower whose perfume fills a continent, which has blossomed for more than two centuries and a half with ever-increasing and GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Born at Providence, R. I., February 24, 1824; died at Staten Island, N. Y., August 31, 1892; editor of Harper's Weekly, 1857-1892.

deepening beauty-a flower which blooms at this moment, on this wintry night, in never-fading freshness in a million of true hearts, from the snow-clad Katahdin to the warm Golden Gate of the South Sea, and over its waters to the isles of the East and the land of Prester Johnthe flower of flowers, the Pilgrim's "Mayflower." [Applause.]

Well, sir, holding that flower in my hand at this moment, I say that the day we celebrate commemorates the introduction upon this continent of the master principle of its civilization. I do not forget that we are a nation of many nationalities. I do not forget that there are gentlemen at this board who wear the flower of other nations close upon their hearts. I remember the forget-me-nots of Germany, and I know that the race which keeps "watch upon the Rhine" keeps watch also upon the Mississippi and the Lakes. I recall-how could I forget?-the delicate shamrock; for there "came to this beach a poor exile of Erin,” and on this beach, with his native modesty, "he still sings his bold anthem of Erin go Bragh." [Applause.] I remember surely, sir, the lily-too often the tiger-lily-of France [laughter and applause] and the thistle of Scotland; I recall the daisy and the rose of England; and, sir, in Switzerland, high upon the Alps, on the very edge of the glacier, the highest flower that grows in Europe, is the rare edelweiss. It is in Europe; we are in America. And here in America, higher than shamrock or thistle, higher than rose, lily or daisy, higher than the highest, blooms the perennial Mayflower. [Applause.] For, sir and gentlemen, it is the English-speaking race that has molded the destiny of this continent; and the Puritan influence is the strongest influence that has acted upon it. [Applause.]

I am surely not here to assert that the men who have represented that influence have always been men whose spirit was blended of sweetness and light. I confess truly their hardness, their prejudice, their narrowness. All this I know: Charles Stuart could bow more blandly, could dance more gracefully than John Milton; and the cavalier King looks out from the canvas of Vandyke with a more romantic beauty of flowing love-locks than hung upon the brows of Edward Winslow, the only Pilgrim father whose portrait comes down to us. [Applause.] But, sir, we estimate the cause beyond the man. Not even is the gracious spirit of Christianity itself measured by its confessors. If we would see the actual force, the creative power of the Pilgrim principle, we are not to look at the company who came over in the cabin of the Mayflower; we are to look upon the forty millions who fill this continent from sea to sea. [Applause.] The Mayflower, sir, brought seed and not a harvest. In a century and a half, the religious restrictions of the Puritans had grown into absolute religious liberty, and in two centuries it had burst.

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