From his death dates the decline of Greece—she has been twenty-five centuries dying and is not dead even yet. To Greece we go for consolation, and in her armless and headless marbles we see the perfect type of what men and women yet may be. Copies of her Winged Victory are upon ten thousand pedestals pointing us the way.
England has her Chamberlain, Salisbury, Lord Bobs, Buller, and Kitchener; America has her rough-riders who bawl and boast, her financiers, and her promoters. In every city of America there is a Themistocles who can organize a Trust of Delos and make the outlying islands pay tithes and tribute through an indirect tax on this and that. In times of alleged danger all Kansans flock to arms and offer their lives in the interest of outraged humanity.
These things are well, but where is the Pericles who can inspire men to give in times of peace what all are willing to give in the delirium of war—that is to say, themselves?
We can Funstonize men into fighting-machines; we can set half a nation licking stamps for strife; but where is the Pericles who can infuse the populace into paving streets, building good roads, planting trees, constructing waterways across desert sands, and crowning each rock-ribbed hill with a temple consecrated to Love and Beauty! We take our mules from their free prairies, huddle them in foul transports and send them across wide oceans to bleach their bones upon the burning veldt; but where is the man who can inspire our mules with a passion to do their work, add their mite to building a temple and follow the procession unled, undriven—with neither curb nor lash—happy in the fond idea that they are a part of all the seething life that throbs, pulses and works for a Universal Good!
England is today a country tied with crape. On the lintels of her doorposts there linger yet the marks of sprinkled blood; the guttural hurrahs of her coronation are mostly evoked by beer; behind it all are fears and tears and a sorrow that will not be comforted.
"I never caused a single Athenian to wear mourning," truthfully said Pericles with his dying breath. Can the present prime ministers of earth say as much? That is the kind of leader America most needs today—a man who can do his work and make no man, woman or child wear crape.
The time is ripe for him—we await his coming.
We are sick and tired of plutocrats who struggle and scheme but for themselves; we turn with loathing from the concrete selfishness of Newport and Saratoga; the clatter of arms and the blare of battle-trumpets in time of peace are hideous to our ears—we want no wealth gained from conquest and strife.
Ours is the richest country the world has ever known. Greece was a beggar compared with Iowa and Illinois, where nothing but honest effort is making small cities great. But we need a Pericles who shall inspire us to work for truth, harmony and beauty—a beauty wrought for ourselves—and a love that shall perform such miracles that they will minister to the millions yet unborn. We need a Pericles! We need a Pericles!