We have become a world power, and therefore we have a world-wide responsibility, and that responsibility is to establish justice, not force; to build colleges, not battleships; to enthrone love, not hate; to insure peace, not war. Our mission is to strike the chains from the ankles of war-burdened humanity. Our duty is to proclaim in the name of the Most High our faith in the power of justice as opposed to the force of arms. May it be said of us that we found the world burdened with militarism, but left it blessed with peace; that we found liberty among the strong alone, but left it the birthright of the weak; that we found humanity a mass of struggling individuals, but left it a united brotherhood. May it be said of us that we found peace purchased by suffering, but left it as free as air; that we found peace bruised and stained with militarism, but left it ruling the world through love and liberty. May it be said of us that we fulfilled our mission as a world power; that we were brave enough and strong enough to lead the world into the path of universal peace.
THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD PEACE
By Levi T. Pennington, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at The University of Chicago, May 4, 1909
THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD PEACE
In the progress of the world the dream of yesterday becomes the confident hope of to-day and the realized fact of to-morrow. As old systems fail to meet new conditions and new ideals, they are discarded; and into the limbo of worse than useless things is passing the system of human sacrifice to the Moloch of international warfare. For centuries world peace has been the dream of the poet, the philanthropist, the statesman, and the Christian. That dream is becoming a confident hope. This generation should see it an accomplished fact.