We might extend the awful picture, but the story is the same, dread tale of death for nations as for men. Is not this enough? Is it not clear that this traitor to labor, this despoiler of ideals, this foe to morality, is not the benefactor but the destroyer of nations? And shall we not "here highly resolve" no longer to walk in this "valley of the shadow of death," but to hasten toward the dawning of a brighter, purer day? For in spite of pessimism, in spite of scholarship, in spite of history, the day is
"coming yet, for a' that—
When man to man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that."
NATIONAL HONOR AND VITAL INTERESTS
By Russell Weisman, Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio
First Prize Oration in the Eastern Group Contest, 1912, and Second Prize in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 16, 1912