In D'Annunzio's "Virgins of the Rocks" the protagonist expresses his belief that oratory is a weapon of war, and that it should be unsheathed, so to speak, in all its brilliancy only with the definite view of rousing people to action. Surely no man ever had a better chance of wielding the brilliant weapon than D'Annunzio, in his triumphal progress through Italy during that fateful month of May, 1915, when he uttered against neutralism and pacifism, germanophilism and petty parliamentarism, the "quo usque tandem" of the newest Italy.

Nor can we forget how Premier Antonio Salandra in his memorable speech from the Capitol, expressed the living and the fighting spirit of Italy, a spirit of strength and humanity, when he said: "I cannot answer in kind the insult that the German chancellor heaps upon us: the return to the primordial barbaric stage is so much harder for us, who are twenty centuries ahead of them in the history of civilization." To support his, came the quiet utterances of Sonnino (whose every word is a statement of Italian right and a crushing indictment of Austro-German felony) "proclaiming still once the firm resolution of Italy, to continue to fight courageously with all her might, and at any sacrifice, until her most sacred national aspirations are fulfilled alongside with such general conditions of independence, safety and mutual respect between nations as can alone form the basis of a durable peace, and represent the very "raison d'être" of the contract that binds us with our Allies."

This is the voice of right: the voice of victory which upholds it is registered frequently in the admirable war-bulletins of General Cadorna, than which nothing more Caesarian has been written in the Latin world since the days of Caesar. The simple words follow with which the taking of Gorizia was announced to the nation.

"August ninth.

…"Trenches and dugouts have been found, full of enemy corpses: everywhere arms and ammunition and material of all kinds were abandoned by the routed opponent. Toward dusk, sections of the brigades Casale and Pavia, waded through the Isonzo, bridges having been destroyed by he enemy, and settled strongly on the left bank. A column of cavalry and 'bersaglieri ciclisti' was forthwith started in pursuit beyond the river."

Now, the voice of Italy is thundering down from the Stelvio to the sea, echoed by forty thousand shells a day on the contested San Gabriele: a mighty thing indeed, the voice of Italy at war; a thing of which all Italians may well feel proud. And yet, there is another thing of which they are perhaps even prouder in the depths of the national heart: the voice of the children of Italy "redeemed." All along the re-claimed land, from Darzo to Gorizia, sixteen thousand children of Italian speech and of Italian blood, for whom Italian schools and Italian teachers have been provided even under the increasing menace of the Austrian aircraft or gunfire, join daily and enthusiastically in the refrain which the soldiers of Italy are enforcing, but a few miles ahead:

"Va fuora d'Italia, va fuora ch'e' l'ora, va fuora d'Italia, va fuora, stranier!" [From the Inno di Garibaldi: "Get out of Italy, it's high time; get out of Italy, stranger, get out!">[

[signed] Amy Bernardy

Japan's Ideals and Her Part in the Struggle

The people of the world, whether engaged in open resistance to German rapacity, or as onlookers, do well to see, as indeed they have seen since its beginning, that modern civilization is at stake. On every continent, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and both the Americas, recognition of this great fact was instinctive. It was obvious everywhere that, if Germany with its sinister aims, shamelessly avowed, and its terrible methods, relentlessly carried out, was to prevail, all the progress that had been made out of her barbarism and savagery would not only be imperiled but lost.