It has not often happened in the world's history that any generation can speak with such assured confidence of future events as at present. When the living tongue is concerned with destiny it seldom does more than indicate the trend of things to come, examine tendencies and movements and predict, without any sure foreknowledge or conviction, what generations unborn may expect to find and the conditions they will create. Destiny for us, who speak of it, is an unknown sea whose waves, indeed, drive steadily onward before strong winds, but whose shore is still far distant. We know that we men of the hour can never see these billows break upon the sands of future time.
But today we may look forward to stupendous events; today there are mighty epiphanies quickening earth, not to be assigned to periods of future time, but at hand, so near that our living selves shall see their birth, and participate in their consequences. Nor can we stand as spectators of this worldwide hope; we must not only hear the evangel whose first mighty murmur is drifting to our ears from the future, we must take it up with heart and voice and help to sound and resound it. There is tremendous work lying ahead, not only for our children, but for us. Weighty deeds will presently have to be performed by all adult manhood and womanhood—deeds, perhaps, greater than any living man has been called to do—deeds that exalt the doer and make sacred for all history the hour in which they shall be done.
On Time's high canopy the years are as stars great and small, some of lesser magnitude, some forever bright with the splendor of supreme human achievements; and now there flashes out a year concerning which, indeed, no man can say as yet how great it will be; but all men know that it must be great. It is destined to drown all lesser years, even as sunrise dims the morning stars with day; it is a year bright with promise and bodeful with ill-tidings also; for in the world at this moment there exist stupendous differences that this year will go far to set at rest. This year must solve profound problems, determine the trend of human affairs for centuries, and influence the whole future history of civilization. This year may actually see the issue; at least it will serve to light the near future when that issue shall be accomplished.
There has risen, then, a year that is great with no less a thing than the future welfare of the whole earth. It must embrace the victory of one ideal over another, and include a decision which shall determine whether the sublime human hope of freedom and security for all mankind is to guide human progress henceforth, or the spirit of domination and slavery to win a new lease of life. On the one hand, this year of the first magnitude will shine with the glory of such a victory for democratic ideas as we have not seen, or expected to see, in our generation; on the other, its bale-fire will blaze upon the overthrow of all great ideals, the destruction of a weak nation by a powerful one, and the triumph of that policy of "blood and iron" from which every enlightened man of this age shrinks with horror. The situation cannot be stated in simpler terms; no words can make it less than tremendous; and it is demanded from us to make it personal—as personal to ourselves as it is to the King of England, the Emperor of Germany, or the Czar of all the Russias.
They live who, when this far-flung agony of war is ended, when the last hero has fallen and lies in his grave, when the final cannon has sounded its knell, must be called upon to make the great peace. They live who will weave a shroud of death for the exhausted world, or plant the tree of life upon her bosom; and since we, inspired by the splendor of our cause, are assured that the day-spring will be ours, we already feel and know that we shall see that tree of life planted. But do we also feel and know that we must help to plant it, that the labor and toil of each of us is vital, that none is so weak but that there is a part of that planting for which he was born, a part consecrated to his individual effort, a part that will go undone if he does not do it?
Look to yourself, man, woman, child, that with heart and soul and strength you perform your part in the great world work lying ahead; remember that not princes and rulers, not regiments of your kinsmen, not the armed might of nations can do your appointed task for you. Fail of it, and by so much will the life tree lack in her planting; succeed, and by so much will she be the more splendid and secure. Her name is Freedom and her fruits are for the weak and humble as well as the strong and great, for the foolish as well as the wise, for all subjects as well as for all States. Put out your power, then, for that most sacred tree; deny yourself no pang that she may flourish; labor according to your strength that her blossom shall win the worship of humanity and her fruit be worthy of the blood of heroes that has poured for her planting.
Much we hear of the Will to Power, and because that great impulse has lifted our enemies on the full flood tide of their might and manhood in one overwhelming torrent, Germany has been condemned. But not for her united effort and whole-hearted sacrifice should we condemn her—not for her patriotism and response to the call. Her reply is wholly magnificent, and it only stands condemned for the evil ends and ignoble ambitions toward which it is directed. The spectacle of a great nation at one, inspired by a single ideal and pouring its life, its wealth, its energy, with a single impulse in the name of the Fatherland can only be called sublime. The tragedy lies in the fact that this stupendous effort is not worthy of the cause; that for false hopes, false ambitions and mistaken sense of right and justice Germany has wasted her life and given her soul.
Who blames the Will to Power? Power is the mightiest weapon fate can forge for a nation—a treasure beyond the strength of commerce, or armies, or navies, or intellect of man to produce. But it is necessary that we define power in terms of spiritual value; and then, surely, it appears that Power and Force can never be the same. A Frederick I., or a Napoleon, may pretend to confound power with force, and believe that their might must be right. They possessed a giant's strength and used it like giants. But true Power is ever the attribute of Right and they who strive for it must cleanse their souls, see that their ambition is worthy of such a possession, and, before all else, strive to realize the awful responsibility that goes with Power.
Never was a moment more golden than the present for this nation to Will to Power. For once our hearts are single, our resolutions pure, our patriotism, as well as the objects that we seek to attain, sure set upon the line of human progress. In the sane and sacred name of Freedom, therefore, and at her ancient inspiration it becomes us now to strive by all that is highest and best in us to fulfill our noblest possibilities and give soul and strength that the united Will to Power of our nation may surmount that of her enemies, even as our goal and purpose surmount theirs.
It is for the victory that must crown this victory we should labor, and cease not while hand can toil, mind achieve, and heart sacrifice to make the vital issue assured.