These are three of the great things for which we should give thanks on this Fourth of July: the solidarity of Americanism; the leadership of our Universities, and a practical and popularly acceptable method, now a precedent for all time, of calling up the man power of the nation. A fourth is the resultant of them all: a great army of young men (as has been said many times), future leaders in political life, keenly alive to the real freedom of our American system and determined to uphold it and to stand no nonsense about it. But for the consciousness of our possessing this element, and but for our faith in it, we might well look with most anxious foreboding at many troublesome and dangerous questions now uppermost in our national life.

For in the midst of triumph sounds the note of anxiety—many discordant notes in fact. Will the treaty finally be ratified? Will peace last? Will the Germans respect their promises and fulfill them? Or will they, already talking again of a scrap of paper, straightway begin to prepare for a fresh coup twenty-five years or so hence? Must the peace-loving peoples of the world still apply themselves to that most distasteful of all tasks, the invention and manufacture and practice of means of destroying life and property in war? And what about internal affairs? Are individual enterprise and talent to be smothered by rule? Is the Constitution of the United States a worn-out old one-horse shay, ready to drop to pieces all at once? Is the Senate a back number? Is the peaceful rule by majority to be exchanged for Bolshevik dictatorship? Is our transportation industry to be ruined by taxes and rate control at one end and cost of labor at the other? Should we take an active part in the affairs of the Eastern hemisphere, and invite European and Asiatic powers to help regulate our continent; in short should the national policy called the Monroe Doctrine be abolished?

These and many similar questions are pressing for solution. They are not mere fancies; they are not partisan issues, though many stentorian shouters proclaim them such; they are live and vital questions which must be solved and will be solved, doubtless at great cost in treasure and perhaps at some cost in blood. That they will be rightly solved in the end I have no doubt. Nothing is settled, said someone, I forget who, until it is settled right. It is for you and me and all of us to bear in mind that our work is only half done: that our sacrifices and labors and efforts during this great war that is just closed, I hope forever, are but the beginning, and that we owe it to our country and our children to do what we can to encourage sanity, deliberation and temperance of thought, speech and action in all classes of the people.

Mild as that sounds, it is a stupendous task to perform. There rarely was a time when unthinking people were not more inclined to listen to a demagogue rather than a statesman; and few people think at all; still fewer think straight. It is a rebellious people, saying “Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits.” It is a time of epithets rather than of logic, of lying epigrams rather than solid truths. All the wealthy, it seems, are corrupt; all money in large amounts is tainted; even the scales of justice are accused of falsity. Ebullitions of this kind often indicate an undercurrent little suspected.

I realize that I am saying little or nothing that is new, and I have no new methods or theories to offer for meeting the situation. One thing is certain; before we can teach other people to think clearly, we must be able to think clearly ourselves; to formulate and make others realize the real issues; to perceive the fallacy or confusion in the opposing line of thought, and point it out without offense. It is a maxim among lawyers that a case well stated is half argued, and nothing can be more to the point at this time. We still have real statesmen; let us listen to them with attention and take care not to hurry too much in deciding. Impulse leads to irretrievable error much oftener than does deliberation. Sober second thought is usually the better.

But, notwithstanding this anxiety, let us rejoice in the great victory of Liberty over autocracy and militarism. As we look back over the last five years we see many a vision; some dreadful nightmares, others with the seeming of the good God taking direct part in the affairs of men. The rape of Belgium, the miracle of the Marne, the tedious deadlock in the trenches, the ghastly failure at Gallipoli, the collapse of Rumania, the tragedy of Russia, the debacle in Italy, the heroism of Ypres and Passchendaele and Verdun; then the ever present dark shadow of the submarine; the agonized cry of exhausted England and France for men, men, men, as one offensive broke towards Calais, another towards Amiens, another straight for Paris by way of Chateau Thierry, while our brave boys seemed to be training interminably; the halting of the Hun at Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry; the crouch of the American wildcats for their spring; until, as men’s hearts seemed to fail them, and the cry went up, “How long, O Lord, how long?” the little bell of St. Mary’s-by-the-Sea rang as it had never rung before. Peal after peal: some good news: what is it? “The Allies have attacked; the front between Soissons and Chateau Thierry is all crumpled up: the Germans cannot hold the salient.”

Smash after smash: it is our turn now; in Flanders, in Picardy, in Champagne, in Lorraine: by Britain, by France, by America, singly, doubly, and all together; each day a new victory headlined; the military lines approaching the French boundary; the thumbtacks moved each day on the war maps; St. Mihiel salient wiped out; Rheims freed of bombardment; Argonne Wood, our present day battle of the wilderness, takes time and its awful toll of human lives, but yields, for the first time in history, to an attack by American troops; Grand Pré and open country beyond. Forward again, until a great railroad line is cut, and Sedan, the catastrophe of 1870, becomes the final triumph of 1918. How we watched the telegraphic bulletins! How we studied the maps! Until, after one false report of an armistice, the real armistice came, and our peace-loving people, joint victors in the greatest war of all time, turned into a horde of lunatics.

What a day it was, that eleventh of November! I was in Boston to attend the wedding of a nephew, a Colonel of Artillery, who had commanded his regiment at Cantigny and had later been ordered to this country in connection with organization and training of troops. The guests had to walk, as no vehicle could thread the crowd. Late editions of the papers contained the armistice terms in full, and, as our somewhat numerous family was gathered for five o’clock tea, one member was deputed to read the terms aloud, and there were attentive listeners. After he had finished, no one spoke for a moment; and then a voice said, “That seems to cover the ground.”

Truly we have much to thank God for, this Fourth of July. We have left undone some things that we ought to have done, and we have done some things that we ought not to have done; but I cannot say now that there is no health in us. Once again we have had a new birth of freedom; once again we highly resolve that our dead shall not have died in vain; once again we resolve, and I think that we have shown by deeds our determination, that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”