and shame, when it seemed as if our armies marched only to defeat.

We could have avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from strife. And if we had thus avoided it, we would have shown that we were weaklings, and that we were unfit to stand among the great nations of the earth. Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant!

Let us, the children of the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty days,

let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected; that the suffering and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured; for in the end the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the mighty American republic placed once more as a helmeted queen among nations.

We of this generation do not have to face a task such as that our fathers faced, but

we have our tasks, and woe to us if we fail to perform them! We cannot, if we would, play the part of China, and be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our borders, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk in a scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying ourselves only with the wants of our bodies for the day, until suddenly we should find, beyond a shadow of question, what China has already found, that in this world the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound, in the end, to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill. We could not help being brought face to face with the problem of war with Spain. All we could decide was whether we should shrink like cowards from the contest, or enter into it as beseemed a brave and

high-spirited people; and, once in, whether failure or success should crown our banners.

No country can long endure if its foundations are not laid deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift, from business energy and enterprise, from hard, unsparing effort in the fields of industrial activity; but neither was any nation ever yet truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone. All honor must be paid to the architects of our material prosperity, to the great captains of industry who have built our factories and our railroads, to the strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; for great is the debt of the nation to these and their kind. But our debt is yet greater to the men whose highest type is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, a soldier like Grant. They showed by their lives that they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win a competence for themselves and those dependent upon them; but they recognized that there were yet other and even loftier duties duties to the nation and duties to the race. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

HERVÉ RIEL

ON the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,

Did the English fight the French,

to France!

woe

And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,

Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the Rance,

With the English fleet in view.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;

First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;

Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;
And they signaled to the place
"Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick -- or, quicker still,

Here's the English can and will!"

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board;

66

Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass!" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all

the passage scarred and scored,

Shall the Formidable here with her twelve and eighty guns

Think to make the river mouth by the single narrow way,

Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,

And with flow at full beside?

Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring?
Rather say,

While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"

Then was called a council straight.

Brief and bitter the debate :

"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow

All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,

For a prize to Plymouth Sound?
Better run the ships aground!