Freedom, Truth and Beauty | Page 9

and any body of citizens form a part of our republic only in so far--
"As they contribute to its character
As leader of the nations unto
Right
By thought or deed, in service for mankind."
We must lead the peoples of the world to freedom. And what is
freedom?
"'Tis intelligence
Aloof from harm and hamper, grandly circling
Its
native sun-lit peaks, the highest hopes
Heaved from the heart of man
upon the earth,
In ranges long as time and soul endure."
What, then, is America's duty to the oppressed race or the small nation?
It is to "wake and disabuse it of false hope"--
"and urge it on
To the development of its own powers,
The
culmination of its own ideals,
The star seed sown by God,--the only
means
By which a tribe can thrive to its perfection."

To make this possible, civilization must be given a more human content.
It is therefore necessary to awake human intelligence, "the godlike
genius," to a realization of the fact--
"--that, on having brought
This world from out the chaos dark
Of
waters and of woody wilderness,
And shaped it into hills of hope for
man,
Must providence its beautiful creation
With altruistic love and
tenderness;
So that all tribes of man, what'er their hue,
Have each a
hill where it can touch the star
That it has followed with its mental
growth."
Such a program is rendered imperative by the inexorability of the law
of race, which nullifies any attempts to force assimilation:
"It is a foolish, futile thing
To try to shape society by codes,
Vetoed
by Nature. Nature trumpets forth
No edict, through the instinct of a
race,
Proclaiming certain territory hers
And warning all
encroaching powers therefrom,
Without the ordering out of her
reserves
To see to it the edict is enforced.
Let politics keep off
forbidden shores."
If any powers preserve in a policy of oppression, our duty is plain:
"To teach the barbarous tribes throughout the globe,
Christian or Turk,
that all humanity
Is territory sheltered by our flag;
That butchery
must cease throughout the world;
That, having ended human slavery,

Old glory has a mission from on high
To stop the slaughter of the
smiling babe,
The pale, crazed mother, weak, defenseless sire,
All
places on the habitable globe."
Finally to render feasible the ideal development of all peoples, and put
an end to war, America must bring about a league of all nations. It
develops on us--
"To get the races by degrees together
To talk their grievance over, in
a voice
As gentle as a woman's....
There is no education in the

world
Like human contact for mankind's advance;
All differences,
then, adjust themselves;
But when two races are estranged by hate,

They grow so deaf to one another's rights,
That it soon comes to pass
that either has
To use the trumpet of artillery
In order to be heard at
all."
Recently, Doyle wrote the following lines. Their application is obvious:
"Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb
The mountain
and the star on trail of thee?
Thy wing-flash beams toward man, and
if it be
True inspiration--whether thought sublime,
Or fervor for the
truth, or liberty--
Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time."
What wonder that from so lofty an outlook his searching eye should
pierce the tragedy of "The Jews in Russia"--or elsewhere--should pierce
even the revenges that Time would ring in, and rest on a vision of
righteous peace!
DAVID KLEIN, Ph.D.
_AUTHOR OF LITERARY CRITICISM, from the Elizabethian
Dramatist._
GENEVRA
(_From the "Independent," May 30, 1912._)
The scene of Mr. Edward Doyle's new play is the Florence of 1400; the
atmosphere that of a plague stricken city in a time when man was
helpless, authorities hopeless, social life in shreds and patches. The plot
of the play founded on this state of affairs is rich in incident, varied and
sufficiently complex in color, passion and character to furnish material
for an exciting spectacular representation. The tragic element is strong,
but supported and shaded by the company of roysterers, a jester, whose
foolery is a compound of bluff of that period and bluff of modern
politics and athletics. The jester, the black company and the penitents,
together with the roysterers, form now the foreground, now the

background, of action, which in itself is never without the dolorous
sound of the death bell. The doomed city is under a spell comparable to
that set forth so vividly in Manzoni's "I Promessi Sposi." Says the
villain of the plot as he listens from his seat at the festive board:
"It bodes ill for the black Cowled company
To make a visit to a
festive house.
'Tis like death looking in and whispering 'Next.'
Fool,
call the servants. Bid them fetch the wine--
A cask of it--the best
varnaccio!
Here come my friends to help me drown the Plague."
Pictures like this as sharply defined are frequent and throw in shadowed
blackening on shadow. The author defends the use of a meteorological
phenomenon translated in the spirit of the time as supernatural by
quoting Dante