The Protection of American Citizens

William P. Frye

This is an extract from a speech delivered in the U. S. Senate, Mr. Frye for a number of terms having represented the State of Maine in that body. It will be interesting to compare the sentiment of this speech with the one immediately following. The argument and sentiment of this declamation revolves about the illustrative story. This should be vividly presented. See the picture: the stretch of swamps and morass, the frowning dungeon on the mountain heights, the battle and the rescue. Some suggestive gestures will naturally be used, but make them suggestive only, and not imitative. Don't, for example, go through the movements of reaching down in the dungeon and lifting out the prisoner.

We hear a great deal of the duty the citizen owes the government, and too little of the duty the government owes the citizen. American citizens should be protected in their life and liberty whereever they may be and at any cost.

I think one of the grandest things in the history of Great Britain is that she does protect her citizens everywhere and anywhere, under all circumstances. Her mighty power is put forth for their relief and protection, and it is admirable. I do not wonder that a British citizen loves his country.

About twenty years ago the king of Abyssinia took a British citizen by the name of Campbell, carried him to the heights of a lofty mountain, to the fortress of Magdala, and put him into a dungeon without cause. It took Great Britain six months to learn of that, and then she demanded his immediate release. The king of Abyssinia refused to release him. In less than ten days after that refusal 3000 British soldiers and 5000 Sepoys were on board

ships of war, sailing for the Abyssinian coast. When they arrived they were disembarked, were marched seven hundred miles over swamps and morass, under a burning sun, then up the mountain to its very heights, in front of the frowning dungeon, and then they gave battle. They battered down the iron gates, they overturned the stone walls. Then they reached down into that dungeon with an English hand, lifted out from it that one British citizen, took him to the coast and sped him away on the white-winged ships to his home in safety. That expedition cost Great Britain $25,000,000.

Now, sir, a country that has an eye that can see across an ocean, away across the many miles of land, up into the mountain heights, down into the darksome dungeon, one, just one of her 38,000,000 people, and then has an arm strong enough and long enough to reach across the same ocean, across the same swamps and marshes, up the same mountain heights, down into the same dungeon, and take him out and carry him home to his own country, a free man-where will you find a man who will not live and die for a country that will do that?

All that I ask of this republic of ours is that it shall model itself after Great Britain in this one thing that wherever the American citizen may be, whether in Great Britain, Cuba, Turkey, China or Mexico, he shall be perfectly assured of the fullest protection of the American government.

Against Militarism

William J. Bryan

This is the concluding portion of a lecture delivered many times during the years 1915 and 1916. Mr. Bryan is generally recognized as one of the leading representatives of the pacifists, or peace party. It will be seen that the following selection is an answer, in a way, to the one preceding. The first paragraph deals for the most part with argument. This should be delivered with directness, earnestness, and force. The last three paragraphs are largely appeal, and require yet more force with strong feeling.

EVERY American citizen has duties as well as rights. Do you say that it is the duty of this government to take its army and follow an American citizen around the world and protect his rights? That is only one side of the proposition. The obligations of citizenship are reciprocal. It is the duty of the citizen to consider his country's safety and the welfare of his fellowmen. In time of war the government can take the son from his widowed mother and compel him to give his life to help his country out of war. If, in time of war, the government can compel its citizens to die in order to bring the war to an end, the government can, in time of peace, say to its citizens that they shall not, by taking unnecessary risks, drag their country into war.

Some nation must lift the world out of the black night of war into the light of that day when an enduring peace can be built on love and brotherhood, and I crave that honor for this nation. More glorious than any page of history that has yet been written will be the page that records our claim to the promise made to the peacemakers.

This is the day for which the ages have been waiting. For nineteen hundred years the gospel of the Prince of Peace has been making its majestic march around the world, and during these centuries the philosophy of the Sermon on the Mount has become more and more the rule of daily life. It only remains to lift that code of morals from the level of the individual and make it real in the law of nations, and ours is the nation best prepared to set the example. We are less hampered by precedent than other nations and therefore more free to act. I appreciate the value of precedent-what higher tribute can I pay it than to say that it is as universal as the law of gravitation and as necessary to stability? And yet the law of gravitation controls only inanimate nature-everything that lives is in constant combat with the law of gravitation. The tiniest insect that creeps upon the ground wins a victory over it every time it moves; even the slender blade of grass sings a song of triumph over the universal law as it lifts itself up toward the sun. So every step in human progress breaks the law of precedent. Precedent lives in the past-it relies on memory; because a thing never was, precedent declares that it can never be. Progress walks by faith and dares to try the things that ought to be.

This, too, is the leading Christian nation. We give more money every year to carry the gospel to those who live under other flags than any other nation now living or that has lived. The two reasons combine to fix the eyes of the world upon us as the one nation which is at liberty to lead the way

from the blood-stained methods of the past out into the larger and better day. We must not disappoint the hopes which our ideals and achievements have excited. If I know the heart of the American people they are not willing that this supreme opportunity shall pass by unimproved. No, the metropolitan press is not the voice of the nation; you can no more measure the sentiment of the peace-loving masses by the froth of the jingo press than you can measure the ocean's depths by the foam upon its waves.

The American Spirit Incarnate

Franklin K. Lane

This is taken from an address delivered at the commencement exercises at Brown University, June, 1916. This is a strong, direct talk on a subject of live interest. The concrete illustration in the introduction offers a fine opening for driving home the theme that is at once developed. And the appeal embodied in the picture of the Belgians before the American flag, together with the brief closing comment, if delivered with strong emotion and in sympathetic tones, can be made to move any audience.

THERE are two monuments in Paris which face each other that are symbols to me of the two conflicting spirits which make up the struggle of life. One is the tomb of Napoleon. And further down the boulevard Falguire's statue of Pasteur. Napoleon's tomb all see. Pasteur's statue few visit. It is a sitting figure upon a pedestal. And on the sides of this pedestal are figures in relief illustrating Pasteur's services to the world. On the front is the great group. A girl is seen just rising from a sickbed. She leans against her mother, who in turn looks up with ineffable gratitude into the face of