Soldan High School - Scrip Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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Spartacans, are all symptoms of a diseased body politic which needs the surgeon's lance. Labor makes unreasonable demands, but it has suffered much. The New Democracy demands that labor shall partic- ipate in the vast profits of capitalg that it shall sit down to the table of tempting things the world offersg that it shall share in all the precious offerings man has from the beginning greatly desired. But it shall share and not sit at the feast alone. Our New Democracy must in a word harmonize mercantile rela- tionship. It must give to brain, to brawn, to capital what each merits. This new ideal opposes secret diplomacy, advocates freedom of the seasg it-aims to make sacred and unbreakable the international rights of nations. It aims the carrying into practice the universal br0t1'1CI'l'l00d of mang its ultimate hope is a League of Nations. The New Democracy, if lived up to, will wield a greater power than the combined autocracies of the ages. America is to develop this ideal for the world. We have more resources at our command than any other nation. Our ever increasing populationg our great wealth: our abundance of material resourcesg our wonderful energy, or our so- called Yankee spirit, these powers have been given us not for our own aggrandizement, but for the betterment of the world. We can't go back to the selfish days e'er ever the war began: Our men have died on the battlefield for the rights of their fellowman. And if some shall whisper of narrow terms or wrangle for sordid gain, New tyrants shall shatter the peace we make and the dead shall have died in vain. We have fought and won a war. We have made a New Democ- racy. Our chosen messenger has carried our slogan across the seas. All the newly awakened peoples are chanting it. We hope that it may sink deeply into their souls and set the world free. -Elizabeth Barrere Dougherty. The Poet ofDemoc1'acy OETRY endures because it is integrally woven with man's real existence. It aspires to sustain the nobler part of QQ man during crises. It mirrors the life of the world. It , -' indirectly suggests the idea of democracy and the su- 'ig-i Jf premacy of the individual. Besides, poetry itself has be- come a democrat, a producer of Democrats. Richard Wagner tells us that the artist, poet and musician of the future is to be-the People. But who is to be the real poet of the S

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., .1-,-,-:QL '-g?f ' efigf 'i ' f GJ' - QQ,-:--i f?- ':7 The New Democracy HE trumpet calls of war have stirred the world for four years. Every great advance in civilization has been the direct result of war. The gain in this war has been the downfall of autocracy. The service star in the flag of civil- ization is the New Democracy. A Autocracy had its birth among savages, where the chiefs had supreme rule. Notwithstanding the progress of the ages, autocracy has never lost its savage fangs. This war has not only bared those fangs, but has buried them under the ruins of fallen thrones. 'ljgi ,L W - ,nys , P13 I- ' 4 .6 M, - .1141 all I Q4--7 America lighted the torch, which after more than a century blazed into the ideal of the New Democracy. Why did the Pilgrims leave England? Because they were oppressed and they hungered for free- dom, their own freedom. Why does this great nation recall with pride its kinship to that little band? Because they based their government not upon might but upon justice and right. In the present war to what country was the appeal made by both friend and foe for deliverance from the monster war? It was not to an autocracy but to a great democracy. Still, with all democracy had accomplished, it failed to prevent this terrible war. But out of its horrors had been wrought the ideals, embodied in a new democracy. So great is the scope of the new democracy that to attempt its definition belittles expression. We may call it freedomg we may call it prayer, we may call it soul growthg we may call it chivalry of man to man. It is all these. It has been truly said, There is nothing quite so wonderful in human history as this spectacle of America taking the high place on the judgment seat of the nations, and taking it not by right of might but by might of right. The love of freedom implanted in every heart finds expression in a desire for a voice in government. This, democracy gives. The New Democracy gives much more. It must give equal rights and privileges to all. And let us sketch the preamble to this new bill of rights. We, the people of all the sovereign and self-determined states of the world, in order to prevent the recurrence of this world catastrophe, to establish justice, promote universal tranquillity, and to secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty, do ordain and establish this Consti- tution for the United States of the world. The articles of this consti- tution are being drawn up at Versailles, and President Wilson has given to the body there sitting, the fourteen basic principles. One of this council's first tasks will be to satisfy the labor element. Labor, the basis of democracy, is a seething cauldron of discontent, expressed in strikes and riots. The Bolshevists, its I. W. W.'s, the 7

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',.,.-,-,.,,-4.--.-R-W: A .fwgw ir ,ff in, Y H t?-.-.,,.gZ-.,f-J,,..i? people, the ultimate expression of the right dualism of community and individual? Echoing from the uttermost parts of America come the two words: Walt Whitman. Reports show that Whitman was the poet most read by our lettered men in the trenches. Walt Whitman is the passionate idealization of world Democracy. He saw himself in all people and all people in himself. His theme as he defined it is: One's-self I sing-a simple, separate Person, Yet ut- ter the word Democratic, the word En-masse. Each one a different distinct individual and yet as a whole with the rest. Whitman's message is: I speak the password primeval g I give the sign of Democracy, and according to a poet interpreter it is Democ- racy, embracing all that is included in Liberty, Equality and Frater- nity. His liberty is the liberty of the whole individual. For him every Self is separate, eternal, perfect, and the Spirit of the Universe. He insists everything exists for the Individual. He resents all restraint that retards the development and expression of the Individual. In these stir- ring times we understand his vision. The soldier to-day in battle is at one with Whitman as never before. Whitman said there was nothing necessary to happiness but to live naturally and appreciate the joys all around us. He even spoke of death as soothing and delicate. He pictured it as a dark mother gliding with soft footsteps. So deeply has Whitman entered into the American soul that throughout this war a calm resignation marked the reconciliation with death by the mothers and fathers of the lads who died in service. Whitman stood for absolute equality for all men and for both sexes. All are equal and he is their bard. He sang for the divine average -the common people--healthy, honest, open-hearted men and women, and his passion was to level all up to their plane. Has this hope been accomplished in our great army? Let us see: the laborer's son and the heir of millions are rubbing elbows on the march. The servant is the master's superior oflicer. Whitman emphasized the fraternity side of democracy under com- radeship. His democracy made the free relationship between men more secure, so he said, than could lawyer or agreement on paper or force of arms. To Germany how sacred were her treaties? and how holy the body of another man-one of God's own creatures? But turn to our own men exercising that new chivalry of which Whitman writes. The soldier of democracy offered his life, not for his own country, not for his own people, but to protect the brothers, the sisters, the mothers, the fathers in those stricken lands over there. 9