Danville High School - Medley Yearbook (Danville, IL)

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cords. Autocracy, or rules of brute force, has ruined nations and wrecked empires. It has devastated fertile and fruitful countries. It has led multitudes of brave men to destruction. It has left millions of people suffering in the throes of agony and death. It stands before the potent tribunal of public opinion as convicted of the blackest crimes in history. Democracy has much to its credit. When the Pilgrims, unable to endure longer the penalties of a tyrant king, came to the New World and founded a free colony open to all, they were the real pioneers of democracy. Weary of autocratic rule, they came to these shores to establish a more democratic government, free from the persecutions of a self-glorified ruler. But democracy was not so easily established. The pernicious influence of autocracy reached across the Atlantic; but the newly formed colony refused to longer bow to the behests of a distant ruler, declared that equality and liberty were the birthrights of all men, and prepared to fight in defense of their rights. After eight long years of bitter struggle, altho matched against the most powerful nation on the earth, who boasted jurisdiction in every quarter of the globe, they defeated their oppressors and were left to enjoy their richly deserved peace. Then it was that the long, broad avenue of human possibilities was opened and democracy was given its greatest advance. The fate of democracy is at stake. If the Central Powers should be victorious, it will have received its death blow, the uncounted centuries of progress will count as naught, and the heroes and martyrs of civilization will have lived and died in vain. The opposition to democracy has never been as powerful as now. Autocracy has challenged civilization. The crowned heads of Central Europe have turned loose the engines of destruction until the land has become a vast area of ruin. They have recognized the onward march of democracy and for years have been preparing to meet it; and today the whole world stands aghast at their deeds. They have upset the whole structure of civilization. In their thirst for increased power, for empire supremacy, for territorial acquisitions, they have defied the combined forces of democracy; and we, as a nation with the allied enemies of Germanic autocracy, are fighting for humanity, for the world’s freedom from the divine rights of kings, fighting for democracy and human liberation, and when the war clouds are rolled away and the mightiest of human struggles is over, Heaven grant that civilization shall witness the downfall of autocracy and the greatest epoch in history; the making of the world “safe for democracy.” J. Kieran. Page Twenty-eight

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Our Aim This year we have tried to make the literary department of The Medley worthy of its name. By that we do not mean that it is to be compared with the works of the masters. Neither are all of the good writers of the school represented. But we do believe that the selections here are as near the standard of literary excellence as could be obtained from high school pupils. The usual collection of two or three stories has been varied by an oration, some sketches, poetry, and an essay on Democracy which, in the years to come, when the world war is only a memory in the minds of the oldest inhabitants, may make interesting reading for our grandchildren. , “We March ! We March! To Victory!” What is democracy? Why is it so exalted, so valuable, so ennobling as to make it worth the sacrifice of millions of lives? Lincoln said, “It is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Webster said, “It is a government in which the supreme power is directly exercised by the people.” Altho we are the first people to adopt democracy permanently, it is as old as mankind. W’hen the world was first made from infinite nothing, man was given dominion over it all; but he fell before the designs of creation were carried out. And as he fell,—the victim of evil treachery, so have the innumerable hordes of the earth fallen and been conquered and forced into submission by cruel tyrants. History’s record contains incidents of glory and heroism and the slow, sure rise of democracy and civ-iilzation, but it also contains the many periods of tyranny, oppression, wars waged for lust and mad ambitions, of millions slain in the defense of right. So history proceeds ; so democracy struggles, sometimes in the light and sometimes in the oblivion of merciless oppression; so liberty ebbs and flows, like the restless waters of a mighty and untiring ocean; advancing, only to be broken and beaten back by the shoals and the rocks of tyranny. Democracy is now, as it has been for all ages, in danger of being crushed. The first records of kings mention them as making war upon each other. Wherever a monarchy has existed there has developed a lust for conquest and power. Thru the long ages of antiquity wars have been made upon unoffending peoples by brutal and ambitious monarchs. Modern history contains the same black re- Page Twenty-seven

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Divinity The moon is sunk in starry slumber, The soft, soft wind sighs a lullaby; The guardian stars, in countless number, Choir their praise to Him on high. The mists arise in fairy splendor, Slowly low’rs the cradle white; Night’s dark mantle folds around her, All is faded from our sight. Phaeton’s fire, and Dawn’s cool breath, Commingling—bursts a jeweled veil. ’Tis Morning! born of Evening’s death, That cries eternally, “All Hail!” Infinity, thy boundless vast, Is not for dwindling dust’s surmise, Thine endless future, thy pastless past! Let us worship and be wise. J. D. Muncie. “Eyes” When I was “little,” and used to read in exciting novels about the dreamy, langorous light which shone from underneath the heroine’s eyelids, or how the hero’s eyes glittered with a stern, death-defying look, I could never see such looks in real life. But now, since I am grown up—(is it?) or have seen more of life—(don’t laugh) or—there is a difference, anyway—I can look into people’s eyes and see and feel all things. Did you ever look into a baby’s round, blue eyes and feel the content, the sunshine mirrored there? I have. I have felt the glance of cold, gray eyes upon me, cold as steel on a winter’s night, as hard and unbending as the rocks, a glance which chilled and chilled, and numbed, and froze. Then there are the shining, twinkling eyes of a merry Irishman. They may be large or small, and of any color whatever. But how they make your heart expand, glow, and be glad again! I know a pair of beautiful eyes, so large, so brown, shimmering with a subdued light. I looked-into them and felt the soothing sense of being bathed in liquid radiance. “Ah! the beautiful soul of her!” I whispered. But one day I heard her talking loudly of the taxi-driver who had taken her out the night before—“And, kid, he says to me-----and I answers him back just like that, and says-” Dying eyes are horrible. They are wide open; they stare; and yet they are blank, unseeing, sickening, awful! We do not see them often—no! We should go mad if we did. I know a pair of the sweetest eyes! those of a girl who first was trustful; then she suffered, she doubted; for years she suffered and doubted everything. Then she fell in love. In the days of doubt the blue eyes, gray then, were cold, suspicious, hard, the eyelids compressed, the eyes never fully opened. One day she gazed, unobserved, at her beloved. The wide, blue eyes looked steadily; misty they were, full of a soft, luminous light; trustful they were, full of the innocence, the fresh hopes of childhood. And I know that this life was born again. Eyes!—they tell the story. Edna K. Sackett. Page Twenty-nine