Holten High School - Onion Yearbook (Danvers, MA)

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THE HOLTEN I1 manityf' In his ideal he is far ahead of his times. This ideal, if followed as he believes in it, would solve the problem of world peace. For only when the individuals of all nations truthfully and soulfully live the doc- trine of non-violence, will war be a thing of the past. Whether Gandhi succeeds or fails politically, his moral influence upon the world will be great, for, in the words of Archibald Henderson, the greatest victories of life are not won on the battlefieldg the spoils are not always to the victor, nor to the con- queror always the palm and the crown. Gandhi has wrested his vic- tory from defeat, and the end of souls that have not known defeat is victory. Cecil Peterson. CLASS ESSAY You can weigh John Brown's Body well enough, But how and in what balance Weigh John Brown. A few years ago, somewhere in southern France, a young man was thinking of John Brown. The man was descended from a bold Mexican bandit with Spanish and Irish blood in his veins, and on this day he was dreaming of John Brown. Since he was a poet and had the romance of Spain in his heart, he quickly dis- carded John Brown's body from his mind and dreamed only of his soul. And of a sudden he told us in these lines what he imagined John Brown was: Sometimes there comes a crack in time itself, Sometimes an image that has stood so long It seems implanted as the polar star Is moved against an unfathomable force That suddenly will not have it any- more. Call it God or Fate, Call it Mansoul, That force exists and moves, And when it moves , It will employ a hard and actual stone To batter into bits an actual wall And change the actual scheme of things. John Brown Was such a stone-unreasoning as the stone Destructive as the stone, and, if you like, Heroic and devoted as such a stone. Around this image Stephen Vincent Benet wove his American Iliad, John Brown's Body. This unusual poem is a complete picture of every phase of America's life during the Civil War. Benet presents his story in short, separate sketches which, he weaves skillfully together to produce his whole pattern. First of all, we meet the young Connecticut Yankee, Jack Ellyat. We follow him into the army, as a battle fugitive, and as the lover of a girl in the Tenn- essee woods. In contrast to him is the proud, aristocratic southerner, Clay Wingate, loyal to his light-foot- ed sweetheart, Sally Dupre, and to the Black Horse Troop to which he belonged. These two stories are fol- lowed each one to its end. With these main tales, in brief flashes We see John Brown's seige, his trial, and his executiong we see Lincoln in the White House 3 Spade, a runaway slaveg the battles of the war, from

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10 THE HOLTEN ment. He prefers to fail without vio- lence than to succeed with it, and if India cannot obtain freedom by pass- ive resistance, she cannot, in his opin- ion, obtain freedom with bloodshed. But once again India proved un- able to remain non-violent. There were dreadful riots at Bombay and Chauri Chaura. Gandhi issued a statement acknowledging the revolts as the third warning from God that India was not yet spiritually ready to carry out the policy of non-violence. Amid the angry cries and bitter words of his followers he courageous- ly withdrew the whole movement on the ground that it was degenerating into mob rule. In this hour of out- ward failure Gandhi rose to the greatest spiritual heights he had ever reached. Politically he had failed, but morally he had won his greatest vic- tory-the victory of the soul. It was at this point that he was ar- rested and charged with sedition. Al- though the government knew that he was not directly responsible for the outbreaks at Bombay and Chauri Chaura, it believed that indirectly he was to blame. The trial which follow- ed was one of the most remarkable in history and Gandhi pleaded guilty. In his great speech to the court he said, I do not ask for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite and cheer- fully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The respect in which he was held by the court is evidenced by the words of Judge Broomsfield, It would be impossible, he said, to ignore the fact that in the eyes of millions of your country- men you are a great patriot and a great leader. Even those who differ from you in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals and of even saintly life. In sentencing Gandhi to prison for six years, the judge fur- ther said, If the course of events in India should make it possible for the Government to reduce the period and release you, no one will be better pleased than I. In 1924, after serving two years of his term, Gandhi was forced to un- dergo a serious operation. Upon his recovery he received full pardon from the government and retired to his school, where he remained until 1929. During these years he was looked up- on as a lost leader. But recent events have proved to the contrary, and Gandhi is once again at the helm guiding toward self-government. The 'greatest contribution of Gand- hi to the world is his own life, which bears a remarkable analogy to the life of Christ. He has vowed himself to poverty and developed Christ-like powers of self-control, fortitude, and forbearance. All his actions have been marked by gentleness, simplicity of soul, humility, and forgiveness of enemies. Christ's sermon on the mount has exerted a tremendous in- fluence upon his life. He accepts Christianity as a moral doctrine, and practices its principles to such an ex- tent that he has been called a better Christian than many Christians. Yet for all his devotion to Christianity he remains steadfastly a Hindu in faith. For him personally the religion of his people is best, for it offers all that is necessary for his inner development, in that it teaches him to pray. Within his frail body lies an indom- itable soul. In his idealism he en- larges his own cause to make it the cause of humanity, saying, Home Rule is not really our goal. Our bat- tle is really a spiritual battle. We, the miserable outcasts of the Orient, We must conquer freedom for all hu-

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12 T THE HOLTEN Harper's Ferry to Appamattoxg great men and small men. But Benet's purpose was not mere- ly to paint pictures. He was a poet whose duty it is to interpret the pic- tures that he has painted. He reveal- ed the heart of a runaway slave or the soul of a general with the insight of a poet. He wrote a book that was not a book but living men. He look- ed into men's souls and made them live again for us. Listen to his des- cription of the death of Stonewall Jackson: He lay on the bed After the arm had been lopped from him, grim and silent, Refusing importunate death with ter- rible eyes. Now and then He spoke, with the old curt justice that never once Denied himself or his foe or any other The rigid due they deserved, as he saw that due. IF Pk Pk PF 2 Pk H4 Dk PF The slow time wore. They had to tell him at last That he must die. The doctors were brave enough, No doubt, but they looked awhile at the man on the bed And summoned his wife to do it. So she told him. He would not believe at first. Then he lay awhile . Silent, while some slow, vast reversal of skies Went on in the dying brain. At last he spoke. All right , he said. She opened the Bible and read. It was spring outside the window, the air was warm, The rough, plank house was full enough of the spring. They had had a good life together, these two middle-aged Calm people, one reading aloud now, the other silent, They had passed hard schools. They were in love with each other And had been for many years. Now that tale was told. They had been poor and odd, found each other trusty, Begotten children, prayed, disliked to be parted, W Had family-j okes, known weather and other matters, Planned for an age ,they were famous now, he was dying. The clock moved on, the delirium be- gan. The watchers listened, trying to catch the words: Some awed, one broken-hearted, a few, no doubt, Not glad to be there precisely, but in a way Glad that, if it must happen, they could be there. It is a human emotion. The dying man Went back at first to his battles, as soldiers do. He was pushing a new advance With the old impatience and skill, over tangled ground, A cloudy drive that did not move as he willed Though he had it clear in his mind. They were slow today Tell A. P. Hill to push them-push the attack- Get up the guns. The cloudy assault dispersed. There were no more cannon. The ground was plain enough now. He lay silent, seeing it so, while the watchers listened. He had been dying once, but that was a dream. The ground was plain enough now. He roused himself and spoke in a dif- ferent voice. Let us cross the river, he said, and rest under the shade of the trees.