Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 5 than 600,000 men of the North and more than 400,000 of the South, 1,000,000 of the youth and strength and hope of both North and South, died on the Altar of Patriotism and left no breed behind. PERHAPS THE SACRIFICE WAS NECES- SARY—PERHAPS NOT— BUT AT WHAT A PRICE! Dare you yet face with open eyes the human loss in that one war? The loss to the North is beyond measure. Old men weep when they recall the lads in their tens and twenties, the thousands of them who marched out with them and never came back. To take the seasoned soldiers and men past their prime, was loss enough. But ours was the slaughter of the innocents in the bloom of their young manhood. And in them were slaughtered the sons of their heroism, who ought to have been with us today, but WHO NEVER V ERE BORN ! Ah, tlie effects present themselves before us like the ghost of murdered Banquo. We are solemnly casting into the sea the treasure of our peo- ple, the product of our hands, the fruitage of the sweat of our brow, and yet we cannot point to a single act, moral, intel- lectual or physical, wherein we may be justified. As we have seen, mankind yields to two great influences — the intellectual, which affects his judgment, and the moral, affecting his sentiment. The world has ever strongly em- phasized the first and too often minimized the second as being effeminate and intangible. It has been the intangible, my friends, sympathy, love, honor, patriotic devotion, high unsel- fishness which has left its impress in every step of progress in individual or world development. On no other basis can the brotherhood of man be estab- lished and maintained, on no other consideration can Inter- national Peace be assured. From the treaty of Ghent sprang the fountains of English speaking history. Since that day these two mighty rivers of

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4 THE LOYOLA ANNUAL War’s insatiable call has ever been, “SEND US THE BEST YE BREED.” None but the best, the virile, the self-sacri- ficing will face the perils and endure the hardships for a great cause. The best go first. The best stand in the fore-front, the best are the first to fall, the FITTEST do not survive. And, if nations rise, by the survival of the fittest, so by the same inexorable law there comes national reaction and decay, when the fittest are destroyed and the parentage of the nation is left to the inferior and the unfit. The law works both ways. If it is a ladder by which the nation may climb to the higher levels of physical fitness and moral character, by the same ladder the nation may sink to lower grades. Many causes conspired to the decay and the destruction of the nations of antiquity, but one abiding and persistent cause was the continual and relentless wars, whose records make up almost all there is of ancient history. The wars of the Caesars were the slaughter time of Rome’s choicest sons. So with France — not even to this day has France recovered from the awful loss of her best blood in the Napoleonic war. The best were taken from mid-life, then from old age, then from youth. “A boy can stop a bullet of the Russians as well as a man,” said Napoleon. And all the way to Moscow the flower of France was strewn and withered before it came to seed. And what of these UNITED STATES? What has been war’s loss to this republic? For a young and peaceful nation to spend more than 67 per cent, of its entire annual federal revenue on armanents and war debts is surely an appalling situation. But what of our loss in manhood, in moral fiber, in genuine patriotism? A generation and a half ago, in your one great war, more

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f) THE LOYOLA ANNUAL Anglo-Saxon life and influence have flowed steadily on side by side, never overflowing their banks, but in their onward course bound in the very nature of things to mingle their waters in the great ocean of common destiny and accomplish- ment. The common goal is quite apparent, the waters may over- flow and God forbid, wars may come to hinder and delay, but surely as the day is day, as right is right, and rivers flow to ocean, problems of universal peace will ultimately find solu- tion in the broadest and deepest unity of purpose. The only adequate SOLUTION that presents itself for assuring the observance of international obligations and the maintenance of peace is by the institution of a tribunal, to which shall be submitted all disputes among nations. This tribunal shall be vested with authority to initiate inquiry into questionable acts of international significance, and to be clothed with all the physical power necessary for enforcing its mandates. Each of the associated powers bear in their equal proportion the expense thereof, for the maintenance of the peace of the world. The spirit displayed at the Hague Conference was noble and fine, but there was a lack of real earnestness of purpose upon the part of those in authority. Once let the big men of the nations get together on this question and International Peace would follow speedily. This noble cause is one that calls with special propriety for American leadership, but our vigil will be of short length. The day of Universal Peace is dawning. It is nearer than many of us suppose. The progress of civilization makes it possible. The triumph of Christianity makes it sure. It is brought nearer by every victory of intelligence over ignor- ance — of law over force — of love over hate. It is helped forward by every sacrifice of self, by every martrydom to the cause of liberty and truth. Democracy calls to it — for only