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

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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

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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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Whitman's tutor in Democracy ultimately was war. His creed forbade his fighting. But as he lived and worked with the soldier in the hospital, or cheered him in the field, and as he wrote of him, there came to him war's deep meaning. As war had tutored him in Democracy, now Democracy tutors him in war. He fully conceived that war was forging the unity of the states. He studied closely the characteristics of his age-Lincoln's age. He knew the souls, passions, ideas and flame-like results. He studied Lincoln closely and caught the deep, subtle and indirect expres- sion reflected in the face of this greatest man of the people. He sang divinely of Lincoln's death. In a vision he saw the coffin of Lincoln carried through the whole country, greeted by the States as crape- veiled women, accompanied by the bareheaded, grief-stricken eloquent throng. He heard dirges, the tolling of bells, the sweet, solemn music of the organs in every church in the land. And surrounding all, a black cloud hanging as a pall over our whole nation. Yet here it did not end. There is another vision: A Phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, Terrible in beauty, age, and power, The genius of poets of old lands, With finger pointing to many immortal songs, And menacing voice. 'What singest thou?' it saidg 'Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever- enduring bards? And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, The making of perfect soldiers. ' Now we might say the years with Whitman take a great leap. It was the time of the Civil War. He had come to realize the meaning of war, the terrible necessity of the last war against war. Again the veil lifts-and shows a vista of fifty years, and then he says: I see not America only, not only Liberty's nation, but other nations preparing, I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combina- tions, the solidarity of races, I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's stage, I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious and very haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the other, A stupendous trio. I see men marching and countermarching by swift mil- lions, 10