University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD 15 oned on the banner of the aggressor are such pagan shibboleths as these : Might is right, There is no higher law, There is no right or wrong, The State is the only reality and sub- stance, Man is made to serve the State and has no higher destiny, There is no international law, Neither in the heavens above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, is there aught that you shall serve but me. War Forced On Us as a Challenge of Our Civilization. And even for all that we did not go to war — it came to us. Our participa- tion in it has the soundest justification. Though it challenged our civilization, assailed our honor and threatened our existence, we shrank from it till our forbearance looked like cowardice and our patience like fear ; and we found ourselves at last on the battlefield, not because we had gone to it, but because they had projected the battlefield onto American territory by attacking ship after ship that flew the American flag. They belong together, therefore, in this solemn hour and this genuine cru- sade — the cross, the emblem of the Kingdom of God, and the flag, the em- blem of a Republic that stands for the fundamentals of Christian civilization. That is the pledge with which you and we respond to the eager inquiries of our country; and those are the tok- ens we tender of its sincerity. The message with which this conven- tion replies to the anxieties of the hour is even more re-assuring than its pledge. It is a message that springs from the very heart of your mission and goes direct to the heart of the mis- sion of our country in the war. Man Was Not Made for the State, But the State Was Made for Man. For what is the central principle of the system of education which this con- vention represents but this : Knowledge is power, but power of any kind, with- out restraint, is an evil worse than ig- norance or weakness ; knowledge is force, but force of every variety, undis- ciplined, runs straight to tyranny; and unrestrained power and undisciplined force, in the material order as well as in the mental, have their last root in those very principles of that false and pagan philosophy which has loosened this plague upon the world, Might is right, There is no higher law, There is no right or wrong, The State is the only reality and substance, Man is made to serve the State and has no higher destiny. The central principle of your theory of education declares further that there is no royal road of escape from power unrestrained and force undisciplined, whether they have taken possession of a man or a State ; that there is no short cut to im- munity from the evils of the reign and rule and ruin of those dire principles ; that as those evils have their root in those false principles, those false prin- ciples must be rooted up in individual life and thereby in national life, and in their place must be planted the eternal

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14 THE REDWOOD other. We commend the sagacious and high-minded statesmanship with which heaven has blessed her counsels, and we see a mark of heaven ' s favor for our cause in the inspired leader, Woodrow Wilson, it gave us for the struggle. We stand ready to promote our country ' s fortunes at the sacrifice of all our re- sources of human life and earthly pos- sessions. With all our strength and mind and heart we pray for victory to the arms of our country and her gal- lant allies. We hold no allegiance that conflicts with our love of the flag, and wherever it leads we are prepared to follow. Definition of Loyalty. Chesterton says : Loyalty is probably best to be de- fined somewhat thus : It is the senti- ment due to those things to which our obligation is in a sense infinite — that is, cannot be calculated as for barter, and can only be expressed by a general and final dedication of the affections. Thus a man owes loyalty to his mother, because nothing short of seeing her through any of her troubles could be commensurate with a gift which is mystical and absolute ; the gift of life itself and of life at the risk of death. In the same way a man owes loyalty to his country, because he cannot, even in imagination, set any limits to what he owes to the corporate culture and or- der that has protected his cradle and informed his mind. I cannot tell how much I owe of all things to my country, and, through it, to having certain well- guarded traditions in my soul, certain deep-sunken habits in my body. There- fore, the ultimate act of deserting what I conceive to be her interests and pro- moting the interests of any other peo- ple, would still be the act of Modred and Ganelon and Judas Iscariot. This, then, is loyalty; loving something as one loves one ' s mother, with an infinite gratitude for an infinite gift. That is the quality of the loyalty we pledge to this anxious hour. And we entertain it as we were taught it — not as a mere sentiment but as a solemn duty — the sovereign duty of the citi- zen — an obligation binding in the forum of his conscience. And we hold him a blasphemer who is irreverent to the flag. Present War Against Our Flag Is a War Against Cross of Christ. Close beside the cross, the emblem of our faith, we have raised the flag, the emblem of our country. Belonging side by side in every crisis, there never was an hour since our State began when the flag belonged so near the cross and the cross so near the flag as now. For this war against that flag is a war against the cross, as well, in its highest and holiest signification. It is a war against fundamentals that the cross stands for. It is a war against elementary things that the cross sym- bolizes. It is a war against the very throne of God ; and the events that dragged us in — unwilling and resisting — were only incidents of the impious and sacrilegious enterprise. Emblaz-

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16 THE REDWOOD principles of a higher law, inherent right and wrong, and essential good and evil. It is a fundamental theory of your educational system that men must he forever taught that just as there is a law of gravitation that holds the earth to its orbit, as really is there a higher law that holds mankind to its orbit also ; that there are principles of eternal truth from which spring prin- ciples of eternal justice ; that out of that higher law and from those eternal principles issue human rights and du- ties superior to the State and which no government may violate whatever its necessities; that among the most pre- cious of the principles that spring im- perious and inviolable from that higher law are these: Man was not made for the state, the state was made for man; there are principles of civilization that carry a divine sanction ; there are man- dates of international law that say, Thou shalt not, to a government even when they leave it no other alter- native; the end does not justify the means, with a state any more than with an individual. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar ' s, and unto God the things that are God ' s. Teachings of Christian Education the Very Axioms of Civilization. These are not novel doctrines that you teach and that are the heart of your teaching. These are not principles alien or antagonistic to the spirit or institutions of your country. These are not theorems out of touch with modern civilization. These are the very axioms of civilization for the tri- umph of which this nation has cast its far-flung battle-line in this momentous struggle. These are the very cells of the soul of the civilization for which this country is rushing her flag and her sons to the forefront of this mighty conflict. These are the very truths — sublime and stirring — with which Desire Cardinal Mercier, writing with the pen of an arch-angel, has roused and rallied the civilized world. Nor are these principles ethereal, too abstract or too intangible to take firm hold of the minds and hearts of men. Why, these very principles are that same spiritual force, mightier than the mightiest that material agencies can create, that takes its stand today in the great highway of time, of destiny, of civilization, of the world, and says with serenity, with confidence, with as- surance, to the most stupendous array of physical power that was ever mar- shaled in the history of men: You shall not pass ! ' ' And it shall not. Democracy Without Spirit of Individ- ual Restraint Merges Into Despotism. It is also a cardinal principle of your central teaching theory that these sov- ereign truths, inborn though they are in human nature and responsive to ap- peal, should find a place in education; and that out of them will come, with many other fruits, the all-saving vir- tue of restraint; indeed, that there is no firm foundation for that virtue but that higher law and those principles that issue from it. You hold fast, too,