Valparaiso University - Beacon / Record Yearbook (Valparaiso, IN)

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CLASS ORATION. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. C. C. SHERROD. EN have always loved freedom and abhorred oppression, nurtured liberty and abominated tyranny. Animated with such a spirit, the human race, through its course of evolution, must free itself from ignorance7 eradicate war and establish justice and tran- quility amongst its people. When we study the pages of history and trace the development of our people from their earliest forms, both as recorded and conjectured, and see- the rise and fall of states and nations, and observe the slow and upward trend of their on-marehing civilization, we must conclude that, somewhere in the distant future, lying out yonder as the goal to which the ever-restless soul has striven to approach as a limit, there is a conclusion as great and lasting as the Infinite Himself. We study the plot and classify the idealized characters of Hamlet and King Lear and others, and are stricken with wonder when we- try to conceive of a mind so magnificent. But this conclusion to which I refer, , to be reached only after ages of sacrifice, has a moral and an ideal incompar- able with the present attainments 0f the human mind. Hero-worship has been characteristic of every age, and a great factor in moulding the opinions and establishing the standard of morals of each particu- lar race. From the most ancient times men have honored those who stepped from the ranks and asserted themselves in such a way as to propound princi- ples, the following out of which would lead to happier and more comfortable homes, and at least give a colorable assurance of a greater and more beautiful soul. Such men were Confucius, and Socrates, and Plato, and Sir Isaac New- ton, and others. But formerly those who admired a great man and extolled his teachings were limited to his followers. Not until recently would the poet meet out justice to the man of medicine or the student of law; nor would the theologian even recognize the scientist. If we read the facts of history and their relations to each other in both our past and present, we can behold a great and inspiring destiny reserved for humanity. The tendency of historic evolution has ever been towards Imperial Federation; that is, towards a great federal union7 embracing all the states and nations of the world, organized under one central government, and mod- eled after that of the United States; this central power to be vested in a con- gress composed of men, elected by 'the people, representing respectively these iederal states and nations of the world. Disregarding the artificial govern-

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16 In cums 0m, imo est lem Dei 8 Mi, pea eius mm labascit

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18 Viowtute, mm, verbis F. L. HADE Classic Vestigia nulla Tezirorswn. JAMES C. SOMMER Classic