The name is absent

342        Extracts from Addresses

ceived the most far reaching impetus in all history; and especially, there-
fore, at this time, is education the people’s best friend because it is the
only assurance that right will take the place of might. It is the only
guaranty that the rule of the law will prevail as against the rule of the
sword. It is the only bulwark that makes it worth while to formulate
and adopt Magna Chartas and Bills of Rights and Constitutions as or-
ganic laws for nations to live by. And, my friends, it is the only founda-
tion upon which a League of Nations can be built, a structure of peace
so tall and so conspicuous as to remind the world forever that Kaiserism
is dead. An autocratic form of government can thrive and even increase
in strength and power in a land of ignorance and of misery, but a gov-
ernment of democracy can last and endure only in a land of educa-
tion and of learning among the people. So, mindful of the importance
of the mission which brings you here, with the thoughts of our mingled
glory in the recent victory fresh in our minds, and proud of Great Brit-
ain’s part in that victory and proud of our common brotherhood in the
task of making the world a better place to live in, in the spirit of the
new freedom all over the globe, in the light of the new day of industry
and opportunity now dawning everywhere, I bid you feel that you have
come here among your own.

Chairman Baker: Before America entered the War we strove ear-
nestly to obey the commands of our great President to remain neutral,
not only in our acts and deeds, but in our thoughts as well. But from
the beginning of the War, throughout the great crisis of civilization, we
refused to be neutral, our hearts crying out in sympathy for our suffering
and dying brothers across the sea. Of all the nations of the earth, there
are none whose people, I assure you, lie nearer to our hearts than those
of dear old England, our mother country. We are proud now, as never
before, to call her our mother, and prouder still to be known as the chil-
dren of such a mother.

There was a time—not so many years ago—when the people of both
Britain and America were disposed to look askance at each other, and
unfortunately there were designing politicians in both countries, who, for
their own selfish purposes, sought to fan into flame the petty jealousies
and imaginary differences of the two peoples, but, thank God, that day
has passed forever, never to return. When America was forced by
Germany to declare war, millions of our brave boys crossed the At-
lantic to mix their dust with that of your sons on every battlefield of
France, and to-day thousands of them, tens of thousands of the flower
of England’s youth, sleep in silent graves from the Marne to the Rhine.

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