HENRY RUSSEL MILLER

THE AMERICAN IDEAL

Address (in part) delivered before the Typothetæ and published in the Typotheta Bulletin, October 30, 1922.

AMERICA has always had its ideal, and that ideal has grown, as ideals will, kept pace with the national growth. First, freedom; then a strong, united nation; and now a strong nation bearing the responsibilities of strength. Strength we admire, almost worship, here in America, and strong men we must and will ever develop-but for the heavier burdens, the greater service. But a strong man, living, striving, toiling for himself alone, is a miserable spectacle, a danger. The Lincolns, not the Bonapartes, express the American ideal of manhood. And a strong nation, living by itself, for itself, is a tragedy, the most miserable spectacle life affords. That is no part of the American ideal. We may differ as to methods, there is no doubt as to our ultimate objective. America, in the hearts of most Americans, is no Chinese empire, shut off from the world by unscalable walls, but a member of the world community, suffering as the world suffers, gaining as the world gains, and bearing its share of world burdens, even at the cost of local sacrifice.

We gained that knowledge and ideal during the World War, and for that ideal we sent men out to die. Wherever there was intelligent conception at and of the issue they went, that vision in their souls. And here I stand on sure ground. In France I heard hundreds of men discussing, in circumstances that provoked great thought, the problems and issues of the war. To this day I do not know the politics of a single man I knew in France. I never heard one say, "I am a Republican," or "I am a Democrat." At most their boast was, "I am an American," and even their boast was that of citizens whose

country was freely, loyally bearing its share of a world task. They fought, not for some party's prestige, not even for national power and glory, but to help beat down a thing that threatened the peace and freedom of the world; in the belief that upon their sacrifice other generations should build, bigger and better than our fathers builded, a world organized for friendship and peace.

I know there are shrunken souls who now avow a lesser motive, who dare assert that in the Great War America fought only through "fear and selfishness," with eye single to selfinterest. But when they claim that they give the lie to the idealism that in '17 and '18 swept this country from sea to sea, and gave to America the beauty and power of magnanimous passion. They cast insult on 75,000 white crosses standing "over there," mute but eternal witness to the fact that Americans could and Americans did rise above fear and self.

We best are true to America when we are true to America's best.

Let me tell you something I can never forget. July 20, 1918, was the turning point in the Great War. That day, before Soissons, one American division, facing seven German divisions, was trying to take Berzy-le-Sec, key to the Marne salient. Throughout that day was waged a hand-to-hand struggle without equal in the tale of American arms. All day long the lines swayed back and forth in attack and counter-attack. There was one tiny knoll that was taken and retaken six times that day, in the end remaining within our lines.

Toward evening I had to go forward, and just at dusk I came to the slope leading up that knoll. And everywhere I looked the trampled wheat was dotted by recumbent figures. There was no spot on that slope on which you could have stood ten feet from some one of those figures. They might have been weary soldiers that had thrown themselves down to sleep. Then I saw they slept indeed, the sleep no earthly reveille could disturb. I wish you could have seen that silent company under the summer twilight. For it was not gruesome then, and it was not all tragedy. There lay the best of America, not dead nor sleeping, but alive forevermore. For America, if it is anything vital, if it is anything lasting, means what they showed there:

free, unswerving loyalty to an ideal not measured by the inchrule of self.

And just beyond I came to an even greater thing, the thin line of the survivors. Weary beyond words to express, four days without food, save the crusts they had gleaned from the packs of enemy dead, souls lacerated by the ordeal of battle. They had expected to be relieved that night. Instead had come word that in the morning they should leapfrog the first wave, and go over once more, most of them-they knew it, to join their comrades in sleep. And I heard not a fear, not a complaint, not a doubt, not a regret. They were ready.

Friendship costs. For a friend you must expect to pay, in thought, in consideration, sometimes in sacrifice. Ideals cost. So do all good things cost, all true things, all beautiful things. There remains but the question, Are they worth the price?

Was it, for example, worth while for those boys to go out there to die? I think it was, and could give reasons for my faith. But I have a better testimony than my own.

give you another war picture.

The field hospital in what had been the Argonne town of Cheppy. The hospital, a great dugout in a hillside, to which had been added three tents, strung along a road over which rolled a constant river of traffic, rolling up to the infantry lines that clung to other hillsides a mile in advance. From those lines, by another road, came back another stream, in ambulances. A thin stream by day, but by night it rose, flooding in until all hands at the hospital could not clear away the wreckage borne in on the flood. Seven thousand from one division passed through that hospital in twelve days.

One night in the receiving ward a weak voice hailed me. I bent over him, a quiet young chap whose record I knew. Badly gassed at Cantigny, he had rejoined his company just in time for the July fighting. Slightly wounded there, he had said nothing about it, dressing his wound himself until it became so badly infected he had to be evacuated. He had come back just before they went into the Argonne. And now there he was, again on a litter, and on his face the gray pallor I was learning to know. He said, "Will you find out how badly I'm hit? I know I have it in both hips, but I've a queer pain in my stom

ach, and I'd like to know if I'm hit there." I brought a doctor. I saw the examination-saw the three blue, bloodless little holes just over the groin. The doctor said, "No, old man, you're not hit in the stomach. Keep up your courage, and you'll come out all right." It was not for me to contradict the doctor. To me he whispered, "Not a chance in the world, but get him up to Number Twelve, and see what they can do." So we carried him to the operating tent and left him there.

Two hours later I was at Number Twelve again and asked the sergeant at the desk, "How's Brown?" He said, "Going fast. He was asking for you. Better see him soon." So I went in and found Brown alone. And he greeted me with a cheery smile, "I knew that doctor was lying. Will you stay with me a little?" I couldn't say no to that. We chatted, of the battle up front, of mutual friends, he quite as if nothing had happened to him. Dying-and he knew it-dying alone but for the company of a chance acquaintance. And I heard not a cry, not a fear, not a complaint, not a regret. After a little he became too weak for talk, and then, just as the first gray of dawn was stealing into the tent, he looked up with another smile, and said, "Well, old man, it's been worth while, hasn't it?" And passed out on the wings of the morning.

I cannot weep for such as he-they have a reward we cannot even measure. I cannot weep for those others who, risking the same thing, bore the heat and burden of America's day in the field. I weep rather for those-nations, classes, or men-who have not seen the vision they beheld, have not climbed the heights they achieved, whose hearts and faces are not set where the fallen, with rigid fingers, point the course-Forward!

JOHN PURROY MITCHEL

MAYOR OF NEW YORK

This speech was given at the twenty-eighth annual dinner of the New York Southern Society, held in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, on Wednesday evening, December 10, 1913. Mr. Walter L. McCorkle in introducing the speaker said: "Gentlemen, this city of our choice has a close place in our affection and we are to her loyal. We are most fortunate this evening in having with us a grandson of old Virginia, who has been called recently to the high office of chief executive of this great municipality. I have the honor to introduce to you, Hon. John Purroy Mitchel, Mayor-elect of the city of New York.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SOUTHERN SOCIETY:-I am grateful to your committee for the invitation to come here this evening. I received it shortly before I left the city for the vacation which was necessary after the labors of the campaign, and at a time when I was not certain whether it would be possible, conveniently, to make arrangements, to meet the engagement of this dinner, but when Mr. Adamson told me that the Southern Society wanted me to attend this dinner, I told him that I would so arrange my affairs as to bring about my return to the city in time to come to this dinner, for it was one that I would not miss.

Your president referred to me as the grandson of old Virginia, wasn't it?

THE TOASTMASTER: Quite right, Sir.

For no other reason than because the members of this Society, or some of them, at least, voted for me in the recent election, but perhaps I have a somewhat better claim to the title than that, in view of the fact that my grandfather, while not born in Virginia, was a resident of the State at the opening of the