THE BLOOD OF THE NATION. 139 



Rut died cic the end he saw. 



With years and battles outworn; 

 Tliere was Harmon of Kennesaw, 

 And Uhic Dahlgren, and Shaw 



That slept with his Hope Forlorn. 

 < Lytle, soldier and bard, 



And the Ellets, sire and son. 

 Ransom, all grandly scarred. 

 And Rcdfield, no more on guard; 



But Alatoona is won ! 



So runs the record, page after page: 



"All such, and many another, 

 Ah, list, how long to name!" 



And these were the names of the officers only. Not less worthy 

 were the men in the ranks. It is the paradox of democracy that its 

 greatness is chiefly in the ranks. "Are all the common men so grand, 

 and all the titled ones so mean?" 



XLIII. North or South, it was the same. 'Send forth the best ye 

 breed' was the call on both sides alike, and to this call both sides alike 

 responded. As it will take 'centuries of peace and prosperity to make 

 good the tall statures mowed down in the Napoleonic wars,' so like 

 centuries of wisdom and virtue are needed to restore to our nation its 

 lost inheritance of patriotism. Not the capacity for patriotic talk, for 

 of that there has been no abatement, but of that faith and truth which 

 'on war's red touchstone rang true metal.' With all this we can never 

 know how great is our real misfortune, nor see how much the men that 

 are fall short of the men that ought to have been. 



It will be said that all this is exaggeration, that war is but one 

 influence among many, and that each and all of these forms of de- 

 structive selection may find its antidote. This is very true. The anti- 

 dote is found in the spirit of democracy, and the spirit of democracy 

 is the spirit of peace. Doubtless these pages constitute an exaggeration. 

 They were written for that purpose. I would show the 'ugly, old and 

 wrinkled truth stripped clean of all the vesture that beguiles.' To see 

 anything clearly and separately is to exaggerate it. The naked truth is 

 always a caricature unless clothed in conventions, fragments taken from 

 lesser truths. The moral law is an exaggeration, 'The soul that sinneth 

 it shall die.' Doubtless one war will not ruin a nation; doubtless it will 

 not destroy its virility or impair its blood. Doubtless a dozen wars may 

 do all this. The difference is one of degree alone; I wish only to point 

 out the tendency. That the death of the strong is a true cause of the 

 decline of nations is a fact beyond cavil or question. The 'man who 

 is left' holds always the future in his gi-asp. One of the great books of 

 our new century will be some day written on the selection of men, the 

 screening of human life through the actions of man and the operation 



