Hor)i)Er<: the duty of the scholar in politics. 71 



meaning of the original declaration, an encroachment upon the 

 rights of foreign nations and a menace to the peace and safety of 

 our own, and it is the duty of the scholar to impress these facts 

 upon the people through the press, in the pulpit and on the 

 platform. 



I come now to the second danger that threatens our national 

 peace — the existence of a rising war spirit among the people. I 

 do not by any means believe that such a spirit has become general 

 but it has infected considerable numbers and unless checked may 

 at any time get the upper hand. I attribute this spirit in large 

 part to the influence of the younger men who are rapidly gaining 

 control of public and private affairs. The older men have retained 

 control longer than usual by reason of the prominence and claims 

 that service in the civil war gave them. They are now passing 

 rapidly away and their places are being filled by the generation that 

 has grown to manhood since the war. This change is accompanied 

 by a rise of war spirit, much as the same spirit arose during the first 

 half of the century at the passing of the men of revolutionary 

 times. 



One cause of this spirit is to be found in a desire to extend our 

 territor}'. In Europe in recent times there has been a revival of 

 activity in colonization, indicated by the occupation of the minor 

 islands of the Pacific and the conquests of England and Germany, 

 France and Italy in various parts of Africa. The principal motive 

 of this movement has been a desire to find an outlet for surplus 

 population without incurring the loss that emigration of that sur- 

 plus to the United States involves. The American people have 

 caught the infection without having the same reason for it. The 

 result is a revival of the doctrine that it is the manifest destiny of 

 the United States to acquire control of the whole continent. This 

 doctrine is illustrated by an anecdote told of a dinner given by the 

 Americans residing in Paris during the civil war. The first speaker 

 proposed the toast: "The United States, bounded on the North 

 b}' British America, on the South by the Gulf of Mexico, on the 

 East by the Atlantic and on the West by the Pacific Ocean. " 

 "But," said the second speaker, "this is far too limited a view of 

 the subject. Why not look to the great and glorious future which 

 the manifest destiny of our race prescribes for us? Here's to the 

 United States, bounded on the North by the North Pole and on 

 the South by the South Pole, on the East by the rising and on the 

 West by the setting sun." "If we are going," said the third 

 speaker, "to leave the present and take our'manifest destiny into 



