CHAPTER XIV 

 THE URGE OF THE NEW DAY 



THE great war is over. The menace of autocratic 

 world-power has been ground to powder. The birth 

 pangs of the New Day are gone. The European 

 world, torn and bleeding, wearily faces the task of re- 

 building herself into health and strength. The world 

 has been made safe for democracy. But democracy 

 is yet an infant to be nursed into a virile maturity 

 through years and decades of experiment, failure, self- 

 education, disappointment, enlargement, reshaping, 

 final triumph. 



America emerges from the war potent for aid in the 

 work of world reconstruction. Her resources barely 

 touched, her casualties relatively small, her strength un- 

 impaired, she must shoulder much of the world's bur- 

 den. She has fought effectively to help save for hu- 

 manity the freedom she has cherished as her own great 

 ideal; she must now wield her might on behalf of a 

 genuine democracy for all peoples. Nations must 

 learn to be both efficient and free. 



Is the farmer ready for the New Day? Shall he 

 reap the full harvest of " greater opportunity and 

 greater prosperity"? Is the American farmer ready, 

 first of all, to do his full share toward feeding the 

 hungry nations until they can care for themselves? 

 Perhaps here is his largest opportunity to help in re- 

 construction, for as Jane Addams has recently written: 

 ' There are unexpected turnings in the paths of moral 



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