ght about the French
Revolution."

'I will not weary you, gentlemen, with further extracts, but I ask you to
note--_and this is something which many of our public men have forgotten
to-day_--that at the very commencement of our career we were inextricably
involved with European affairs. Entangling alliances--no! But
segregation--impossible!'

For an instant his cold, academic manner was galvanised into emphasis.
His listeners, who were still smarting under Watson's words, and had been
restless at the unimpassioned tone of Van Derwater's reply, began to feel
the grip of his slowly developing logic.

'Thus,' the speaker went on, 'at the commencement, our national destiny
became a thing dominated by the philosophy of humanitarianism. When we
had shed our swaddling-clothes and taken form as a people, the issue of
the North and the South began to rise. Because of his realisation of the
part America had to play in human affairs, Lincoln, the great-hearted
Lincoln, said we must have war. Against the counsel of his Cabinet,
loathing everything that had to do with bloodshed, this man of the people
declared that there could be no North or South, but only America. And to
secure that he plunged this country into a four years' war--four years of
untold suffering and terrible bravery. When, during the struggle,
Lincoln was informed that peace could be had by dropping the question of
the slaves' emancipation, his answer was the proclamation that all men
were free. With his great heart bleeding, he said, "The war must go on."
Philosophy and America brought on the French Revolution. Philosophy and
humanitarianism brought on the war of North and South.

'The psychology of America, which had been hidden beneath the physical
side of our rebellion, took definite form as a result. The gates of the
country were open to the entire world. The down-trodden, the persecuted,
the discouraged, the helpless, no matter of what creed or nationality,
saw the rainbow of hope. By hundreds of thousands they poured into this
country. Slav and Teuton, Galician, Italian, Belgian, Jew, in an endless
stream they came to America, and, true to Washington and Lincoln, she
received them with the words, "Welcome--free men." And so we shouldered
the burdens of the Past, and men who had been slaves--white as well as
black--drank of freedom.'

There was no applause, but men were leaning forward, afraid they might
miss a single word. Van Derwater's d