ace would make America not simply a world power:
it would make her the world leader. Will we stop tagging at the heels
of Great Britain and Germany and travel this broadening road in which
we can be first? How humiliating to struggle along, a trailer in the
military procession! How noble to set the daring example of living up
to the belief in peace! Will we say: "See our hands; we bear no
bludgeons. Search us; we carry no concealed weapons. Militarism we
have thrown to the scrap heap of practices discredited and vicious. We
have stopped war's wanton waste of men and treasure; we rejoice in the
growing wealth of peace ideals realized"? Thus shall we speed the
steadily growing public opinion of the world, to the bar of which must
finally come every nation which does aught to break or hinder the
world's peace.

THE HOPE OF PEACE

By STANLEY H. HOWE, Albion College, Albion, Michigan

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Johns Hopkins
University, May 5, 1911

THE HOPE OF PEACE

The history of civilization is a record of changing ideals, and ideals
are best reared in the hearts of the world's young men. Inevitably,
nations look toward the cradle for their future and intrust the care
of their destiny to the hands of youth. "Tell me what are the
prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men,"
declared Edmund Burke, "and I will tell you what is to be the
character of the next generation." When the blood of youth is sluggish
and impure; when the young hold wealth more dear than worth, remove
the check of virtue from their selfish aims, establish Mammon as their
god, and, ambitious to govern the world, forget how to govern
themselves,--then nations choke and die. But when the blood of youth
is rich and pure, pulsating through the veins of the universe with
strong, resistless surge; when fathers teach anew the angel's message
of good will and peace, and sons build high their goal upon a pedestal
of service and of truth,--then nations breathe and live. What hope,
then, asks the world, finds the doctrine of peace in the ideals and
aspirations of America's youth to-day?

The nation faces a charge of militarism. It is the indictment of her
critics that never before in American history has the government
entertained an attitude so hostile toward her neighbors and so
dangerous to the interests of peace. They point to the attempt to
fortify the Canal and cry out that America would drain