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Show I31 War and Manhood l'ntistniix'r Davin Shunt JORDAN. Schiller a hundred years ago gave the text for my di-eriurse, ("liver the war "la, der Krieg \‘erschlingt immer «lie. llesten." race progress all that selection through is It hest.") the devours Comes. \\'ar means always the reversal of selection. It is recognized that the blood of a nation in a large degree determines its history. mw l|l"° nimm. mum Knowing the nature of a race we can fore- cast its achievements. The Saxon will make Saxon history wher- ever he goes. the Jew will make Jewish history, and the Negro wherever he goes will do deeds after his kind. I wish to show that in similar fashion the history of a nation determines its blood. The word "blood" in this sense is a figure of speech. meaningr heredity. for we know that the hasis (if heredA it\' is in germ plasni and not in literal lilotul. littt the old word will serve our purposes. The blood which is thicker than water is the expre. .ion for race unity. The nature of a race is determined bv the qualities of those of its inemhers who leave offspring. If anv class of men is destroyed by the action of social or polE teal force's, these leave no offspring, and their kind in time fails to appear. In a herd of cattle. to destroy the strongest hulls the fairest Cows. the most promising calves, is to leave the others to become the parents of the coming herd. This we call degeneration, and it is the only kind of race degeneration we know, yet the scrawny, lean, infertile herrl which results is of the same type as its actual parents. If on the other hand we sell or destroy the rough calves. the lean. poor, or ineffective, we shall have a herd descended from the best. These facts are the basis of selective breeding, "the examples. The condition which favors this is democracy, equality before the law, the condition which equalizes opportunity and gives each man the right to stand or fall on the powers God has given him. The only race decline ever known is that produced by those forces which destroy the best, leaving for the fathers of the future those who could not be used in the business of war or in that of colonization. Degeneraey of the individual is quite another thing, and has its own series of causes. But such degeneracy is not inherited. Unless entangled in the meshes of dis *ase, every child is free born, the son of what his father and mother (Jug/it m lltlf‘t' been. Neither education, intlolcnee, nor oppression can he inherited. They affect the individual life, but they cannot tarnish the blood. In the early (lays, when Romans were men, when Rome was small, without glory, without riches. without colonies and without slaves, these were the (lays of Roman greatness. Then the spirit of freedom little hy little gave way in the spirit of domination. Conscious of power, men sought to t‘\t‘t't‘l\C it. not on themselves but on one another. Little by little. this meant handing together, aggression, suppression, plunder, strug- gle. glory and all that goes with the pomp and ci"umstauce of war. The individuality of men was lost in the aggrandizemcnt of the few. lndepeiuleuce was swallowed up in ambition. patriotism came to have a new meaning. It was transferred from the hearth and home to the trail of the army. It does not matter to us now what were the details of the subsequent history of Rome. \Yc have now to consider only a single factor. In science this factor is known as "reversal of selection." "Send forth the hest ye breed !" That was the Word of the Roman warvcall. And the spirit of domination took these words literally, and the best were sent forth. magicians wand" which summons up any form of animal or plant useful to man or pleasing to his fancy. The same facts are fundamental in human history. Viewed in the large sense, a race of men is essentially like a herd of animals. If similar proce s: are followed its nature is changed in the same way and the same degree. The only way in which any race as a whole has improved has been through its preservation of its hest and the loss of its worst in the conquests of Home, Vir, the real man, went forth to hattle and to the work of foreign invasion; Homo, the human heme. remained in the farm and the workshop and hegat the new generations Thus "Vir gave place to Home." The sons of real men gave place to the sons of .srulA lions, stahle boys, slaves, camp followers, and the rit ratl of thmt- the great victoriom army does not want. The fall of Rome was not due to luxury. etl‘eniinacy, corrup- |