Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 26, 1912

What Will Be the Answer?

DISCUSSING in the North American Review for October some of the dangers now threatening the American state, Senator Miles Poindexter speaks as follows of the course of empire westward, and the hope of the future, in the world's civilization:—

The great central feature of our national growth has been the westward movement. It has molded our national character, and largely affected our laws and institutions. But within the lifetime of men now living the West has been settled, and now there is no more West in the sense we have known it. The public land is largely occupied. The frontier is gone, and great cities stand guard at the gates of the Pacific. Beyond that there is no more West, but the East. We are not only at the end of the continent, but at the end of the world. There never will be again for the human race the opportunities we have had, and perhaps still have. There never will be again the responsibilities that rest upon us. “That work,” said Cicero, “in which mankind approaches nearest to the divinity of the gods is in founding new states or in preserving those which are already founded.” The hope of the world is centered here. We are now in these issues that have slowly been taking form in the heritage of time, and that at this hour have reached an acute and critical stage,—to determine the course of civilization.

Let it not be sung:—

“The star of hope shone brightest in the West, The hope of liberty, the last, the best; Alas, that, too, has sunk upon her darkened shore, And hope and freedom light up earth no more.”