I can not fully estimate the importance of the results which have been brought about nor clearly explain to you the problems which have arisen. They are too complicated and too recent. But I can indicate some of them and urge you to watch them in their development. I can urge that it will be your duty to aid in their solution, for they are problems which will require not only men of practical judgment and sound common sense, but men of education and higher training, men who know what have been the experiences of the past, who are equipped with special knowledge and versed in the sciences of government, of politics, and of economics.

What then are the results which have been achieved, what are the lessons already taught us by our war with Spain, and what are these problems which, if not brought on directly by the war, have at least come into prominence since its beginning.

The first result is important. Not until the Nashville's gun boomed across the bows of the first Spanish prize, not until a presidential proclamation had set the men from New England and those from the Gulf States marching in step, under one flag, against a common foe, was the sectional hatred engendered by thirty years of slavery agitation and five years of civil war completely wiped away. Now, truly, there is no North and no South and the Mason and Dixon line has become a myth. Upon the plains of Chickamauga and Tampa, upon the decks of warships off Havana and Santiago, and in the swamps of Cuba, the men of the North and the men of the South are fighting or ready to fight for a common cause, at last firmly reunited and again thoroughly and completely brothers.

Two years ago a line from north to south threatened to divide the East and West upon the issue between a gold and a silver standard of money. The passions of men were so inflamed and such bitter prejudices were aroused that political disruption was imminent, but now all this has vanished and men of all shades of political opinion have joined their hearts and hands to do battle for a righteous cause.

Ever since the troubles preceding the Revolution, Great

Britain has been our traditional enemy. The hatred which arose out of our struggle for independence and which was increased by the war of 1812 and subsequent controversies, has had a lasting influence upon American sentiment. The American youth was early imbued with this enmity toward Great Britain, and for generations it pervaded the political speeches of the day. But this, too, has vanished. Blood has begun to assert itself and Great Britain is today our staunchest friend. Commercial ties, a common language, common ancestry, common aims and purposes, and a common destiny now bind the two great Anglo-Saxon nations firmly together, and we hear statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic speak in glowing language of an Anglo-American alliance.

This, then, the disappearance of sectional hatred, is the first great and important result of the war. Who can fully estimate its value or appreciate its significance?

For years we have been told that American patriotism is dead, that the race has degenerated and that we no longer produce great men, that the orator who moved assemblies at his will, the statesman who so skillfully directed governmental affairs in dangerous crises, and the military genius who led our armies to repeated victory, are all figures of the past. But behold a revelation! Great men are needed and they arise. Dangers threaten the Republic and the plain American citizen becomes a statesman, a hero, a genius. Through the halls of Congress rings the impassioned eloquence of Cousins and of Thurston; McKinley grasps the helm of state; over the harbor of Manila rises the smoke of the greatest naval victory of modern times and the shores of the Philippines echo and reecho the name of Dewey. Into the mouth of a hell more terrible than that which confronted the famous "six hundred," steers Hobson and his seven heroes and crowns the American navy with a glory unequalled in its history. Patriotism is not dead. Genius lives, heroism lives, and the whole world looks on in amazement at the marvelous achievements of the American citizen.

I have said that our present war is unique in history. It

is unique because it was undertaken not for defense, for we were threatened with no danger, not for conquest, for we have repeatedly and emphatically asserted that we have no intention of annexing Cuba, not for revenge, for though the destruction of the Maine precipitated it did not cause the war. We are fighting purely for the sake of humanity, to rescue an oppressed race from the hands of a cruel despotism, a race, it is true, united to us by no common ties of ancestry, a race half-civilized, speaking a different tongue, and having different political ideals, but a race withal human. And what nation, in all the world's history has ever occupied a position more grand or more sublime in the eyes of God and man?

But righteous as our cause may be and pure and unselfish though our purposes, have we not by our interference in Cuba established a precedent which may prove dangerous? Does it mean that we have pledged ourselves to take up the cause of the oppressed in all lands at all times? Have we pledged ourselves to a policy of fighting for human rights wherever we find them violated? You will tell me that this is a special case, that the Cubans are our neighbors and we can not see them starved and maltreated without lifting our arms in their defense. Yes, but with means of communication bringing us rapidly nearer and nearer to the remotest corners of the globe and with our interests and our influences extending and enlarging, who will say who are our neighbors and who are not? Today, the Cubans, tomorrow perhaps, the crushed Armenians or the down-trodden subjects of the Russian Czar. I may be told that these dangers proceed but from an over-heated imagination, but it is not so very long ago that pulpit and press were clamoring for American interference to stop the massacre of Armenians. You know how American sympathy and charity responded to help the starving tenants of Ireland and to relieve the famine-stricken peasants of Russia. And how great a step is it from sending food and clothing to transporting arms and ammunition? We love to view our country in the role of a world benefactor. It appeals to our imaginations and to our