fathers in Boston hear the shout and when the King attempts to enforce his stamp act they board his ship and throw the cargo into the sea.
The Colonies are at war with the King. The big bell in Philadelphia is calling all to unite in common defense and Thomas Jefferson reads his immortal Declaration of Independence to the assembled leaders. His voice rings with a strange prophetic elation:
“We hold these truths to be self evident – that all men are created equal!”
The startled kings of the earth hear the new heresy in sullen wrath and join hands to crush the rebels. The German rulers hire to George III more than thirty thousand Teutonic soldiers with which to stamp out the threatening conflagration. The Hessians land on our shores and join hands with the scarlet ranks of the King of England.
To mock their shame a noble Prussian, trained in the school of Frederick the Great, offers his sword to Washington and becomes the Inspector General of our ragged half-starved army.
Steuben stands beside Lafayette and Rochambeau while Lord Cornwallis surrenders the British army at Yorktown.
Through ten years of defeat and anguish, of blood and suffering God leads the American Colonies at last into the sunlight of victory. George Washington, first president of the established union of free sovereign democratic States, delivers his inaugural address. A free nation rises from blood-red soil to haunt the dream of kings.
The rulers of earth are not slow to note the signs of the times. Democracy must be crushed. The handwriting on their palace walls is plain. He who runs may read. Imperialism challenges Democracy for a fight to the finish. The kings of Austria, Russia and Prussia meet in Paris and form the Holy Alliance. The purpose of their treaty is expressed in plain language. It has the ring of a bugle call to arms. They do not mince words:
“The high contracting parties, well convinced that the system of representative government is as incompatible with the monarchical system as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people is opposed to the principle of Divine Right, engage in the most solemn manner to employ all their means and unite all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative government wherever it is known to exist in the States of Europe and to prevent it from being introduced into those States where it is not known.”
Alexander I of Russia, Frederick William III of Prussia, and Francis I of Austria sign the solemn compact and fix their Royal seals. In due time the Bourbon King of France joins the Alliance against the rising Democracy. They would first crush the spirit of the French Revolution in Europe and halt the spirit of 1776 in America. They must re-establish the Crown over the revolting colonies of Central and South America and establish Russia’s claim to Northwestern America.
James Monroe, president of the United States, answers this challenge with the doctrine of a free America ruled by her own people. The leader of world democracy does not mince words. His message rings also with the note of a bugle call to arms:
“The political system of the Allied Powers is essentially different from that of America. To the defense of our own, which has been achieved with the loss of so much blood and treasure, this whole nation is devoted and we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. It is impossible therefore that the Allied Powers should extend their political system to either Continent of North or South America without endangering our life.”
Imperial Europe has flung down the gantlet. American Democracy accepts the challenge and the fight is on to a finish.
The King of Prussia wins the first skirmish and strangles with iron hand the murmurs of the people of Germany for freedom. Karl Schurz, Franz Siegel, Jacobi and their fellow students crawl through the sewers, elude the Prussian soldiers, and reach our shores to swell the rank of militant Democracy. All Europe rings with the headsman’s ax and from a thousand hilltops the ropes of hangmen swing in the stark heavens.
Those corpses of young men,
Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets – those hearts pierced by the gray lead,
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with unslaughtered vitality.
They live in other young men, O kings!
They live in brothers, again ready to defy you!
They were purified by death – they were taught and exalted.
Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let loose,
But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, counseling, cautioning.
Democracy hears these invisible councilors and sets her house in order for the coming world crisis.
The old Federal Union of sovereign states has proven too frail for the strain of the new era. A stronger Union must be laid with new and deeper foundations. “Liberty and Union one and inseparable now and forever” ceases to be merely the eloquent prayer of a great statesman. It has become the first necessity of the political system of Democracy. Abraham Lincoln realizes this in his soul stirring cry from the great battlefield:
“That Government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth!”
From her baptism of blood and tears the New Nation, strong, free, united, rises at last to face a hostile world, her house in order, her loins girded for the conflict.
Imperial Europe hastens to test her mettle. A princeling is proclaimed emperor of Mexico in a palace in Vienna, Austria, and sails for our shores. His reign is brief.
A few short months and Maximilian stands beside an old Spanish wall in a Mexican village and bids farewell to his friends. He is allowed to embrace Miramon and Mejia. With imperial gesture he throws his gold to the soldiers and bids them fire straight at his heart. The three fall simultaneously and the smoke lifts once more on a Western nation ruled by the people.
Europe has not forgotten. She is busy for the moment setting her own house in order for the supreme conflict which her leaders foresee with the advance of the dangerous heresy of people claiming the right to govern themselves.
The Emperor of Germany sounds the keynote in an address to his magnificent army – The Divine Right of Kings was never so boldly proclaimed by any ruler of the world. He speaks the last word of Imperial Culture to Modern Democracy:
“We Hohenzollerns hold our crown from God alone. Who opposes me I shall crush to pieces!”
The American Republic is but a lusty youth of untried strength among the nations of earth. The real battle between the Crown and the People for the mastery of the world is yet to be fought. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty today as yesterday and forever.
CHAPTER I
THE liveried flunkey entered the stately library and bowed:
“You rang, sir?”
He scarcely breathed the words. In every tone spoke the old servile humility of the creature in the presence of his creator the King. He might have said, “Sire.” His voice, his straight-set eyes, his bowed body, did say it.
His master continued the conversation with the two men without lifting his head. He merely flung the order with studied carelessness:
“Lights, Otto – the table only.”
The servant bowed low, pressed the electric switch, and softly left the room, walking backward as before royalty.
The two
