JIM BLUDSO, OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE

By JOHN HAY, Author, Poet, Lawyer, Diplomat; Ambassador to England, 1897-98; Secretary of State, 1898—. Born in Salem, Indiana, 1838.

Taken, by permission of the publishers, from "Poems by John Hay," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.

Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Because he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.

Whar have you been for the last three year

That you haven't heard folks tell

How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks

The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren't no saint,—them engineers
Is all pretty much alike,-

One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill

And another one here, in Pike;

A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row,

But he never flunked, and he never lied,

I reckon he never knowed how.

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed.

And so she come tearin' along that night—
The oldest craft on the line—

With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made

For that willer-bank on the right.

There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out, Over all the infernal roar,

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat

Jim Bludso's voice was heard,

And they all had trust in his cussedness,

And knowed he would keep his word.

And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell,-

And Bludso's ghost went up alone

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren't no saint,—but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,

'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That would n't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,-
And he went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't agoing to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

AMERICA'S MISSION

By ALBERT JEREMIAH BEVERIDGE, Lawyer; Senator from Indiana, 1899-. Born in Highland County, Ohio, 1862.

From a speech delivered in the Senate, January 19, 1900. See Congressional Record, January 19, 1900.

Mr. President, this question of our duty to the Philippines is deeper than any question of party politics. It is elemental. It is racial. God has made the English-speaking peoples the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America. The judgment of the Master is upon us: "Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you rulers over many things.'

What shall history say to us? Shall it say that we renounced that holy trust, deserted duty, abandoned glory, forgot our sordid profit even, because we feared our strength and read the charter of our powers with the doubter's eye and the quibbler's mind? Shall it say that, called by events to captain and command the proudest, ablest, purest race of history in history's noblest work, we declined that great commission? Our fathers would not have had it so. No! They planted no sluggard people, passive while the work calls them. They established no reactionary nation. They unfurled no retreating flag.

Do you tell me that it will cost us money? When did Americans ever measure duty by financial standards? Do you tell me of the tremendous toil required to overcome the vast difficulties of our task? What mighty work for the world, for humanity, even for ourselves, has ever been done with ease? Why are we charged with power such as no people ever knew, if we are not to use it in a work such as no people ever wrought?

Do you remind me of the precious blood that must be shed, the lives that must be given, the broken hearts of loved ones for their slain? And this is indeed a heavier price than all combined. And yet as a nation every historic duty we have done, every achievement we have accomplished, has been by the sacrifice of our noblest sons. Every holy memory that glorifies the flag is of those heroes who have died that its onward march might not be stayed. That flag is woven of heroism and grief, of bravery of men and women's tears, of righteousness and battle, of sacrifice and anguish, of triumph and glory. In the cause of civilization, in the service of the Republic anywhere on earth, Americans consider wounds the noblest decorations man can win, and count the giving of their lives a glad and precious duty.

Pray God that spirit never fails. Pray God the time may never come when American heroism is but a legend like the story of the Cid, American faith in our mission and our might a dream dissolved, and the glory of our mighty race departed. And that time will never come. We will renew our youth at the fountain of new and glorious deeds. our reverence for the flag by carrying it to a well as by remembering its ineffable past. will not pass, because everywhere and acknowledge and discharge the solemn responsibilities our sacred flag, in its deepest meaning, puts upon us. And so, with reverent hearts, where dwells the fear of God, the American people move forward to the future of their hope and the doing of His work.

We will exalt noble future as Its immortality always we will

Mr. President and Senators, adopt the resolution offered, that peace may quickly come and that we may begin our saving, regenerating, and uplifting work. Adopt it, and this bloodshed will cease. How dare we delay when our soldiers' blood is flowing?

THE VISION OF WAR

By ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL, Lawyer, Lecturer, Orator.
Dresden, N. Y., 1833; died in New York, N. Y., 1899.

Born in

Extract from a speech delivered at the soldiers' reunion at Indianapolis, September 21, 1876. Reprinted, by permission of the publisher, from "Prose Poems," copyright, 1884, by C. P. Farrell, New York.

We

The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation-the music of boisterous drums—the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators. We see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. see them part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and kisses-divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms-standing in the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves-she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.

We see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music of war -marching down the streets of the great cities-through the