Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1917 — SHOW YOUR FAITH IN AMERICA [ARTICLE]

SHOW YOUR FAITH IN AMERICA

By THOMAS R. MARSHALL,

Vice President of the United States. * p> 5 If we are standing in statecraft for the same things for which the Nazarene stood in religion, then we ought to be able to glean something from the discussion of his followers. Peter and Paul grew acrimonious over the relative merits of faith and works and the discussion ended with the somewhat caustic statement, “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” We have been running up the American Flag at all the school houses in America; we have been rising with solemn countenances whenever the “Star-Spangled Banner" is played, and we have proclaimed to the world our never-ending allegiance to those great principles of democracy upon which the republic was founded and is now supposed to rest. Now we have reached the point where our faith is being put to the touchstone of our works and we are soon to find out whether this love which we profess for our institutions, our country, and our Flag, is but a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal or whether It is a great and vital inspiration of individual and national life.

Our young men, with a devotion unexampled in the history of the world, are laying aside all the hopes of future years and are going gladly “somewhere In France” to offer, if need be, the last drop of blood In their veins as a free libation upon the altar of constitutional liberty. They cannot go half-clad, half-fed, unequipped or unassured that they will be properly looked after if disabled.

We did not prepare. We thought there was no danger. And In one year there came upon us an outlay of entraordlnary expense, which might have been prevented had we exercised foresight and courage, little by little, to get ready. It is futile, however, to hold post-mortems. The past is the dead and eternal past. This war must be fought, and it must be financed in order to be fought. My objection to Carnegie libraries is not directed at Carnegie nor at libraries ; It springs from a deep-rooted feeling that we do not take real interest In anything for which we do not make some sacrifice. I do not, therefore, want this war to be financed by those who are easily able to do so financially. I w’ant every man, woman and child in America, who has been waving the Flag, singing the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and bragging about the glories of democracy, to prove now by their works that they have a genuine faith in the American republic. That proof demands of us all that we take enough of the war obligations of this government to make us feel some sort of sacrifice for the cause in which each one of us professes to believe and does believe.