importance to the liberty-loving people of the United States.  They will not do the fighting; their blood will not flow; they will keep on dealing in options on human life.  Let the men whose loyalty is to the dollar stand aside while the men whose loyalty is to the flag come to the front.

Mr. President, there is only one action possible, if any is taken; that is, intervention for the independence of the island.  But we cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war; war means blood.  The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”  Not peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity.  Not good will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their fellow-men.  I believe in the doctrine of Christ.  I believe in the doctrine of peace; but, Mr. President, men must have liberty before there can come abiding peace.

Intervention means force.  Force means war.  War means blood.  But it will be God’s force.  When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force?  What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force?

Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastile and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line of Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made “niggers” men.  The time for God’s force has come again.  Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the song:—­

“In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea. 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. 

          While God is marching on.”

Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead for further diplomatic negotiation, which means delay; but for me, I am ready to act now, and for my action I am ready to answer to my conscience, my country, and my God.

—­JAMES MELLEN THURSTON.

CHAPTER VI

PAUSE AND POWER

The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself.

    —­GEORGE SAINTSBURY, on English Prose Style, in Miscellaneous
    Essays.