Bryan's Highest Ideal

 BRYAN'S HIGHEST IDEAL
-----
Noted Nebraskan Says Thought Will Rule the World
-----
FERVID SPEECH SWAYS LONDON
-----
Oratory of the Great commoner Captivates the Large Audience at the Thanksgiving Dinner of the American Society-- London Times Pays Unusual Compliment by Reporting Him Verbatim. 
     At the American society's Thanksgiving day dinner at the Hotel Cecil, London, William Jennings Bryan captured a large audience which was at first inclined to be cold if not hostile, says a special cable to the New York American. Before he had spoken a hundred words even the critical Choate, a master of after dinner oratory, was so moved by Mr. Bryan's impassioned eloquence that he applauded enthusiastically, while the Duke of Marlborough sat spellbound under Mr. Bryan's eloquence, applauding heartily the speaker's noble peroration.
     The London Times pays Mr. Bryan the unusual compliment of reporting him verbatim.
     Mr. Bryan, after thanking Mr. Choate for his many courtesies and paying a gallant tribute to the beauty of Englishwomen, whom he said he could not distinguish from American girls, said:
     "This society celebrates two occasions--the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving day. On the Fourth we celebrate our Independence; on Thanksgiving day we acknowledge our dependence. On the Fourth of July the eagle seems a little larger than on any other day, and its scream may grate more harshly on the foreigner than at any other time, but today we turn with reverence and acknowledge our gratitude for those blessings that have come to our country without thought of any aid from human beings.
     "On this occasion we may well remember that we but build upon foundations that have already been laid for us. All our natural resources were the gift of him to whom we bow in gratitude tonight. If we show any great development of industry we must not forget that every nation in Europe has sent us its trained artisans. If we have intellectually advanced we must not forget that those who have crossed the Atlantic and cast their lot with us brought their intelligence and aspirations for learning from Europe. The free speech which we prize so highly is not of American origin.
     "Since I have been here I have been profoundly impressed with the part Englishmen have taken in advancing the right of free speech. And before I came here an Englishman challenged my admiration because of his determination to make his opinion known when he had an opinion he thought he ought to give to the world. When I visited the Bank of England, I was grateful that, knowing my sentiments on the money question and the tariff, I was not driven away. I have admired the moral courage and manliness of those Englishmen who have dared, against overwhelming odds, to assert their opinions before the world.
     "We sometimes feel that we possess a sort of proprietary interest in the principle of government set forth in our Declaration of Independence, yet the principle therein set forth was not the invention of an American mind. Thomas Jefferson expressed it in felicitous language and put it into permanent form, but the principle had been felt and thought by men before. The doctrine that men were created equal and endowed with unalienable rights and that governments derived their just powers from the consent of the governed was not invented in the United Sates of America. It did not come from an American mind; it did not come so much from any mind as it was an emanation of the human heart. It had been in the hearts of men for ages before Columbus turned the prow of his vessel westward, before the barons wrested the Magna Charta from King John. Before Homer sang that sentiment had nestled in the heart of man and nerved him to resist the oppressor. That sentiment was not even of human origin.
     "Our own great Lincoln declared it in the toast, 'God himself, who implanted in every human heart the love of liberty.' When God created man, when he gave him life, he linked with life the love of liberty. We have received great blessings from God and from all the world, and we cannot make adequate return to those from whom we have received those gifts. It is not in our power to repay the Father above the debt we owe him nor can we make return to those who have sacrificed so much in the past. 
     "We cannot make return to the generations past; we must endeavor to pay our debt to the generation living and that to come. We must discharge our debt not to the dead, but to the living.
     "How can we discharge this debt we owe? In but one way, and that is by giving the world something equal in behalf of that we have received from the world. What is the greatest gift man can bestow upon man? Food, clothing, wealth? No; they are evanescent. We must give him an ideal that shall be with him always, giving him a better conception of his relations to his fellow men.
     "I know of no greater services that my country can furnish the world than to give it the highest ideal the world has known, and that ideal must be so far above us that it will keep us looking up all our lives and so far in advance of us that we shall never overtake it even to the hour of our death.
     "Our nation must make its contribution to the welfare of the world, and it is no reflection upon those who have gone before to say we might do better than they have done. We would not meet the responsibilities of today if we did not build still higher the social structure to which they devoted their lives. The world has made progress. No longer do ambition and avarice furnish sufficient excuse for war. Today you cannot jusitfy bloodshed except in defense of right already ascertained, and then only when every possible means for peace has been exhausted.
     "The world has made progress. We have reached a point where the greatest man today is the man who will die not in securing something he might desire, but in defense of his rights. We recognize the moral courage of the man who is willing to die in defense of his rights, but there is a higher ground. Is he great who will die in defense of his rights?
     "There is yet to come the greater man who will die rather than trespass upon the rights of another man.
     "Hail to the nation, whatever its name may be, that leads the world toward a realization of this higher ideal!
     "I am glad the world has come to recognize there is something stronger than physical force. None stated it better than your great countryman, Carlyle, when he said thought was stronger than parks of artillery and ultimately molded the world like soft clay, and behind thought was love.
     "There never was a wise head that did not have behind it a generous heart.
     "So the world is coming to understand that armies and navies, however strong, are impotent to stop thought.
     "Thought will rule the world. I am glad there is a national product more valuable than gold or silver, cotton, wheat or iron. There is a merchandise that goes from country to country, that you cannot vex with export tax or hinder with import tariff. It is greater than a legislature and rises triumphant over the machinery of governments. It is thought.
     "I am glad this is Thanksgiving day. I can meet my countrymen and their friends here and return thanks for what my country has received, thanks for the progress the world has made and contemplate with joy the coming of that day when the rivalry of nations will be not to see which can injure the other most, but which can hold the higher hand that carries the lamp lighting the pathway of the human race to the higher ground."