The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1925. EVOLUTION OF PATRIOTISM

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1688, 19 November 1925, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1925. EVOLUTION OF PATRIOTISM

No single hour or day can be said to mark the anniversary of the birth of a nation. The process of national establishment are never old and never new. They are going on in the world to-day juU as they h".ve progressed, slowly and deliberately since the dawn of civilisation. Democracies do not arise, full-fledged, from the ruins of discredited and decadent institutions. They are the products of progressiva thinking, always deliberate, and sometimes hardly noticeable until there .iiis been gained, thiough the interchange of new and perhaps advanced viewpoints, a right realisation of the ba.-5.i3 of government.

As the people of the United State* look back to-day and survey the progress that aas been made.- ±.:rce the time whidh marked the culmination of many days of agitated yet lonsecrated thought, devoted to the solution of what was realised as the paramount problem involving human liberty and conscience, they should not forget that only an auspicious beginning has been made'in the complete emancipation of the human family the world over from its self-imposed slavery to false beliefs and wrong ideals. Even granting that much has been accomplished since the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the determination to cast off, from the peop?e of the -colonies, the yoke of human bondage, there remains effective and operative to-day, only to be rightly utilised and intelligently employed, the same indomitable spiritual and moral forces which sustained and actuated the clear-visioned founders of the Republic.

What, then, is America's mission in this era of the world's progress? (asks a leader writer in the Christian Science Monitor.) Surely it has something to give. It may be that it has already given much, but even so, it has much more that can be given. And if more is to be given, it must be given unselfishly and ungrudgingly. It is not enough for the possessors of a great heritage such as that which blesses the people of the United .States to call prideful attention to their attainments. But it is their duty, while s'haring their blessings* to guard their giving with circumspection and wise caution. Wisdom compels the reasonable requirement that those who would be beneficiaries of those processes which have been tested and proved must themselves have gained a realisation of their own responsibilities and their own obligations as custodians and conservators.

Perhaps there is no popular process by which this educational growth can be hastened. Liberty, rightly refined, is a mental rather than a physical condition. Power, similarly considered, is not represented in material wealth or in great standing armies. Greatness is not measured by the stature of a nation or by the number of its people It is not because of the possession of any of these that the people of the United States, at this anniversary period of their progress, are able or willing to give'. If they are prepared to give at all, and if what they may offer is acceptable or helpful, it is because they have, conscientiously and courageously, preserved and nurtured their inheritance of righteous freedom. Of this they will give, and in giving gain more abundant blessings for themselves and for mankind - elsewhere. With this assured, they willingly and 1 ' solemnly re-dedicate themselves to the cause which they have agreed shall neither languish nor perish.