PS 5535 -ddA& An i American Nobility WILLIAM LORD REED rl Class .-E^LZS^S Book , E 33 A 3 &>P)TiglitN°__i9_aiO COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. AN AMERICAN NOBILITY AN AMERICAN NOBILITY BY WILLIAM LORD REED NOBILITY? "The Quality of Being Noble." NOBLENESS? "The Elevation of mind or condition, particularly of mind." AMERICAN NOBILITY? A Nobility of Mind, Aspiration and Achievement, — all clear visioned, high minded Americans who, on their own initiative and by their own efforts, have won the right to stand before the Tribunal of their own Conscience and say — "I have done the best I could; I have given the best that is in me to my country; My Country is America I' ' BOSTON THE STRATFORD COMPANY Publishers 1920 Copyright 1920 The STRATFORD CO., Publishers Boston, Mass. The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. 8. A. ©C!.A5>?J AUG ^4 19 J Bebitateb to Unborn Jlmtrica The author desires to express his thanks to the Sun and New York Herald for their kind permission to reprint "Christmas 1917." AMERICA 1913 - 1915 - 1917 - 1920 1913 Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin AN AMERICAN NOBILITY "Therefore, my brethren, a new nobility is requisite which is opposed unto all mob and all that is tyrranic and writeth on new tables the word ' noble '." "Our Land of Liberty !" we loudly boast. Bartholdi's sea-green statue holds aloft A beacon to the world's incoming host; What does it presage? I have questioned oft: Is it symbolic of our fathers ' creed — Or giant moth-flame of colossal greed? From Ellis Island to yon Golden Gate A land of plenty stretches, mile on mile ; Yet Poverty at Plenty's door needs wait; In vain we seek to find Contentment 's smile ; We Ve still our Newgates and our gallows-tree ; What, then, the purport of our "Liberty"? 'Twas Freedom once! now "Liberty" instead On Freedom's soil uprears the Hydra head Of License, whose vile, fetid breath allures To Freedom's shore the rats of alien sewers. Our bragged "ambition" is but lust for gold; The honour of our daughters, bought and sold, Makes of our very streets a slave mart still; While on our knees we crave the Father's will 2 AN AMERICAN NOBILITY Be done on earth as in the heavens ; See ! This is the substance of our "Liberty": Liberty — to breed and interbreed Till weVe assimilated every seed Of vice, disease, deformity, deceit, Avarice, lust, jealousy and greed. Liberty — each as he may aspire To harness lightning, and imprison fire, — Enslaving children to a soulless task; A speed insane the goal of our desire. Liberty — to wage a ceaseless strife, Man against man — the very bread of life Contention 's bone ; the Church of Christ itself Glutted with gold — and with dissension rife. But for their tears the All-High Gods would laugh ; Our gods % Mechanics and the Golden Calf ! *J£. ~U- J4. -'-'- ■vs* "re- W "fr TT And do we dream these things can ever be Fused in this crucible called "Liberty"? Amalgamated in a race of men Predominant 1 And if they could — what then ? Then, when we've reared a race to rule the world, And it, at last, is into chaos hurled, AN AMERICAN NOBILITY 3 The lust-born creature who has grown su- preme, Up from the dung-hill of our sorry scheme, Will rise serene to take his final chance, Draped in the mantle of his ignorance, And mount the spheres, that mock him as he struts Up from his blasted globe of pigmy huts, — Proud Prince of Self, Apotheosis of Greed, — The hybrid monarch of a mongrel breed. 1915 "Go find *% God!" AN AMERICAN NOBILITY I DREAMED : Up from the Earth we seemed to rise To claim our vaunted birthright in the skies. A host of disembodied souls, upled By the great super-creature, Emperor, bred In our late land, America. The goal Of the World's wanderlust. From pole to pole Become a vast, material domain, Builded and buttressed by rapacious Gain ; And crushed, inevitably, 'neath the heel Of Retribution. After the Age of Steel. After the wild, barbaric Tartar horde Had ravaged Europe, where the encarmined sword, Unsheathed by Teuton arm, had blazed the way Through butchered Belgium for the west- ward sway Of empire. After proud Albion's fall; Here, ruled by the master-mongrel of us all, Enveloped in an ignorance sublime, A hybrid breed, we builded for all time A wonderworld of radium and glass. 8 AN AMERICAN NOBILITY Ere this Democracy had come to pass Through Anarchy to Monarchy. Surcease Of high endeavor ours. Expedient Peace Purged from our veins the red blood of our Sires, And paled the splendors of their altar fires. Our manhood atrophied. Swift, riding high, Like swarms of locusts darkening the sky, Swept yellow airmen, blotting out the sun; Inert, we realized our race was run ; Hell from the heavens rained. . . . We woke to find Ourselves but wraiths upon the vagrant wind. Then up and onward through ethereal space, Seeking within the Universe the place Prepared for us upon some shining strand, Vain-gloriously our monarch leads his band. Now we become embodied, and a shore Of verdurous woodland stretches wide before Our raptured eyes; when we're confronted, lo! By the gaunt figure of Geronimo : — "White men, Greeting! The land which you behold AN AMERICAN NOBILITY 9 Js ours! America — The land from whence you come, Was bloodland! That is why You failed to find A firm foundation. Bloodland! Bloodland, filled with bones! Filled with the corpses of a people slain By ruthless hands, their heritage to gain. Your land? a land beneath the curse of Cain! Manured with bodies of a murdered race Who asked but in the sun a biding place; Ashed but the freedom of the earth and shy, Ashed but to live, and fearlessly to die And onward pass, their trust and faith pro- found, To their Great Spirit and His Hunting Ground. Americans! this is thy chastening rod; Go! our Great Spirit speaks — Go find thy God!" 1917 CHRISTMAS AN AMERICAN NOBILITY 13 O god of Love and Life and Joy! With contrite lips we voice Your name; And ask that we may expiate In full our arrogance and shame; Now that we know You as You are — God, too, of Justice and of War. To You we raised our blatant praise ; To You we bent our mocking knees; With genuflections meek we masked The guilt of our hypocrisies. Bloated with pride, besot with greed, In strident tones we dared to make Vain repetitions of our creed, And crave Your grace, for Jesus' sake. That Jesus who, with lowly mien, Preached truth and love and poverty Unto the simple fisher folk Upon the shores of Galilee. Far is the cry from Jesus, God, To us, who now must kiss the rod. *m. .y, . v- "• - -V- *A" TV* *7Y* *7V* TV* But grant, God ! that we may yet Laugh at the stars in glad content; 14 AN AMERICAN NOBILITY May learn, at last, Life's radiant Truth; Though War, the Scarlet Sacrament, Be the red price we have to pay, God, make us strong to pay it! then, Come ! with the glory of Your love, Into the humbled hearts of men! 1920 Justification through a New Nobility AN AMERICAN NOBILITY 17 A NEW NOBILITY Pro aris et focis! America! direct your destiny! Build of your sons a new nobility! Now comes your Call to rise to higher things, And breed a kingly race from blood of kings. America, your father-pioneers Were princes of that blood; the yesteryears Of Golden Days were all fulfilled in them — Posterity of an imperious Stem. Created equal meant not equal birth; Were ever men born equal on the earth? Is erudition full-winged in the clod! Where backward trends a lineage but to God — Back through successive thinkers till we find The primal cognizance — first conscious mind. And that which stamps a man above his peers ? Springs that from earth, newborn? All down the years A thread of Thought has spun itself along, Through stress and strife, through maze of right and wrong 18 AN AMERICAN NOBILITY Until, within some purposed human clay- It lights the flame of Leadership, today. Each man is born to his appointed place — Bone, blood, and brain, according to his race And forebears ; and his brief alloted span Of earth-life is to mount beyond the man Through Time evolved; and Ethnic Law holds due That he to his progenitors run true. So up! Americans! up and engage Beneath the Banner of your Heritage! Columbia cries : Do you ' ' run true ' ' who wait While paupered Europe surges through your gate And, interbreeding with your underbred, Brings forth a spawn of millions! Look ahead! Look but a few short years ahead and see Your great American majority — American majority that rules! — Bred from your tenements and gutters. Fools ! Each year is it not growing larger than The year before? and less American? Your power! the vote! withhold it from the hand Of alien born ; and all those in the land AN AMERICAN NOBILITY 19 Who are unfit. Let no man vote until He qualifies by service, and who will Take his blood-oath to guard each foot of sod With life itself, as legacy from God. Then on the hearthstones of your homes relight The fires of Faith ! Let all who can unite Upon that ground where first their Grand- sire came And, there, perpetuate his honored name By sending to the Congress of their State One of his line, for Right to legislate. Americans ! bestir yourselves ! the hour Is pregnant with alarm ! holdfast your power ! Why let a rabble grasp your Government As you, complacent in a blind content, Prate World Peace, while th' Anarchic snake, uncurled, Spews it's red venom broadcast through the World? Read out the roll of your illustrious sons ! From Braddock's Field to Chateau-Thierry's guns Your Valiant Dead convoke their valiant breed ! Awake! arise! to their clear Call give heed. Americans! take now your dogged stand 20 AN AMERICAN NOBILITY For all your Fathers ' hopes — your Native TiQnrl ? Land ! *7v* "n* -Tr *A* "Tv" w This is the vision vouchsafed finite ken: Inspired endeavor will develop men, And women, nobly nurtured, who shall rise Through Thought transcendent to surmount the skies And read Life 's answer on Time 's open scroll — The destiny of man's immortal soul. Discovering at last "that golden key That opes the Palace of Eternity.' ' America, this glorious goal is yours Through Faith indomitable that endures; Faith in your Fathers and their Purpose High, Faith in yourselves — yourselves to justify ! Americans ! direct your destiny ! Build of yourselves a New Nobility ! 4 ' my brethren, I consecrate you to be, and show unto you the way unto a new nobility. Ye shall become procreators and breeders and sowers of the future." y«- LIBRARY OF C0NG [S 018 349 744 3