fight without rancor or selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves
Adapted from Woodrow Wilson’s Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917) where President Wilson said:
We desire no conquest, no dominion.
We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.
We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind.
We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts,
for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments,
for the rights and liberties of small nations,
for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations
and make the world itself at last free.
To such a task we can dedicate our selves and our fortunes,
every thing that we are and everything that we have,
with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.
God helping her, she can do no other.
According to the National Gallery of Art website, This painting commemorates the nation’s entry into World War I in spring 1917. Childe Hassam shows Fifth Avenue in New York City decorated with red, white, and blue flags. It had been declared “the Avenue of the Allies” in honor of the military alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and France.
This is part of a series of flag images in which Hassam used brilliant sunlight and color in the style of the French impressionists. The breezy, celebratory air glosses over the horrors of modern warfare that American soldiers would face fighting in Europe.
fight without rancor or selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves
I just holding up the mirror.
You can take from this whatever you bring with it.
For myself, it like talking about an entirely different country sometimes and I wonder where that county went.
fire burns beyond the vaporous sun delivered from the gloom of night
Sunrise over Broad Creek – 7-24-206 Hilton Head Island
Far into the vast the mist grows dim, A deep and holy silence broods around, Fire burns beyond the vaporous rim, And crystal-like the dew bestrews the ground.
The last laggard star has fled the glowing sky, Comes a quiet stirring and a gentle light, A vast pulsating music, throbbing harmony, Beyond the Sun delivered from the gloom of night!
Dawn by W. H Auden as published in Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928 by W. H Auden (Princeton University Press: Princeton, N.J., 2003).
According to Wikipedia, Wystan Hugh Auden 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973 was a British-American poet. Auden’s poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content.
Public recognition of Auden’s work sharply increased after his “Funeral Blues” (“Stop all the clocks”) was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem “As I walked out one evening” was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995). After the 11 September 2001 attacks, his 1939 poem “September 1, 1939” was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
I remember that poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral …
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
I would be lying if I said I was any more familiar with the Mr. Auden.
What sticks in my mind is a single quote from a commencement address at the University of Michigan back in 1986 by Dr. Charles G. Adams, Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.
Not sure why but I was listening to WUOM radio that day and the broadcast what went down in history as one of the best commencement speeches ever given at Michigan.
It was titled, Hope vs. Fatalism and in his address, Dr. Adams challenged the new graduates TO DO SOMETHING.
Dr. Adams said, “The hope that you represent is both within you and beyond you. As W. H. Auden observed, “Nothing but a miracle can save us.”
Dr. Adams then painted a dark dark picture of the world at large, and quotes a recent Newspaper editorial that stated, “There is no answer to the human dilemma, no deliverance from the human predicament, no formula for world peace, no means of achieving racial harmony and ethnic mutuality and congeniality. Life is a lie, a meaning less aimless hoax.”
So we find ourselves suspended on a see-saw between an optimism that fails us and a fatalism that does not try to help us.
Optimism says, “There is no sickness.
Fatalism says, “There is no cure.”
Optimism says, “There is no death.
Fatalism says, “There is no victory over death.
Optimism says, “God is in his heaven; all’s right with the world.”
Fatalism says, “Life is but walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound-and fury, Signifying nothing.
Is there no way out of this vicious, manic-depressive cycle of optimism and fatalism? I make bold to suggest that you who have been educated at Michigan can be open doors of hope into a system that is deemed closed, final and fatal. It is up to you to break the vicious cycle of nihilism and transform cyclical futility and fatality into linear progress and destiny.
You have been trained here to go into all the world and stand and serve as living alternatives to ignorant optimism that blinds one to real difficulties and also to crippling fatalism and cynicism that freeze human initiative and paralyze human effort.
You are graduating from Michigan to inherit the whole world with all of its problems. Go into all the world and take the power of your mentality, the energy of your integrity, the efficiency of your technology and the fire of your spirit.
Inherit the whole world with all of its problems.
Go into all the world and take the power of your mentality,
the energy of your integrity,
the efficiency of your technology
and the fire of your spirit.
Dr. Adams, speaking in the manner of a revialist preacher had the crowd roaring and he closed with:
If you have a hard way to go, walk it by faith. If you face a mean problem, work with it until you work through it. If you have a misunderstanding, settle it. If you have a grudge, drop it. If you have hatred or resentment, shake it off. If you have a high mountain, move it by faith or climb it by work. If .you have a battle, fight it. If you have a handicap, rise above it. If you have race prejudice, overcome it. If you have temptation, conquer it. If you have evil, destroy it. If you have a challenge, face it. If you have trouble, take it. If you have a cross, bear it. If they knock you down, get up. If they push you against the ropes, come out swinging. If they laugh at you, keep smiling at them. If they talk about you, keep praying for them. If they hate you, keep loving them and If they kill you, just rise again–
Don’t let anything paralyze your mind, tie your hands or defeat your spirit.
You are the hope of the world, a light to the nations, a blessing to humanity.
We-shall overcome!
As an after thought, it seems like years later I happen to catch an announcement that WUOM radio that the address was going to rebroadcast (and I mean years later) and the announcer, Fred Hindley, added … this is most requested rebroadcast recording of anything we have. I will add this was also the official radio station of Michigan football.
ANYWAY so where am I.
Not sure really but the sunrise and finding the Auden poem and the Auden reference that brought this speech were all a very welcome part of my day.
was swallowed one time deep in the dark and came out alive after all
If I should pass the tomb of Jonah I would stop there and sit for a while; Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark And came out alive after all.
If I pass the burial spot of Nero I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!” — I who have fiddled in a world on fire, I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.
I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too. I want to shake his ghost-hand and say, “Neither of us died very early, did we?”
And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar — When I arrive there I shall tell the wind: “You ate grass; I have eaten crow — Who is better off now or next year?”
Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James, There too I could sit down and stop for a while. I think I could tell their headstones: “God, let me remember all good losers.”
I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods, Walking into the drumfires, calling his men, “Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?”
Losers by Carl Sandberg as published in Smoke and Steel in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1970).
I am but a shell a dim, tremulous murmur from great days long dead
I am a shell. From me you shall not hear The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, The orbed gold of the viol’s voice that comes, Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear. Yet, if you hold me close against the ear, A dim, far whisper rises clamorously, The thunderous beat and passion of the sea, The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.
Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings, Making even Love in music audible, And earth one glory. I am but a shell That moves, not of itself, and moving sings; Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed, A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.
A Minor Poet by Stephen Vincent Benet as published in Young Adventure: A Book of Poems by Stephen Vincent Benet (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918).
everybody voiced profound, resigned hopelessness white fog blanketing
Adapted from the article, ‘Profound, resigned hopelessness’: people across US and Canada share effects of wildfire smoke, sub headed … Air quality in North America has plummeted, affecting the health of millions of people across the continent by Marina Dunbar in the Guardian on Sunday, July 19, 2026, where Ms. Dunbar writes:
South of the Canadian border, residents who made even brief trips outside described air conditions as noxious. Chicago recorded the world’s worst air quality on Thursday evening, according to IQAir’s global rankings, with Detroit and Minneapolis also ranking among the most polluted cities.
In Skokie, Illinois, 26-year-old student Zeff said the smoke carried a pungent chemical smell.
“The air stinks of burnt plastic, like it’s been poisoned,” he said. “It’s impossible to take a deep breath without my nose and throat burning.”
He said the ominous haze has settled over neighborhoods throughout the day.
“There’s a mirage hanging on the treetops, white fog blanketing everything in the distance,” he said. “Everybody I speak to voices a profound, resigned hopelessness.”
An analogy for today?
Life imitates life?
It IS almost perfect isn’t it?
There’s a mirage hanging on the treetops.
A white fog blanketing everything in the distance.
Everybody voices a profound, resigned hopelessness.
