But the great evident crises are by no means the only ones of
importance. The quiet turning point, reached and passed often with
slight attention and wholly without struggle, is frequently not less
decisive. Great decisions are made or great impulses given or withheld
in the life of a man or a nation often so quietly that their critical
character is seen only in retrospect. It is only the historian who can
say just when some unnoticed, yet decisive and irrevocable, step was
actually accomplished.
The United States has been in the midst of such a period of decision
since the Spanish War called into blossom the quiet growth of years, and
we are still face to face with questions of the most vital bearing upon
our future. The changes now in progress are accompanied by no
convulsions, yet the whole character of our civilization is being
rapidly crystallized anew as our country takes its inevitable place in
the world.
So quietly are the great forces at work that some of our most vital
problems have remained almost unrecognized by the public until the last
two years. Yet the fact that these decisions are being made is almost
appalling in its magnitude, and their indescribable consequence not only
to the United States, but to all the nations of the earth, needs to be
vividly realized by every one of us, for it is one of the great
compelling reasons why the public spirit of young men is needed so
urgently and at once.
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