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New Responsibility.

COMMENT

An army of young Americans will cast their first ballots at the polls in November. How will they vote? To a considerable extent they will hold the balance of power, and as they dictate so will the country go, for better or for worse. It is a mighty responsibility, this thing of determining the future history of the country, and those first voters, boys and girls, who don the habiliments of full-fledged citizenship when they take their first ballots in their hands and step into the voting booths owe in return for the new privilege that hence-forth is to be theirs, all the serious thought that they can bring to bear upon the choice offered to them. Four years ago they were on the threshold of their majority. Today they have crossed it. Four years ago their interest in politics was academic. Today it is practical. Four years ago the ballot was a symbol. Today it is a weapon for good or ill. Fortunately for the destiny of the nation, youth is idealistic. Its eyes are on the future. It is living in today and tomorrow, not yesterday. Its vision is clear and its heart sound. It is safe to predict that in the momentous election in which it will participate this year for the first time it will be guided by the noblest of motives to which the human mind is capable of responding, for it is to such motives that youth has always responded. The certainty that youth will be on the side of national honor, faith and integrity is one of the comforting reflections of the hour. It promises to marshal the recruits of the class of 1916 to the cause of America first. After all, these are nations' first line of defences. They will not fall. Boston Transcript.

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