In Our First Year of the War Part 5

It is incomprehensible to me how any frank or honest person could doubt or question my position with regard to the war and its objects.

I have again and again stated the very serious and long-continued wrongs which the Imperial German Government has perpetrated against the rights, the commerce and the citizens of the United States. The list is long and overwhelming. No Nation that respected itself or the rights of humanity could have borne those wrongs any longer.

Our objects in going into the war have been stated with equal clearness. The whole of the conception which I take to be the conception of our fellow-countrymen with regard to the outcome of the war and the terms of its settlement, I set forth with the utmost explicitness in an address to the Senate of the United States on the 22d of January last. Again, in my message to Congress on the 2d of April last, those objects were stated in unmistakable terms.

I can conceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and making the part which the United States is to play in this great struggle for human liberty an inefficient and hesitating part.

We have entered the war for our own reasons and with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither the reasons nor the objects.

There is no hate in our hearts for the German people, but there is a resolve which cannot be shaken even by misrepresentation, to overcome the pretensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon purposes to which the German people have never consented.

VIII

MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS

(_May 30, 1917_)

In one sense the great struggle into which we have now entered is an American struggle, because it is in defense of American honor and American rights, but it is something even greater than that; it is a world struggle. It is the struggle of men who love liberty everywhere, and in this cause America will show herself greater than ever because she will rise to a greater thing.

The program has conferred an unmerited dignity upon the remarks I am going to make by calling them an address, because I am not here to deliver an address [said the President]. I am here merely to show in my official capacity the sympathy of this great Government with the object of this occasion, and also to speak just a word of the sentiment that is in my own heart.

Any memorial day of this sort is, of course, a day touched with sorrowful memory, and yet I for one do not see how we can have any thought of pity for the men whose memory we honor to-day. I do not pity them. I envy them, rather, because their great work for liberty is accomplished, and we are in the midst of a work unfinished, testing our strength where their strength already has been tested.

A HERITAGE FROM THE DEAD

There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a touch of rea.s.surance also in a day like this, because we know how the men of America have responded to the call of the cause of liberty, and it fills our mind with a perfect a.s.surance that that response will come again in equal measures, with equal majesty and with a result which will hold the attention of all mankind.

When you reflect upon it, these men who died to preserve the Union died to preserve the instrument which we are now using to serve the world--a free nation espousing the cause of human liberty. In one sense the great struggle into which we have now entered is an American struggle, because it is in the sense of American honor and American rights, but it is something even greater than that; it is a world struggle. It is a struggle of men who love liberty everywhere; and in this cause America will show herself greater than ever because she will rise to a greater thing.

We have said in the beginning that we planned this great Government that men who wish freedom might have a place of refuge and a place where their hope could be realized, and now, having established such a Government, having preserved such a Government, having vindicated the power of such a Government, we are saying to all mankind, "We did not set this Government up in order that we might have a selfish and separate liberty, for we are now ready to come to your a.s.sistance and fight out upon the fields of the world the cause of human liberty."

AMERICA'S FULL FRUITION

In this thing America attains her full dignity and the full fruition of her great purpose.

No man can be glad that such things have happened as we have witnessed in these last fateful years, but perhaps it may be permitted to us to be glad that we have an opportunity to show the principles which we profess to be living--principles which live in our hearts--and to have a chance by the pouring out of our blood and treasure to vindicate the things which we have professed. For, my friends, the real fruition of life is to do the things we have said we wished to do. There are times when words seem empty and only action seems great. Such a time has come, and in the providence of G.o.d America will once more have an opportunity to show to the world that she was born to serve mankind.

IX

A STATEMENT TO RUSSIA

(_June 9, 1917_)

In view of the approaching visit of the American delegation to Russia to express the deep friends.h.i.+p of the American people for the people of Russia and to discuss the best and most practical means of co-operation between the two peoples in carrying the present struggle for the freedom of all peoples to a successful consummation, it seems opportune and appropriate that I should state again, in the light of this new partners.h.i.+p, the objects the United States has had in mind in entering the war. Those objects have been very much beclouded during the past few weeks by mistaken and misleading statements, and the issues at stake are too momentous, too tremendous, too significant for the whole human race to permit any misinterpretations or misunderstandings, however slight, to remain uncorrected for a moment.

The war has begun to go against Germany, and in their desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using every possible instrumentality, are making use even of the influence of groups and parties among their own subjects to whom they have never been just or fair, or even tolerant, to promote a propaganda on both sides of the sea which will preserve for them their influence at home and their power abroad, to the undoing of the very men they are using.

AMERICA SEEKS NO CONQUEST

The position of America in this war is so clearly avowed that no man can be excused for mistaking it. She seeks no material profit or aggrandizement of any kind. She is fighting for no advantage or selfish object of her own, but for the liberation of peoples everywhere from the aggressions of autocratic force. The ruling cla.s.ses in Germany have begun of late to profess a like liberality and justice of purpose, but only to preserve the power they have set up in Germany and the selfish advantages which they have wrongly gained for themselves and their private projects of power all the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond. Government after Government has, by their influence, without open conquest of its territory, been linked together in a net of intrigue directed against nothing less than the peace and liberty of the world. The meshes of that intrigue must be broken, but cannot be broken unless wrongs already done are undone; and adequate measures must be taken to prevent it from ever again being rewoven or repaired.

Of course the Imperial German Government and those whom it is using for their own undoing are seeking to obtain pledges that the war will end in the restoration of the _status quo ante_. It was the _status quo ante_ out of which this iniquitous war issued forth, the power of the Imperial German Government within the empire and its widespread domination and influence outside of that empire. That status must be altered in such fas.h.i.+on as to prevent any such hideous thing from ever happening again.

THE PRINCIPLES THAT ARE INVOLVED

We are fighting for the liberty, self-government and the undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settlement that concludes this war must be conceived and executed for that purpose.

Wrongs must first be righted and then adequate safeguards must be created to prevent their being committed again. We ought not to consider remedies merely because they have a pleasing and sonorous sound. Practical questions can be settled only by practical means.

Phrases will not accomplish the result. Effective readjustments will; and whatever readjustments are necessary must be made.

But they must follow a principle, and that principle is plain:

No people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live.

No territory must change hands except for the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty.

No indemnities must be insisted on except those that const.i.tute payment for manifest wrongs done.

No readjustments of power must be made except such as will tend to secure the future peace of the world and the future welfare and happiness of its peoples.

And then the free peoples of the world must draw together in some common covenant, some genuine and practical co-operation, that will in effect combine their force to secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with one another. The brotherhood of mankind must no longer be a fair but empty phrase; it must be given a structure of force and reality. The nations must realize their common life and effect a workable partners.h.i.+p to secure that life against the aggressions of autocratic and self-pleasing power.

For these things we can afford to pour out blood and treasure. For these are the things we have always professed to desire, and unless we pour out blood and treasure now and succeed, we may never be able to unite or show conquering force again in the great cause of human liberty. The day has come to conquer or submit. If the forces of autocracy can divide us, they will overcome us; if we stand together, victory is certain and the liberty which victory will secure.

We can afford, then, to be generous, but we cannot afford then or now to be weak or omit any single guarantee of justice and security.

X

FLAG-DAY ADDRESS

(_June 14, 1917_)

My Fellow-citizens,--We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this flag which we honor and under which we serve is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation.

The choices are ours. It floats in majestic silence above the hosts that execute those choices, whether in peace or in war. And yet, though silent, it speaks to us--speaks to us of the past, of the men and women who went before us and of the records they wrote upon it.

We celebrate the day of its birth; and from its birth until now it has witnessed a great history, has floated on high the symbol of great events, of a great plan of life worked out by a great people.

We are about to carry it into battle, to lift it where it will draw the fire of our enemies. We are about to bid thousands, hundreds of thousands, it may be millions, of our men--the young, the strong, the capable men of the nation--to go forth and die beneath it on fields of blood far away--for what? For some unaccustomed thing? For something for which it has never sought the fire before? American armies were never before sent across the seas. Why are they sent now?