Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1915-05-13
THE UNITED STATES WILL RE-
MAIN AT PEACE.
Continued from page ~


world.
"You have just taken an oath OF
allegiance 20 the United States. OF
allegiance to whomf OF allegiance tt
no one, unless it be God. Certainly
not of allegiance to those who tempe r.
arily represent this great government
You have taken an oath of allegiance
to a great ideal, to a great body of
principles, to great hope of the hu-
man race. You have said, CIV are
going to America not only to earn a
living, not only to seek the things
which it was more difficult to Obtain
where we were born, but to help for
ward the great enterprises of the
human spirit!-to let man know that
everywhere in the world there are men
who will cross the strange oceans and
go where speech is spoken which is
alien to them, knowing that whatever
the speech there is but one longing
and utterance of the human heart. and
that is for liberty and justice And
while you bring all countries with you,
You come with the purpose of leaving
all countries behind you-bringing what
is best of their spirit but not looking
over your shoulders and seeking to
perpetuate what you intended to leave
in them.
81 certainly would not be one even
to suggest that man cease to love
the home of his birth and the nation
OF his origin-these things are very
sacred and ought not to be put out
of our hearts-but it is one thing to
love the place where you were born
and it is another thing to dedicate
yourself to the place to which you 90.
You cannot dedicate yourself to Am
erica unless you become in every re.
spect and with every purpose of your
will thorough Americans. You can
not become thorough Americans if you
think of yourselves in groups. Am.
erica does not consist of groups.
A man who thinks of himself as
belonging to particular nationa.
group in America has not yet become
an American, and the man who goes
among you to trade upon your nation
atty is no worthy son to live under
the Stars and Stripes.
"My urgent advice to you would be
not only always to think first Of Am
erica, but always also to think first of
humanity. You do not love humanity
if you seek to divide humanity into
jealous camps. Humanity can be
welded together only by love, by sym,
panty by justice, not by jealousy and
hatred, I am sorry for the man who
seeks to make personal capital out of
the passions of his fellow man. He
has lost the touch and ideal of Amer |
lea. for America was created to unite
mankind by those passions which lift |
and not by the passions which separ.
ate and debase
We came to America either our
selves or in the persons of our an
cestors, to better the ideals of men.
to make them see finer things than
they had seen before, to get rid of
things that divide and to make sure of
things that unite. It was but an his
toTical accident no doubt that this
great country was called "The United
States, and yet | am very thankful that
it has the word United in its title:
and the man who seeks to divide man
from man, group from group, interest
from interest, in the United States. is
stiking at its very heart.
cit is very interesting eircum.
stance to me in thinking of those of
you who have just sworn allegiance
to this government that you were
drawn across Il 9 ocean by some beck.
oning finger of hope, by some belief,
by some vision of new kind of JUS
tice, by some expectations of better
kind of life.
No doubt you have been disap-
pointed in some of us. Some of us
are very disappointing No doubt you
have found that justice in the United
States goes only with a pure heart and |
right purpose as it does everywhere I
Else in the world. No doubt what you Q
found here did not seem touched for G
you, after all, with the complete beauty
If the ideal which YOU had conceived :
before hand.
But remember this. # you had
grown at all poor in the ideal. YOU
brought some of it with you. A man b
ioes not go out to seek the thing that
s not in him. A man does not hope r.
or the thing that he does not believe
n, and if some of US have forgotten !"
What America believed in, you at any ,
ate imported in your own hearts Fl
enewal of the belief. b
"That is the reason that 7, for one. I