Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1916-04-19
FOR HUMANITY'S SAKE.

tiCns. Not only for her own lndlVlduaI
sake does she speak, but for the sake
of all people, all humanity-all who
are not able to speak for themselves.
The Savannah Morning News had the
following editorial:
If America ever goes to war-a war
in which her power and sovereignty
would be attacked-she would not be
fighting for herself alone but for hui
mainly, for the future happiness of
posterity the world over. 1t is not
conceivable that she would go to war
to increase her commerce or as
Alfred Noyes, has said in one of his
war poems, for a port to export
prunes, but only when human rights
were invaded or threatened. The
Monroe Doctrine would compel her
to fight in defense of the integrity of
any American nation that was at
tackled by European or Asiatlc
power, and that war would be for hu-
nanitys sake and in defense of hui
man rights. If she should be over
powered, rights that have won recog-
milton only by long struggling would
likely again be in allegiance.
Because of all this it is not difficult
tn understand what President Wilson
must have meant when he said recent
ly in his address at Washington to
the Daughters of the American Revolu-
ton that America will have forgotten
her traditions if she fights merely for
herself and that she should fight only
in the cause of humanity He did not
mean that the United States intends
to pose as the sole guardian of the
worlds rights, because the American
people do not intend to do that The
United States is not the only police
man on the world beat. But it has
laid down certain broad principles, it
has taken its stand for freedom in the
broad sense, the right of men and
women to have an opportunity to find
happiness and prosperity, to satisfy
ambitions that do not conflict with
others rights, to acquire and hold
property and to live in peace and
safety, and when these rights of hui
manity now in possession of Ameri-
cans and those over whom the man
tie of American protection is thrown
are endangered it is the duty of the
United States to protect them, even
i it takes fighting to do it.
But the United States government
should be for America first" realiz-
ing that America first" means not
determination or willingness to fight
for increasing trade zones and spheres
of commercial influence, but for a
square deal to the Americas from the
rest of the world. The United States
must protect itself first, for two rea-
sons. One is that the government of
the United States is selected by the
people themselves to protect them.
The other is that it represents the
highest level of ideals reached by
modern government of the first rank.
1t must protect both itself and its
ideals, for altef all they are mostly
the same thing.
1t may be that some difficulty will
be experienced in understanding what
the president meant when he said
that when America ceases to be I'M
selfish she will cease to be America.
Her first duty surely is to her own
people, for she is nothing more than
her people in the aggregate. But if
she should go to war with intent to
interfere with the rights of persons
who are not Americans to Cypress
them, to make them suffer needlessly.
she would not be living up to the ira
ditions that Americans are fond of
thinking are typically American. She
would then be selfish in all the dark
est meaning of the term.