The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-02
it's house anew.

|
 course became involved: that was in evitable. Where they did this was i our guiding principle: that property
 rights can be vindicated by claims for
 damages when the war is over, and
 no modern nation can decline to ar
 bitrate such claims; but the funda-
 mental rights of humanity cannot be.
 The loss of life is irreparable. Neith-
 CT can direct violations of a nation S
 sovereignty await vindication in suits | for damages. The nation that vio- lates these essential rights must ex-
 pect to be checked and called to ac-
 count by direct challenge and resist l ance. It at once makes the quar- | rel in part our own. These are plain 1 principles and we have never lost sight of them or departed from them, whatever the stress or the perpleXity l of circumstances or the provocation | to nasty resentment. The record is
 clear and consistent throughout and | stands distinct and definite for any
 one to judge who wishes to know the
 truth about it.
 "The seas were not broad enough 1 to keep the infection of the conflict
 out of our own politics. The passions and intrigues of certain active groups and com binations of men amongst us
 who were born under foreign flags
 injected the poison of disloyalty into
 our own most critical affairs, laid
 violent hands upon many of our in- ] dustries, and subjected us to the
 shame of divisions of sentiment and
 temned and forgotten. It is part of | of nf
 and settlement to speak plainly and act with unmistakable purpose in re-
 buke of these things, in order that they may be forever hereafter im- possible. I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else | an American citizen. I neither seek | the favour nor fear the displeasure | of that small alien element amongst
 us which puts loyalty to any foreign
 power before loyalty to the United
 States.
 While Europe was at war our own
 continent, one of our own neighbors.
 was shaken by revolution. In that
 matter, too, principle was plain and it
 was imperative that we should live
 up to it if we were to deserve the trust
 of any real partisan of the right as | free men see it. We have professed ] to believe, and we do believe that the | people of small and weak states have
 the righet to expect to be dealt with
 exactly as the people of big and pow erful states would be. We have acted
 upon that principle in dealing with
 the people of Mexico.
 | "Our recent pursuit of bandits into Mexican territory was no viola tion of | that principle. We ventured to enter 1 Mexican territory only because there were no military forces in Mexico that
 could protect our border from hostile attack and our own people from vio- lence and we have committed there
 no single act of hostility or interfer-
 ence even with the sovereign author | ity of the Republic of Mexico her.
 self It was a plain case of the viola
 tion of our own sovereignty which 1 could not wait to be vindicated by
 damages and for which there was no l other remedy. The authorities of | Mexico were powerless to prevent it.
 Many serious wrongs against the property, many irreparable wrongs
 against the persons, of Americans
 have been committed within the ttrri- 1 tory of Mexico herself during this con- fused revolution, wrongs which could not be effectually checked so long as 1 there was no constituted power in ] Mexico which was in a position to i check them We could not act directly ] in that matter ourselves without deny l ing Mexicans the right of any revolu-
 tion at all which disturbed us and
 making the emancipation of her own 1 people await our own interest and convenience.
 For it is their emancipation that | they are seeking,-blindly, it may be-
 and as yet Intellectually, but with pro-
 found and passionate purpose and
 within their unquestionable right. ap- 1 ply what true American principle you
 will,-any principle that an American
 would publicly avow. The people | of Mexico have not been suffered to | own their own country or direct their | own institutions. Outsiders, men out | of other nations and with interests