Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1917-06-08
lane EXPLAINS WAR
"WHY WE FIGHT" is TOLD
WORLD BY MEMBER OF WILL
SONS CABINET.
IS FIGHT OF sELF-DEFENSE
Kaiser Thrust the Battle Upon Amer
ica-Attacked U. S. by Sinking
Our Ships and Attempted
to Rule the Seas.

Washington, June Con the eve of
war registration day Secretary Lane
made a speech before the Home club
OF the interior department in which
he addressed a word to those who
have not seen clearly the reason for
the country's call upon it's young men,
and in ringing sentences answered the
question, why are we fighting Ger
many?''
America is at war, Mr.. Lane said,
in self-defense and because she could
not keep out; she is at war to save
herself with the rest of the world
from the nation that has linked itself
with the Turk and adopted the method
OF Mohammed, setting itself to make the
world bow before policies backed by
It's organized and scientific military
system.
why ere we fighting Germany"
said the secretary. 1.-THE brief answer
is that ours is war of self-defense.
We did not wish to fight Germany.
She made the attack upon us, not on
our shores, but on our ships, our lives,
our rights, our future. For two years
and more we held to a neutrality that
made us apologists for things which
outraged mans common sense of fair
play and humanity.
AT each new offense we said This
is war--archaic, uncivilized war, but
war. All rules have been thrown
away; all nobility. Man has come
down to the primitive brute, and while
we cannot justify we will not inter-
vene. 1t IS not our war;
''Then why are we in? Because we
could not keep out. The invasion Of
Belgium, which opened the war, led to
the invasion of the United States by
slow, steady, logical steps. Our sym
pathies evolved into conviction Of
self-interest. Our love Of fair play
ripened into alarm at our own peril.
1--WE talked In the language and in
the spirit of good faith and sincerity,
as honest men should talk, until we
discovered our talk was construed as
cowardice. And Mexico was called
upon to COW us. We talked as men
would talk who cared alone for peace
and the advancement of their own ma
terial interests, until we discovered
that we were thought to be nation
of mere money makers. devoid of all
character-until, indeed, we were
told that we could not walk the high
ways of the world without permission
Of a Prussian soldier, that our ships
might not sail without wearing a
striped uniform of humiliation, mar
row path of national subservience.
"And so we came into this war for
ourselves. 1t is a war to save Ameri-
ca, to preserve self-respect, to justify
our right to live as we have lived, not
as someone else wishes us to live. In
the name of freedom we challenge with
ships and men, money and an UNI
daunted spirit, that word 'verboten'
which Germany has written upon the
sea and upon the land. For America it
is not the name of SO much territory.
1t is a living spirit, born in travail,
grown in the rough school of bitter ex-
periences, a living Sairit which has
purpose and pride, knows why it
wishes to live and to what end, knows
how it comes to be respected of the
world. and hopes to retain that respect
by living on with the light of Lincoln's
love Of man as its old and new testa-
mpnt."