The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1917-09-06

country. The crop of treason appals
those who love their country most.
Things that happen daily now were
unthinkable three years ago. The
whole machinery of our democracy has
been seized upon by German agents.
Newspapers have been bought, politi-
clans bribed, Representatives in Con-
gress whose constituencies have Ger
man voters captured; the alliance of
the Puritan and the blackleg of other
days was nothing by comparison with
the fusion between the pacificts and
the |. w. w. today. Every element of
unrest, every area of dissatisfaction.
every faction blinded by Utopian as
pirations or animate by the passion of
class hatred has been turned to serve
German purpose.
We are no longer united country,
and we shall not again be united until
we have put a term to this attempt
integrity. We cannot and we shall not
abolish free speech or free press, we
shall not become German to escape a
German peril. But since we will not
do this, there is only one thing we can
do, and that is to send our men and our
money to Europe, to mobilize our num-
bers and or wealth and to fight this
German policy and method until the
German government which employs
them is defeated and either destroyed
or compelled to renounce them.
In any recapitulation of American
war aims this question should not be
overlooked. The German has invaded
this country, not with armies, as he
invaded Belgium. He has committed
crimes against the peace and safety of
the United States, but not as he did
against France. Not by the franker
and braver method of open warfare has
the German attacked US. But he has
by intrigue, by corruption, by machin-
ations endeavored to destroy the unity
of this nation as he successfully at
tackled the unity and safety of Russia.
He has fastened upon each free insti-
tuition, he has taken advantage of each
inheritance OF liberty and he has made
it the engine of his own propaganda
and purpose.
This is only one phase of the Ger
man idea, but it is a dangerous, a
deadly phase. 1t Is only one of the
many menaces Germanism has for the
nations of the earth, but Russia dem
onstrates how great it is. And for
our own safety, unity. future, we must
fight this menace to the end. Never
again must any nation which has sent
its sons to the United States to enjoy
the liberty and prosperity of America.
to share in free institutions and free
speech, believe that it can with profit
use these sons to break down American
institutions, destroy American liberty.
In very real sense, then, the COM
bat of 1917 is analogous to that of
1861-1S65. Then we fought disunion
that was inside, then we fought to
preserve the integrity of the nation
against an attack that came from one
portion of the American nation, wholly
without association with any foreign
nation. Today we fight new attempt
to destroy the unity of the country
which comes from without, is merely
the local response to a foreign direc-
tion. Half century ago we fought
to preserve the nation from the conse-
quences of domestic revolt, today we
are at war to preserve the country
from destruction threatened from
abroad.
1t may be necessary, as Mr., Root
said, to shoot some one in America.
If it is, this should be done. But the
real place for shooting is in Europe.
The American troops who fight on
French soil fight for American unity
Enthusiastically and inevitably. Germany
has invaded us, and it is logical and it
is poper that we should, in our turn,
invade Germany. We shall not seek
by any other agency than our troops to
destroy the German government, which
has threatened our national life by
every form of treachery, corruption,
by every mean, cowardly and con-
temptible device, by deceiving the
idealist and by purchasing the assassin.
For more than two years the French
statesman, M. Clemenceau, answered
all talk of peace with the single SEN
tence-"The Germans are at Noyen."
Shall we be less determined when the
Germans are in Washington, New
York, all over America, when German
recruiting agents are mobilizing every
possible agency for disruption within
the United States in obedience to
orders coming from Berlin? Americans
as a nation are prepared to fight until
Belgium is evacuated, but it is not less
necessary, less vital to our national
existence that we should fight on until
the United States is evacuated.