The Coconino sun., 1917-07-06
DEFINES PLACE OF
 UNITED STATES IN WAR

 Franklin K. Lane at a meeting of the Home club last night gave in ringing sentences his answer to the question, "Why are we fighting Germany"
 Tomorrow is registration day." said the secretary. Tt is the duty of all, their legal as we'll as patriotic duty, to register if within the class called. There are some who have not clearly seen the reason for that call. To these would speak word."
 The Address
 He spoke as follows::
 Why are we fighting Germany? The brief answer is that ours is a 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 futre. For two years and more we held to a neutrality that made us apologists for things which outraged mans com mon sense of fair play and humanity.
 At each new offense-the invasion of Belgium, the killing of civilian Belgians, the attacks on Scarborough and other defenseless towns, the lay ing of mines in neutral waters, the fencing off of the seas--and so on and on through the months it 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 intervene It is ont 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 sympathies evolved into conviction Of self-interest. Our love of fair play ripened into alarm at our own peril.
 Good Faith
 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 material interests, until we discovered that we were thought to be a nation or mere money makers, devoid of all characters-until, indeed, we were told that we could not walk the high ways of the world without permission Of Prussian soldier, that our ships might not sail without wearing a striped uniform of humiliation, a mar row path of national subservience. We talked as men who hope for hon est agreement, not for war, until we found that the treaty torn to piece at Liege was but the symbol of policy that made agreemens worthless against purpose that knew no word but success.
 And so We came into the war for ourselves. It is a war to save Amer ica, 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 undaunted spirit, that word 'verbo- ten which Germany has written upon the sea and upon the land. For Amer ica is sot the name of so much terri tory. It is living spirit, born in travail, grown in the rough school of bitter experience, living spirit 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 re- spect by living on with the light of Lincoln's love of man as it's old and new testament.
 Question of Life
 It is more precious that this Amer ica should live than that we Ameri- cans should live. And this America as we now see has been challenged from the first of this war by the strong arm of power that has no sympathy with our purpose, and will not hesitate to destrop us if the law that we respected, the rights that are to us sacred, or the spirit that we have, stand across her set will be make this world bow before her poli- cies, backed by her organized and scientific military system. The world of Christ--a neglected but not a re- jected Christ-has come again face to face with the world of Mahomet, who willed to win by force.
 With this background of history and in this sense, then, we fight Ger many
 Because of Belgium-invaded, out ragged, enslaved, impoverished Bell gium--we cannot forget Liepe. Lop-