The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-02-16
AN UNITED NATION

oldtSclHGH anu pau iOto VI t-41l q" 80
forth their grievances in document
that has become immortal.
Following that example, the New
York World, in a memorable docu-
ment. has given our grievances
against Germany.
1t is a long and sinister list, and is
daily becoming more aggravated
1t reads in part as follows:
The German government has dis
puted, belittled and invaded the SOW
ereignty of the United States on it's
own soil. With the help of thousands
of paid agents, spies and criminals,
many of them in government service,
it has dehed our laws. cOnspired
against our industry and commerce,
melted strikes and riots. placed ex-
plosives in ships. factories and ware
houses, levied war from our territory
upon Canada, endeavored by bribery
to persuade Mexico to make war upon
US, forged and bedeviled our pass
ports, and in numerous cases, by the
use of the bomb and the torch, de
stroyed American lives and American
property.
THAT government has denied to the
people of the United States the lawful
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great navy. it.has impudently asserted
rights on the ocean accorded to no.
body since the suppression of piracy
and buccaneering. 1t has sunk our
ships and massacred our people.
Boosting of it one day and the next
mOckingly expressing regret. 1t has
promised reformation and reparation
and has broken every pledge. Here
tofOre it has equivOcated and apalo
gized. 1t now reaches the very eli
max of outrage in what amounts to a
bold declaration of savage warfare
upon our shipping and our people ex
cept as they agree TO the vassalage
which it imposes.
THAT government has also main
tanned in this country at great cost.
under the leadership of German Off
paganda for the encouragement of
treason against the United States, a
political agitation calculated to mis-
lead our people as to their rights and
duties, and in the recent election
far reaching movement intended in
the interest of aliens to displace a
president of the United States whose
sole Offense was the strict observance
of neutrality. In all these respects its
activities have been so great that we
have been compelled TO revise our ma
tional criminal code. At this moment
there are pending in congress fifteen
or twenty bills giving the federal au-
thorities power to deal adequately
with atrOciOus crimes rarely commit
ted in this country until agents of
the German government entered upon
them by wholesale"
The die is cast; the Rubicon must
be crossed. and in crossing it Uncle
Sam" finds a united nation at his
back
In this momentous crisis, Charles
f Hughes. late candidate for presi.
dent. says
1T is a solemn hour. an hour in
which there is in the heart of no
American citizen any partisan
thought We are all Americans to-
night. standing Loyalty behind the
president. upon whom the great re-
sponsibility rests. 1t is not time to
embarrass in any adegree by any pri-
yate utterances those who have any
responsibility They have the facts.
They have the duty. They have our
sincere, loyal cooperation
Senator Lodge, a most persistent
critic of the president, especially as
to the proposal for bringing about
peace, said the note" from Germany
had startled the country" and that
he would utter no word that would
embarrass the president IN dealing
with that note.
And Roosevelt is incensed at Ger
many's proclamation of destruction
on the seas, and offers his services to
the president Oar leading men rec
ognize that Germany made crisis"
for this country. The pretention of
peace offers. couched in terms not ac-
ceptable to the allies, was but a pre-
lude to this move of submarine de-
strucuon, covering a field embrasing
neutral countries. The peace preten-
sion was but part of the scheme
| Germany is in desperate straits.
In this supreme crisis, the Father
land" the most intensely pro-German
newspaper in the United States, has
changed its name to the New
World and boldly prOcIain,S. "A mar