The Watertown news. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1917-1919, 1917-09-03
WILSON HITS FOES
President in Message to Labor
Lashes Peace Agitators.
Pledges Workers They VIII Not Be
Robbed of Fruits of Long
Battle.

Washington, Sept. 3.-President Will
son made public reinstatement of the
war aims of the United States.
He coupled with it a scathing sum-
mary of the imperial German govern
ment, showing in a letter to Samuel
Gompers the way in which this war for
democracy is peculiarly labor's war.
The letter was addressed to Mr..
Gompers on the eve of the meeting Of
the American Alliance for Labor and
Democracy in Minneapolis Tuesday.
1t is further considered that the
president aims his shafts across the
water. The Minneapolis meeting is
preparing to communicate with British
laboring men. Thence it's deliberations
will undoubtedly filter into the Stock
holm conference.
The letter to Mr.. Gompers follows:
My Dear Mr. Gompers:
Il am sure you understand my ina.
billy TO accept the invitation to adj
dress the Minneapolis conference of
the American Alliance for Labor and
Democracy is due only to official ne
cessity and not in any degree to lack
the occasion.
1.-The cause you and your fellow pa
triots uphold is one with the cause we
are defending with arms, While our
soldiers and sailors are doing their
manful WORK to hold back reaction in
It's Gsost british and aggressive form,
we must oppose at home the organized
and individual efforts of those danger
OTIS clements who hide disloyalty be-
hind a screen of specious and evasive
phrases.
Il have read with real pride the
names Of lie inen and women who are
20 ls,i.l l3,..5 III the Minneapolis confer
ence.
Il myself have had sympathy with
the fears Of the workers of the United
States; fer the tendency of war is to-
ward reaction and too often military
necessities have been made an excuse
for the destruction of laboriously
erected industrial and social standards
These fears happily have proved to be
baseless,
with quickened sympathies and ap-
probation, With new sense of the in
| ltsive ;4s! iAsiduous dangers of op-
preston, OH PEOPLE have not only held
every inch OF ground that has been
Won by years of struggle, but have
added to the gains of the twentieth
century along every line of human bet
terment.
Questions of wages and hours of
labor and industrial REIMBURSEMENT have
found solution which gives to the
tOiler new dignity and new sense
of social and economic security.
81 beg you to feel that my support
has not been lacking and that the gov
eminent has not failed at any point in
grantiI, oT2ry just request advanced
by you III your associates in the name
u the A:l-rican worker.
Not Cae " no is not blind can fail
to see that the battle line of democ-
racy for An. lea stretches today from
The fields Of FLANDERS to every house
and workshop where toiling, upward
striving men and women are counting
the treasures of right and justice and
liberty which are being threatened by
our present enemies.
1T mas not been a matter Of sur
prise to me that the leaders in certain
groups have sought to ignore our
grievances inst the men who have
equal Y Ili;i>t. the American people.
"Ihgir INSTANCE that nation
whose rights have been grossly violat-
ed; whose citizens have been foully
murdered under their own flag; whose
neighDors nave been invited to join in
making conquest of its territory, whose
patience in pressing the claims of just
ice and humanity has been met with
the most shameful policy of turbulence
end tceachpiI; their insiStence that a
nation SO outraged does not know it's
own mind, that it has no comprehen-
sible reason for defending itself, Or
for maintaining q free future for it
self and its ideals, is Of piece with
their deafness to the oft-repeated
statement Of our national purposes.
1T is, perhaps, that these forces of
antagonism have not yet learned to
know tho voice of that America we
love and serve.
Pug rue Americans, those who toll
here for home and the hope of better
things, whose lifted eyes have caught
the Vision q 4 liberated world. have
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