Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1917-11-02
WHY WE FIGHT.

review OI I1e EVENTS ludl AudAAJ AVANCu
us into war, when there remained N
other means of defending u rights"
The soldier Of an autOcratic kaiser
may fight best when he understands
least of the true meaning of the war.
To tell him the facts would be to chill
his enthusiasm. But the citizen SOL
der of a democracy Is entitled to
know for what purposes he enters the
struggle. He fights best when he sees
most clearly why he fights.
The resolution of congress declaring
a state of war april 6, 1910 ex-
presses the immediate cause In these
few words:
"The imperial German government
has committed repeated acts of war
against the government and the people
of the United States of America"
Chief among the acts Of war were
attacks by German submarines on
American ships and On unarmed mer-
chant ships of other nations carrying
llllC van DuSSVAl6CLS NooSA "a
every kind" said the president in his
address to congress on April 2, 1917,
whatever their flag, their character,
their cargo, their destination, their err
rand, have been ruthlessly sent to the
bottom without warning and without
thought of help or mercy for those on
board, the vessels of friendly neutrals
along with those Of b%elligerents."
There we're other acts of hostility In
addition to the submarine warfare. In
his Flag day address delivered at
| Washington on June ii, 1917, the pres
ident summed up the events that
brought on war as follows:
1T Is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The extrabr-
binary insults and aggressiOns of the
imperial German government left US
no se~lf-respecting choice but to take
up arms in defense of our rights as a
free people and Of our honor as a SOW
ereign government. The military
masters of Germany denied us the
right to be neutral. They filled our
u%nsuspecting communities with vicious
spies and conspirators and sought to
corrupt the opinion of u people In
their own behalf. When they found
that they could not do that, their
agents diligently spread ,sedition
amongst us and sought to draw our
own citizens from their allegiance
and some Of those agents were men
connected with the official embassy of
the German government itself here ia
our capital. They sought by violence
to destroy u industries and arrest
our commerce. They tried to incite
Mexico to take up arms against us
and to draw Japan into a hostile alli-
ance with her-and that, not by indi-
%rection, but by suggestion from the
foreign office in Berlin. They impu-
IDENTIFY denied us the use of the high
seas and repeatedly executed their
threat that they would send to their
death any of our people who v%entured
to approach the coasts of Europe"
The record out of which grows our
deep conviction that 1t is necessary at
once to put il curb on so powerful and
INSCRIPTIONS an enemy is set forth In
an official publication "How the War
Came to America"
Judging the German government
now in the light Of our honest attempt
to keep the peace, We could see the
great ~autocracy and read her record
through the war. And we found thai
record damnable. . With a ia
natical faith in the destiny of German
kultur as the system that must rule
the world, the imperial government
actions have through years of boast
ing, double dealing, and deceit tended
toward aggression upon the rights Of
others. And if there still be any doub
as to which nation began this war
there can be no uncertainty as t.
which n was most prepared, mos
exultant at the chance, and ready In
stantly to march upon other nations
, ever those who had given no offense
, The wholesale depredations and hide
Gus atrocities in Belgium and in Ser
Z bia we're doubtless part and parce
with the imperial governments pur
pose to terrorize small nations int
, abject submission for generations t
come. But in this autocracy has bee
, blind. For its record In those coun
: tries, and in Poland and in northern
France, has given not only to the allie
l but to liberal peoples throughout tn
. world the conviction that this menac
I to human liberties must be utterl
: shorn of its power for harm.
I "For the evil 1t has effected ha
y ranged far out of Europe-out upo
S the open seas, where Its submarine
In defiance of law and the concepts Q
: humanity have blown up neutral We;
g sells and covered the waves with tn
z dead and the dying, men and wome
+ and children alike.
S "All this we know from our own e.
1 perience with the imperial govern
l. ment. AS they have dealt with Ell
rope, so have they dealt with us an
k with all mankind. And so out {
f these years the conviction has grow
that until the German nation is dives
" ed of such, democracy cannot be safe
e Every American soldier in this wa
1t fights for objects dearer to all of I