The Tomahawk., 1917-06-21
Text Of Wilson'S
Flag DaySpeeCfl

dress, delivered on the washington
Monument grounds, is as follows:
My fellow citizens, we meet to cele-
brats Flag day, because this flag which
we honor and under which we serve is
the emblem Of our unity, our power,
our thought and purpose as nation.
1t has no other character than that
which we give it from generation to
generation. The choices are ours.
1T floats in majestic silence above
the hosts that execute those choices,
whether in peace or in war, and yet,
though silent, it speaks to us-speaks
to us of the past, of the men and wom-
en- who went before us and of the rec
ords they wrote upon it.
We celebrate the day of its birth,
and from it's birth until now it has wit
messed great history, has floated on
high the symbol of great events, of
great plan of life worked out by a
great people.
To Draw Fire Of Enemies.
I'VE are about to carry it into battle
to lift it where it will draw the fire OF
our enemies. We are about to bid
thousands, hundreds of thousands, 1t
may be millions, of our men, the
young, the strong, the capable men of
the nation to go forth and die beneath
it On fields of blood far away-for
what? For some unaccustomed thing?
For something for which it never has
sought the fire before?
american armies never before were
sent across the seas. Why are they
sent now? For some new purpose, for
which this great flag never has been
carried before, or for some old ia
miliar, heroic purposes for which it
has seen men, it's own men, die on
every battlefield upon which Ameri-
cans have borne arms since the revo-
luton?
no SeIf-respecting Choice Left.
"These are questions which must be
answered. We are Americans. We in
our turn serve America. and can serve
her with no private purpose. We must
use her flag as she always used it. We
are accountable at the bar of history
and must plead in utter frankness
what purpose it is we seek to serve
at is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The extraordi-
nary insults and aggressions of the i'm
perial German government left us no
self-respecting choice but to take up
arms in defense of our rights as free
people and of our honor as sovereign
government The military masters of
Germany denied us the right to be neu-
trail. They filled our unsuspecting
viz
conspirators and sought to corrupt the
opinion of our people in their own be-
half.
Enemy Agents Spread sedition.
when they found they could not do
that their agents diligently spread Sc
dition among us and sought to draw
our own citizens from their allegiance
and some of those agents were men
connected with the official embassy of
our own capital.
"They sought by violence to destroy
our industries and arrest our COM
MERGE They tried to incite Mexico to
take up arms against us and to draw
japan into a hostile alliance with her
and that, not by indirection, but by
direct suggestion from the foreign Of
flee in Berlin.
"They impudently denied us the use
of the high seas and repeatedly exc
cuted their threat that they would
send to their death any of our people
who ventured to reach the coast Of
Europe.
And many of our people were cor
rupted. Men began to look on their
own neighbors with suspicion and to
wonder in their hot resentment and
surprise whether there was any COM
munity in which hostile intrigue did
not Turk.
What great nation in such circum-
stances would not have taken up arms !?
Much as we had desired peace it was
this flag under which we serve would
have been dishonored had we withheld
our hand.
Not Enemies of German People.
"But that is only part of the story.
We know now as clearly as we knew
before we were ourselves engaged
that we are not the enemies of the
German people and that they are not
our enemies They did not originate
or desire this hideous war or wish that
we should be drawn into it, and we are
vaguely conscious that we are fighting
their cause, as they will some day see
it, as we'll as our own.
They are themselves in the grip
of the same sinister power that now
has at last stretched its ugly talons
out and drawn blood from us. The
whole world is at war because the
whole world is in the grip of that
power anc is fighting out the great
battle which shall determine whether
it is to be brought under its mastery
or fling itself free.
Begun by Military Masters.
The war was begun by the military