The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1917-06-22
WAR FOR FREEDOM
President Wilson Tells of Aims OF
United States.
FORCED TO TAKE UP ARMS
Nation Acting In Defense of Our
Rights as a Free People and OF
Our Honor as a Sovereign
Government, Is Statement.

Washington, June Is. - Presiden
Wilson's Flag day address, delivered II
this city, was substantially as follows
My Fellow Citizens: We meet t.
celebrate Flag Day because this fla
which we honor and under which WI
serve is the emblem of our unity, ou
power, our thought and purpose as
nation. 1t has no other character thaI
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 WON
en- who went before us and of the rec
Ords they wrote upon it. We celebrate
the day of its birth; and from its birth
until now it has witnessed great his
tory, has dOated on high the symbol OF
great events, of q great plan of life
worked out by great people. we are
about to carry it into battle, to lift II
where it will draw the fire of our en-
emies. We are about to bid thousands,
hundreds of thousands, it may be mil
lions of our men, the young, the strong,
the capable men of the nation, to go
forth and die beneath 1t on fields of
blood far away-for what? For some
nnaccustomed thing? For something
for which it has never sought the fire
before? American armies were never
hn WhU
they sent now? For some new pur-
pose for which this great flag has new
er been carried before, or for some old,
familiar, heroic purpose for which II
has seen men, It's own men, die on ev-
cry battlefield upon which Americans
have borne arms since the Revolution!
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 has always used 1t.
We are accountable at the bar of his
tory and must plead In utter frankness
what purpose it is we seek to serve.
Forced to Take Up Arms.
1t is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The eXtraordl-
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 COM
munities with vicious spies and con-
spiratOrs and sought to corrupt the
opinion of our people in their own be-
half. 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 it.
self here in our own capital. They |
sought by violence to destroy our In
dustries and arrest our commerce.
They tried to incite Mexico to take up |
arms against us and to draw Japan in
to a hostile alliance with her-and
that. not by indirection, but by direct
suggestion from the foreign office In
Berlin. They impudently denied us
he use of the high seas and repeated
v executed their threat that they
would send to their death any of our
people who ventured to approach the
coasts of Europe. And many of our
own people were corrupted. Men be-
ran to look upon their own neighbors
With suspicion and to wonder in their
lot resentment and surprise whether
here was any community in which
hostile intrigue did not Turk. What
,reat nation in such circumstances
would not have taken up arms? Much
Is we had desired peace, it was denied
IS, and not of our own choice. This
lag under which we serve would have
,een dishonored had we withheld our
land.
German People Not Enemies.
But that is only part of the story.
We know now as clearly as we knew
efore we were ourselves engaged that
ye are not enemies of the German peo-
lie and that they are not our enemies.
'neY Ulu uOI OllSlndIC vi uCoiA Z ei'i' |
ideous war or wish that we should be
rawn into it; and we are vaguely con-
cious that we are fighting their cause,
S they will some day see it, as well as
ur own. They are themselves in the
rip of the same sinister power that
as now at last stretched It's ugly tai {
MS out and drawn blood from US. The
hole world is in the grip of that pow
r and is trying out the great battle
-hich shall determine whether 1t is to {
o brought under it's mastery or fling '
self free.
The war was begun by the military
asters of Germany, who proved to be
so the masters of Austria-Hungary.