Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1917-06-22
PRESIDENT WILSON'S
FLAG DAY ADDRESS

Following is President Wilson's flag
day address delivered in Washington
last week:
"Nly fellow citizens: We meet to
celebrate 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 charac-
ter than that which we give it from
generation to generation. The choices
are ours. 1t floats in majestic 81
lence above the boasts 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 women who went before us
and of the records they wrote upon
ave celebrate the day of its birth,
and from its birth until now it has
witnessed great history, has float
ed on high the symbol of great events
of great plan of life worked out
by great people. We are about to
carry il into battle, to lift it where
il will draw the fire of our enemies.
We are about TO bid thousands, hun
dreds of thousands, il may be mil
lions of our men, the young, the
strong, the capable men of the Ma
ton TO go forth and die beneath it
on fields of blood far away-for
what? For some unaccustomned
thing? Flo something for which it
has never sought the fire before?
american armies were never be-
fore sent across the seas. Why are
they sent now? For some new pur-
pose, for which this great flag has
never been carried before, or for
which it has seen men, its owne men,
die on every battlefield upon which
Americans have borne arms since the
Revolution?
"Thesc are questions that must be
answered We are Americans. We
in our turn serve Amreica, and can
serve her with no private purpose.
We must use her flag as she has al
ways used it. We are accountable at
the bar of history and muht plead
in utter frankness what purpose it is
we seek to serve.
Cites Plotting Of Germany.
at is plain enough how we were
forced into the war The extraor-
binary insults and aggrcssions of the
Imperial German Government left us
no self-respccting 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
rigth to be neutral They filled our
unsuspecting communities with VIC
ious spies and conspirators and sought
to corrupt the opinion of our people in
their own behalf. Hhcn 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 these agents were men
connected with the official embassy
of the German government itself here
in our own capital.
"They sought by violence to destroy
our industries and arrest our conf
merce. They tried to incite Mexico to
take up arms against us and to draw
Japan into hostile alliance with
her, and that not by indirection but
by direct suggestion from the For
eign Office i'll Berlin. They impudcntly
denied us the use of the high seas
and repeatedly executed their threat
that they would send to their death
any Of the people who venturcd to
approach the coasts of Europe.
And many of our people were
corrupted. Men began to look upon
their own neighbors with suspicion
and TO wonder in their hot resentment
and surprise whether there was any
community in which hostile intrigue
did not Turk. What great nation in
such circumstances would not have
taken up arms? Much as we had de-
sired peace it was denied us, and not
of our own choice This flag under
which we serve would have been dis
honored had we withheld our hand
Reassures 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
are fighting their cause, as they will
some day see it, as well as our own.
They are themselves in the grip of
the same sinister power that has now
mt last stretched its ugly fal0ns out
and drawn blood frmo us. The whole
world is ut war because the whole
world is in the grip of that power
and is trying out the great battle
which shall determine whether il is
to be brought under its mastery or
fling itself free.
"The war was begun by the mill
tary masters of Germany, who proved
to be also the masters of Austria
Hungary. These men have never re-
garded nations as peoples, men, wo-
men and children of like blood and
frame as themselves, for whom gov
ernments existed and in whom gov
ernments had their life. They have
regarded them merely as serviceable
organizations which they could by
force or intrigue bend or corrupt to
their own purpose. They have re-
garded the smaller states in particu-
lar, and the peoples who could be
overwhelmed by force, as their nat
ural tools and instruments OF domi-
nation. Their purpose has long been
avowed.
'"The statesmen of other nations,
to whom that purpose was incedible,
paid little attention.; regarded what
German professors expended in