The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-06-14

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 Washington, June 14-Presi- dent Wilson warned the Amer ican people in a Flag Day ad- dress on the Washington Mon- ument grounds today that Ger- many has carried into effect the greater part of her immedi- ate plan of conquest and now is, negotiating a new intrigue of peace" designed to end the war while. her aggressions are se-. cure.
 All the Central Empires, the pres- ident declared, have been cemented into one great autocracy-ridden em- pire. throwing a broad belt of Ger man military power and political con- trol across the very center of Europe and beyond the Mediterranean into the heart. of Asia.'' This accomplished, he said, it is easy to understand why Germany is fostering a propaganda for an early peace. M
 Peace, peace, peace has been the talk of her foreign office for now a year, and more,'' said the president. "A little of the talk has been public, but most of it has been private. Through all sorts of channels it has come to me and in all sorts of guises. The military masters under whom Germany is bleeding see very clearly to what point Fate has brought them. If they can secure peace now with the immense advantages still in their hands which they have up to this point apparently gained, they will have justified themselves before the German people; they will have gain- led by force what they promised to gain by it.''
 The president recited again the German aggressions which drove the United States to war. He declared the purpose for. which American sol- diers now carry the Stars and Stripes to Europe for the first time in his- tory are not new to American tradi- tions because realization of Germany's war aims must eventually mean the undoing of the whole world He spoke in full as follows:
 My fellow citizens: We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this flag which we honour and under which we serve is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought. and purposes as a nation. It has no other charac- ter than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours. It 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 women who went before us and of the records they wrote upon it. We celebrate the day of its birth; and from it's birth until now it has wit messed a great history, has floated on great plan of life worked out by a great people. We 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, it 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 unaccustona. ed thing? For something for which it has never sought the fire before? American armies were never before sent across the seas. Why are they sent now? For some new purpose, for which this great flag has never been carried before, or for some old, familiar, heroic purpose for which it has seen men, it's own men, die on every battlefield upon which Ameri- cans have borne arms since the Rev olution?
 tAThese 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 it. We are accountable at the bar of history and must plead in ut ter frankness what purpose it is we seek to serve.
 ''It is plain enough how we were forced into the war. The extraordi- nary insults and aggressions of the Imperial German government left us no self-respecting choice but to take up arms in defense of our rights as a. free people and of our honour as a. sovereign government. The military masters of Germany denied us the
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