The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-04-27
Father Morgan's Address

delivered by Father ]. R. Morgan at
the Loyalty Meeting, held in the
Court House on April 10th:
Fellow Americans:
| address you, ladies and gentle
men, by this title, Fellow Americans,
because no one living today under the
Constitution of the United States, un-
der the benign influence of Uncle
Sam, under the silken folds of the
Stars and Stripes, breathing the pure
and fragrant air of American free
dom. no one whose sweet home nest
les under the Star Spangled Banner
can with any degree Of propriety or
without raising the cry of treason
and traitor claim allegiance to an
alien foe. No matter what may be
our nationality or our creed we are
all Americans, for America first,
last and always.
We meet on a common platform to-
night, the platform of Americanism.
We have assembled under the roof of
this court house, the concrete express
sion of justice and right, not as Cath
olics or Protestants, not as Democrats
or Republicans, but as Americans, the
sons and daughters of America, to
pledge our fealty and reverence, our
devotion and love, yes, and if needs
be, our very lives to the grandest flag
that was ever kissed by the sweet
breath of heaven.
Our dear, fair country, through no
fault or detection of her own, has
been caught in the bloody vortex of
a gigantic war; but, thank God, our
grievance is not against nation or
a people (the people of Germany are
all right, more sinned against by their
Government than sinning), our cause
of complaint is not against them but
against despotic rule, an autocratic
dictation that would rob us, sons and
daughters of freedom, of our God
given rights and turn back the clock
of the worlds progress and enlighten-
ment to the dark days of cowardly
submission to cringing servitude.
But America is too great to be die
tated to; her people are too noble to
bend the knee before any foreign or
unfriendly potentate no matter how
autocratic his power, how fearful his
visage, how loud or thunderOus his
voice. Noise and the empty sound of
threatening words cannot scare the
United States nor bulge her from the
pillar and ground of truth; for she
is anchored to the Rock of Ages.
Though the youngest of the world
Powers she has outgrown her swad-
ding clothes and today she stands, in
material as well as intellectual and
moral force, giant among the ma
lions of the earth.
There was a time when America
was weak; weak in material resources,
but there never was time when she
was weak in the moral strength of
right as God gave her to see the right.
Her stand has ever been for liberty
and equality. Her hatred for oppres-
sion is instructive. Her habitual
thought runs along the ways Of peace
and love. With open arms she has
always welcomed the heavy laden and
sad of heart to her golden shores.
The first words that were given in the
long ago to her lips to utter, the first
thought that was granted to her
mind to conceive was that all men are
created free and equal and entitled
in the fullest measure to liberty and
the pursuit Of happiness. When first
enunciated these words Travelled like
a cyclone around the circle of the
globe; and since then they have made
the earth to rumble and quake with
the burden of their message: and to-
day many a monarch, as the vibrations
of these words strike against his
throne, has to exert all the might of
his power in holding on with both
hands to his kingly crown lest it be
shaken from his head and trampled in
the dust at his feet.
For these words of liberty and
equality, the cradle-song of our coun-
try's greatness, our fore-fathers of
Revolutionary days fought and bled,
suffered and died, martyrs to a noble
cause; and as they closed their blood
earthly awakening, there came to
them, as they lay amid shot and shell
upon the field of battle, the vision of
a glorious America, America as she
is today, nation holding the fore
most place among the nations of the
world, people leading in the van
guard Of the worlds progress and en-
lightenment, a Government standing
upon the mountain-top Of national
righteousness; fair Columbia, the gem
of the ocean, wearing upon her sun
kissed head not the iron cross of des-
potism but the golden crown of lib
erty, holding in her uplifted hand the
beacon light of freedom, the stars and
stripes of her silken gown symbolic
ing the integrity, the devotion, and
the patriotism by which her people
live and for which her patriots die.
believe that America has been
called as Aaron was. / believe that
the United States has been constitut-
ed by high heaven the Moses of the
nations to bring into the lives and
hearts of all down trodden and OPP
pressed peoples the light and hope of
better days. Our long-suffering and
patient President has assured us that
our participation in this war is not
for the purpose of conquest or gain.
We have entered the war only to vim
dictate our rights, to serve humanity
and to end the war. Our aim shall be
to scatter the clouds of suffering, to
clear the sky of oppression, so that