The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1917-11-22


culence and treachery.'
"When the war commenced" saiG
Mr.. Kahn, 81 believed that this was nc
ordinary war between peoples for q
question of national interest or even
national honor. but conflict between
fundamental principles and ideas; and
so believing, l was bound to feel that
the natural lines of race, blood and
kinship could not be the determining
lines for ones attitude and alignment;
but that each man, whatever his orr
gin, had to decide according to his
judgment end conscience on which
side, was the right and on which was
the wrong and take his stand accord-
ingly, whatever the wrench and an
guish If the decision. And thus took
my stand three years ago. -.
"For we Americans Of foreign an
tecedents are here not by the accidlen-
tai right of birth, but by cur own free
choice for bettar or for worse. We
are you fellow citizens because you
accepted our oath of allegiance as CIV
en- in good faith, cd because you have
opened to us in generous trust the
portals of American opportunity and
freedom, and have admitted us to
membership in the family of Am ri-
cans, giving US equal rights in the
great inheritance which has been
created by the blood and the toll of
your ancestors, asking nothing from
us in return by decent citizenship and
adherence to those ideals and prin-
ciples which are symbclized by the
glorious flag of America. -.
Gas Washington led Americans Of
British blood to fight against Great
Britain, as Lincoln called upon Amer
leans Of the North to fight their very
brothers of the South, so Americans
of German descent are now summoned
to join in our country's righteous
struggle against people of their own
blood which, under the evil spell Of
a dreadful obsession, and, Heaven
knows, thru no fault of ours, has made
itself the enemy of this peace-loving
nation, as it is the enemy of peace and
right and freedom turnout the world.
ITO gain Americas independence,
to defeat oppression and tyranny, was
indeed to gain great cause. To pre-
serve the union, to eradicate slavery
was perhaps greater still. To defend
the very foundations of liberty and
humanity, the very groundwork of
fair dealing between nations, the very
basis of peaceable living together
the peoples of the earth
against the fierce and brutal on
slaught of ruthless, lawless, faithless
might; to spend the lives and the for
tunes of this generation so that our
descendants may be freed from the
dreadful calamity of war and the fear
of war, so that the energies and mil.
lions and billions of treasures now de-
voted to plans and instruments Of
may be given henceforth
to fruitful works of peace and pro-
gress and to the betterment of the
conditions of the people-that is the
highest cause for which any people
ever unsheathed it's sword.
"He who shirks the full measures of
his duty and allegiance in that noblest
Of causes, be he German-American,
[rish-American, or any other hyphen-
ated American, be he I. w. W., or So
cialist or whatever the appellation,
does not deserve to stand amongst
Americans or indeed amongst free
men any where.
'He who, secretely or overtly, tries
to thwart the declared will and aim
Of the nation in this holy war is a
traitor, and traitors fate should be
MIS-"