The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-06-23
WAR FOR FREEDOM
President Wilson Tells of Aims of
United States.
FORCED TO TAKE UP ARMS
Nation Acting in Defense of Our
Rights as Free People and of
Our Honor as Sovereign
Government, Is Statement.

Washington, June 15. = President
Wilson's Flag day address, delivered in
this city, was substantially as follows:
My 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 character 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 wOm-
en- who went before us and of the rec
ords they wrote upon 1t. We celebrate
the day of It's birth; and from its birth
until now it has witnessed great his
tory, has foated on high the symbol of
great events, of a great plan OF life
worked out by great people. We are
about to carry it into battle, to lift it
where it will draw the fire of our en-
emies. We are about to bid thousands,
lions 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
unaccustomed 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 pur
pose, for which this great flag has new
or been carried before, or for some old,
familiar, heroic purpose for which it
has seen men, its 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 it.
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.
It is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The extraordi-
nary insults and aggressiOns of the i'm
perial German government left US no
seIf-respectfng choice but to take up
arms in defense of our rights as free
people and of our honor as a sovereign
government. The military masters of
Germany denied US the right to be neu-
trail. They filed 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
the use Of the high seas and repeated
ly 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-
gan 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 desired peace, it was denied
us, and not of our own choice. This
flag under which we serve would have
been dishonored had we withheld our
hand.
German People Not Enemies.
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 enemies of the German peo-
pie 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 we are vaguely con-
scious that we 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 at last stretched its ugly tai
ons out and drawn blood from us. The
whole world is in the grip of that pow
er and is trying out the great battle
which shall determine whether it is to
be brought under its mastery or fling
itself free.
The war was begun by the military
masters of Germany, who proved to be
also the masters Of Austria-Hungary