Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-04-03
Our Duty and De Stlny.

The special session of congress which convened
Monday marked the opening of a new chapter and
new book in American history. The past problems
and crises of our nation have been for the most
part internal. Our foreign wars since t. colonlal
revolution have effected no fundamentals change
our relations attitude to the rest OF Lac world
The of 1912 Of an episode than an
event. The Mexican of 1916, aside from ter
rtorial results, adventure of no great I'M
port. The with Spain, it is true, carried US
far beyond our own shores and gave new
sense of responsibility and power. But the Span
ish did change the essentials of our interna-
tiona policy 1t left us in our age-old isolation,
believing always had believed that the oceans
sundered from the issues as from the perlls
that shook the rest of mankind.
But the present crisis and the war it predes-
tines spring directly from world issues 1t IS no
merely commercial. interest merely legal right
that the United States is called upon to defend,
but broadly human interest and human right
1t is not simply question of whether American
ships and citizens shall be protected in their legiti-
mate business the high seas; it is fundamentally
question of whether the world would be safe or
civilization if Prussian savagery and terror
ism should triumph. To be sure, we are not called
upon to fight Germany because she is fighting the
Allies; we are called upon to fight Germany be-
she is fighting u.s. She has left us no alter
native other than the ignoble surrender or the
vigorous defense and enforcement of the princ1-
pies we stand for She has forced INTO the
arena. But it is a vastly wider than we
entered in the past, vastly more impor-
tant in it's issue and consequence.
The kind of world that Germany is striving
to establish is just the kind of world in which the
United States could not survive without abandon
ing it's basic convictions and ideals Germany as
is in he beRinninP always
will be until a mighty revolution sets its people
free is a military despotism. It's Kaiser believes
in the divine right of kings and his subjects do
not say him nay. It's dominant minds believe and
have preached openly that might makes right. Its
system of government and of society is calculated
repress if not indeed to crush out the spirit of
human liberty. The German state harks back to
the Spartan idea under which the individual ex-
listed only for the state, having no rights and
hardly a soul of his own. In the last one hundred
and fifty years the greater part of the civilized
world has come to hold that government is made
for man, but Germany cngs to the doctrine that
is made for government Since the American
republic came into being, the idea of popular
rights has flooded Europe and illumined the ends
of the earth, but Germany still moves in the dark
ness of despotsm; still the shame Of tyranny
on her brow. And she is determined, If she can,
to remake the world in her own image.
If the ideas on which the Hohenzollern mon
archy rests are to prevail and the ambitions on
which it is bent to triumph, then as surely as
night follows day democracy will perish from the
earth. The United States could not survive in
world of German domination because there would
be no true republics in such world. Should the
present war end in the defeat of the Allies end
inconclusivey, should be compelled, soon or
late to fight Germany for existence free
nation. 1t is, therefore, not unfortunate that we
are called upon to face the issue now and to do
timely part toward establishing world order in
which democracy abide and in which peace
with liberty will be possible. No longer can we
sit compacently in seawrapt isolation letting the
world go as it will, for have to a stage
in and in mankind's history where the
principles we believe in either must be indicated
surrendered. German ruthlessness has flung
the issue in the face of all our forbearance and
long-suffering Already state Of exists. Con-
gress can but recognize grim reality and place the
nation squarey in the way of honor and duty and
splendid destiny.