Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-07-06
4 Worldwide Fourth.

America celebrates this independence Day with
a breadth and liveliness of feeling rarely known
even in the most epochal of the years gone by
We feel aresh the issues that our Colonial fathers
felt in that heroic hour when the great Declara-
ton was signed and Liberty bell sounded the be-
ginning of world democracy. We are fighting anew
for the principle that "all men are endowed by
their Creator with certain nalienable rights, that
Governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed" and that whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends. it is the Right of the people to alter or
abolish it."
Those principles-the heart and hope of our
republic-have been challenged and trampled upon
by Hohenzollern Germany Indeed, HoheEzollern
Germany has undertaken to destroy for all the
world that generous faith in the rights of man
and to establish in its stead the Kaisers creed OF
the divine right OF kings. 1t difficult for us
of this free land realize that followers of that
tyrannous superstition still live and actually would
invade our own freedom Bred in liberty our
selves and respecting the rights of other peoples
we could hardly conceive of Twentieth-century
nation deliberately going forth with sword and
frebrand to spread vassallage through the world.
But as we watched the European drama unfold,
as we saw unofending Belgium invaded ana the
Lusitania, with its helpless women and children,
sent down we knew indeed that ruthless savagery
was at large; and finally, after hundreds OF our
own citizens had been slain and of our indus
tries burned or wrecked by the Kaser's agents.
and a plot to stir invasion borders laid
bare we realized that effort to be peaceful and
friendly could protect against mitarism that
inherently hated the things we stood for.
The Fourth of July. 1910, marked turning
point i'm the history of the world we'll in that
of America From that day forward democracy
moved with freer and stride Up until
then and until the triumph of the Revolution, the
dominant idea of government had been that OF
personal power resting military force. Short
lived or limited exceptions, there to be
but for the part, the dust of kings still held
the world awe. But after Yorktown, how the
light of freedom broke and streamed through the
shadows of the old oppression. The French hev
olution the characterization of the British Empire
the steady growth of the idea of popular govern
ment in Italy and throughout the greater part of
Europe-alI are traceab iE one way another to
the uuicke ning power of that Day whose anniver-
sary we now celebrate In only one land of all
Christendom. does absoutism survive; and that
land too shall be free from its Hohenzollern
tyranny when the principles to which Americans
again have pledged their lives, their fortunes and
their sacred honor are fully indicated.
This independence Day is being celebrated in
Paris and London and Petrograd and Rome and
even in faraway Bucharest the Stars and Stripes
futter beside the Rumanian flag. What tribute
TO American ideals! What inspiration to every
American citizen to prove worthy of his great
heritage and steadfast to his countrys cause! Let
us make this day of heart-searching to see that
our every thought be loyal, our every motive pa
triotic and day of dedication anew to that wis
ion splendid" which led fathers to liberty and
witch if faithfully followed will set the whole
world free.