Sugar planter. [volume] (West Baton Rouge [i.e. Port Allen, West Baton Rouge Parish, La.]) 1856-1925, 1917-06-23
FORCED INTO WAR"
PRESIDENT WILSON
Chief Executive Lays Blame for
Conflict Upon Germany.

OOIIIIlCl UpON QeTHldlly.
Declares American People Had No
Choice But to Take Up Arms-Du.
piicity and Intrioues Of the kaIsers
Government Forced the Conflict In
Which the Nation 10 Engaged.
Washington, June =. - President
Wilson, In his Flag day speech, set
forth the aims of the United States In
the present war, practically as fol-
lows:
My Fellow Citizens: We meet "a
celebrate Flag Day because this flag
which we honor and Lzder which We
serve Is the emblem Of our unity, our
power, our thought and purpose as q
nation. 1t has no other character than
that which we give It from generation
to generation. The choices are Ours.
1t floats in majestic silence above the
hosts that execute those choices,
whether in peace OF In a 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 II. We celebrate
the day Of its birth and from its birth
until now it has witnessed q great his
tory, has 1oated on high the symbol Of
great events, Of a great plan Of life
worked out by a great people. We are
about to carry 1t into battle, to lift it
where 1t will draw the fire Of q en-.
emies. We are about to bid thousands,
hundreds Of thousands, 1t may be mil.
Hons Of our men, the young, the strong.
the capable men Of the nation. to go
forth and die beneath 1t on fields of
blood far away-for what7 For some
Unaccustomed thing7 For something
for which 1t has " sought the fire
before sent across the seas. Why r
they sent now7 For some new pur-
pose, for which this great flag has new
er been carried before, or for some old.
familiar, heroic purpose for which it
has seen men, Its own men, lie on ev-
cry battlefield upon which Americans
have borne arms since the Revolutioni
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
S her flag as she has always used it.
W. are accountable at the bar Of his
tory and must plead in utter frankness
what purpose 1t Is we seek to serve.
No Choice But Wars A~rbitrament.
1t Is plain enough how we
forced into the war. The extraordi.
nary insults and aggressi0ns Of the i'm
perial German government left us no
self-respecting choice but to take up
arms In defense Of u rights as q free
people and Of our honor as q sovereign
government. The military masters of
Germany denied us the right to be e
trail. They filled un%suspecting com.
munities with vicious spies and con-
spirators and sought to corrupt the
opinion Of u people in their own be-
MALI. When they found that they could
not do that, their agents diligently
spread sedition amongst u 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 u w 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
from the foreign office in
They impudently denied us
the use Of the high sea and repeated
ly executed their threat that they
would send to their death any of Dur
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
suspicion and to wonder In their
hot resentment and surprise whether
there IA any community in which
intrigue did not lurk. What
great nation in such circumstances
not have taken up armsf Much
rs we had desired peacr, 1t was denied
US, and not Of our own choice. This
dag under which we serve would have
been dishOnored had we withheld Our
hand.
Relations With German People.
But that is only part of the story.
We know now as clearly as we knew
before we were ourselves engaged that
are not enemies Of the German peo-
DE and that they are not our enemies.
They did not originate or desire this
wal or wish that we should be
into it and we are vaguely con-
'ciOus that we r fighting their cause,
Is they will some day see it, as we'll as
,ur own. They are themselves in the
rip Of the same sinister power that
now at last stretched its ugly tai.
ms out and drawn blood from us. The
whole world is in the grip Of that pow.
and is trying out the great battle
which shall determine whether 1t is to
brought under its mastery or fling
tself free.
The war was begun by the military
masters of Germany, who proved to be
lsO the masters Of Austria Hungary.