Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-01-27
PATRIOTS CONGRESS
CONTINUED from Page One)


ment nv a mob. To divide along the
lines of section or caste or creed is I'M
American. All privileges based on
wealth, and all enmity TO honest n1eiA
merely because they are wealthy are
un-American-both of them equally SO.
Americanism means the virtues OIL,
courage honor, justice, truth, sincerity
and hardihood-the virtues tnat maze
America The things that VIII destroy
America are prosperity price,
peace any price, safety first instead
of 6uty-first, the love of soft living and
the get-rich quick theory OF llfe
Keep Lofty Ideals Before Us
Preparedness must be Of the soul no
less than Of the body. We must keep
lofty ideals steadily before US, ana
must train ourselves in practical 1ash-
ion so that we may realize these Ideals.
Throughout our whole land we must
have fundamental common purposes,
to be achieved through education,
through intelligent organization and
through the recognition of the great
vital standards of life and living. we
must make Americanism and Amer
termination mean the same thing to
the native born and to the foreign
born; to the man and to the woman; to
the rich and to the poor; to the en-
ployer and to the wage-worker. If we
believe in American standards, we
shall insist that all privileges springing
from them be extended to immigrants,
and that they in return accept these
standards with whole hearted and en-
nIN
solutely by our ideals and conceptions
of duty, or else we are against them.
There is no middle course, and if we
attempt to find one, we insure for our
selves defeat and disaster.
Citizenship must mean an undivided
! loyalty to America; there can be no
citizenship on the $3.50 basis; there
can be no loyalty half to America and
half to Germany or England or
France or Ireland, or any other coun-
try. Our citizens must be Americans,
and nothing else. and if they try to be
something else in addition, then they
should be sent out of this country and
back to the other country to which,
in their hearts, they pay allegiance.
/ We must have one American language;
dependence and the Constitution, of
Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech and Sec
ond Inaugural, and of Washington's
farewell address. The American
standard of living conditions and the
American standard of working condi-
tons both must be high. We must in
sist upon them for immigrants as we'll
as for the native born. We must in
sist that the people who work here,
live here; that they are not mere birds
of passage from abroad. We must in
sist upon industrial justice, and we
cannot get it If we let ignorance and
need be preyed upon either by vulpine
cunning or by wolf1sh brutality, and if
we do not train the ignorant and the
needy up to Self-reliance and efficiency.
Means More Than Man with Gun
Preparedness does not mean merely
man with gun. 1t means that too;
but it means a great deal more. 1t
means that in this country we must
secure conditions which will make the
farmer and the working man under
stand that it is in a special sense their
country; that the work of preparedness
! is entered into for the defense of the
country which belongs to them, to all
of us, and the government of which is
administered in their interest in the
interest of all Of us. At this moment,
Lloyd George is able to do more than
any other man in rallying the people
OF Great Britain to the defense of that
Empire, because the working men, the
men who actually do the manual labor
know that he has their welfare at
heart, that the national ideal for which
he is fighting is that which will give
them the best chance for elf-develop-
ment, and for that happiness which
comes to the man who achieves his
rights at the same time that he per-
forms his duties. He is followed by
the people as a whole because they
know that he stands for the people as
whole. We in America who are striv-
ing for preparedness must make it ev-
ident that the preparedness is to serve
the people as a whole The war on
the other side has shown that there
can be no efficient army in the field I'M
less the men behind are trained and
efficient and unless they are whole
heartedly loyal in their patriotic de-
vCtlon to their country. Here in Am
erica we must 90 justice to the work
ers. or they will not feel that this is
the country to which their devotion is
due: and we must exact patriotic de-
Votion to the fag from them for if thew
fail to render it they are unfit to live
in this country at all. / appeal to all
Americans to join in the common effort
for the common good. Any man who
holds back ana refuses to serve his
country with whole-hearted devotion,
on the ground that enough has not
been done for him, will do well to re-
member that any such holding back or
lukeWarmness of patriotism is itself an
admission of personal unfitness for cit
izenship in democracy, and ought to
deprive him of the rights of citizenship.
AS for the men of means, from whom
we have the right to expect special
quality of leadership, let them remem-
Der that, as much as has been given to
them so much will be expected Of them
and that they have no moral right
whatsoever to the enjoyment of the
ease and comforts of life beyond what
their fellows enjoy unless they render
service beyond what their fellows rem
der.
H. r l. CT r