The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-06-22
THE PRESIDENTS
FLAG DAY SPEECH
What We Are Fighting FORA Bold
Arrangement of Germany's In
triSues and Aims.
hnfn

of peace" and the danger of its mil
itary autocracy not only to Europe,
but America and all "those who
throughout the world stand for the
rights of peoples and the self-govern-
ment of nations"
The Presidents Speech.
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 a
nation. 1t has no other character than
to generation. The choices are ours.
1t 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 wo
men who went before us and of the
records they wrote upon it.
We celebrate the day of its birth.
Until now it has witnessed a great
history, has fioated on high the SYM
Dol 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 enemies. We are about to bid
thousands, it may be millions, of our
men, the young, the strong, the Ca
pable 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 new
er sought the fire before? American
armies were never before sent across
the seas. Why are they sent now?
For some new purpose, for which this
great flag has never been carried be-
fore, or for some old familiar, hero
ic purposes for which it has seen men,
its own men, die on every battlefield
upon which Americans have borne
arms since the Revolution?
These arc 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 al
ways used it. We are accountable at
the bar of history and must plead in
utter frankness what purpose it is we
seek to serve.
1t is plain enough how we were fore
into the war. The extraordinary in
suits and aggressiOns of the Imperial
German Government left us no self
respecting choice but to take up arms
in defense of our rights as free peO-
pie and of our honor as a sovereign
Government. The military masters
of Germany denied us the right to be
neutral. They filled our unsuspecting
communities with vicious spies and
cOnspiratOrs and sought TO corrupt
the opinion of our people in their own
behalf.
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
itself 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 repeatedly exc
cuted their threat that they would
send to their death any of our people
who venterud to approach the coasts
of Europe. And many of our own
people were corrupted. Men began 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 intrigues 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 with
held our hand.
But thai is only part of the story.
We know now as clearly as we knew
before we were ourselves engaged
that we are not the enemies of the
German people and that they are not
our enemies. They did not originate
or desire the hideous war or wish that
we should be drawn into it; and we
are vaguely conscious 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 talons out
and drawn blood from us. The whole
world is at war because the whole
world is in the grip of that power and
is trying out the great battle which
shall determine whether it is to be
brought under its mastery or fling it.
self free.
The war was begun by the military
masters of Germany, who proved to
be also the masters of Austria Hun
gary. These men have never regard
ed nations as peoples, men, women and
children of like blood and frame as
themselves, for whom Governments
existed and in whom governments had
their life. They have regarded them
merely as serviceable organizations,
which they could by force or intrigue |
bend or corrupt to their own purpose.
They have regarded the smaller States |
in particular and the peoples who '
could be overwhelmed by force as i