Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-06-14

The Address
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 charac-
ter 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 or in war.
And yet, though silent, it speaks to
us-speaks to us of the past, of the
men and women who went before
us and of the records they wrote
upon it. We celebrate the day of its
birth. and from it's birth until now it
has witnessed a great history, has
fioated on high the symbol of great
events. of a great plan on life work.
cd out by great people. We are
about to carry it into battle, to lift
it where it will draw the fire of our
enemies.
Millions for Army
I'VE are about to bid thou sands,
hundreds of thousands, it may be
millions, of our men, the young the
strong, the capable men of the ma
ton, to go forth and die beneath it
on fields of blood far away,-hor
what? For some unaccustomed
thing? For something for which II
has never sought the fire before?'
American armies were never before
sent across the sea. Why are they
sent now? For some new purpose,
for which this great flag has never
been carried before, or for some old,
familiar, heroic purpose for which
it has seen men, its own men, die on
every battlefield upon which Amer
leans have borne arms since the Rev
olution?
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 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 1t is
we seek to serve.
Forced Into War
1T is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The eXtraordi-
nary insults and aggressions of the
Imperial German government left us
no self-respecting choice but to take
up arms in defense of our rights as
q free people and of our honor as
a sovereign government. The mill
tary masters of Germany denied us
the right to be neutral. They hlled
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 these agents
were men connected with the official
embassy of the German government
itself here in our own capital.
rvI,f hNr Nstn1nnRn
stroy our industries and arrest our
commerce. They tried to incite Mex
leo to take up arms against us and
to draw Japan into hostile alliance
with her-and that, not by indirec-
ton, but by direct suggestion from
the foreign office in Berlin. They
impudently denied us the use of the
high seas and repeatedly executed
their threat that they would send to
their death any of our people who
Ventured to approach the coasts of
Europe. And many of our own peo-
pie 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 intrigue did not lurk. What
great nation in such circumstances
would not have taken up arms?
Much as we had desired peace, 1t
was denied US, and not of our own
choice This flag under which we
serve would have been dishonored
had we withheld our hand.
No Hatred for People
But that 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 orig
mate or desire this 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 itself free.
The war was begun by the mill |
tary masters of Germany, who |
proved to be also the masters of
Austria Hungary. These men have
never regarded 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 |
their natural tools and instruments !
of domination. Their purpose has |
long been avowed.
Seemed Incredible
"The statesmen of other nations, |
to whom that purpose was incred-
ible, paid little attention; regarded |
what German professors expounded |
in their classrooms and German |
writer's set forth to the world as the |
goal of German policy as rather the |
dream of minds detached from prac-
teal affairs, as preposterous private
conceptions of German destiny, than
as the actual plans of responsible |
rulers; but the rulers OF Germany |
themselves knew all the while what |
concrete plans, what well advanced |
intrigues lay back of what the pro-
fessors and the writers were saying,
and were glad to go forward unmo-
Tested, filling the throngs of Balkan
states with German princes, putting |
German officers at the service of |
Turkey to drill her armies and make
interest with her government, de-
veloping plans of sedition and re-
bellion in India and Egypt. setting
their fires in Persia. The demands
made by Austria upon Servia were a
mere single step in plan which
rom ssed EurODe and Asia, from