The Meridian times. (Meridian, Idaho) 1909-1938, 1917-06-22

0ciluduy HAS carried INTO erect the
greater part of her immediate plan of
conquest and now is negotiating new
intrigue of peace" designed to end
the war while her aggressions are Sc
cure
All the central empires, the presi-
dent declared, have been cemented in
to one great autocracy ridden empire,
throwing broad belt of German
military power and political control
across the very center of Europe and
beyond the Mediterranean into the
heart of Asia. This achieved" he said,
sit is easy to understand why Ger
many is fostering a propaganda for
an early peace.
Peace, peace, peace, has been the
talk of her foreign office now for
year and MORE" said the president. "a
little of the talk has been public, but
most of it has been private. Through
all sorts of channels it has come to me
and in all sorts of guises. The mill
tary masters under whom Germany is
bleeding see very clearly to what point
fate has brought them. If they can
secure peace now with the immense
advantages still in their hands which
they have up to this point apparently
gained, they will have justified them
selves before the German people; they
will have gained by force what they
promised to gain by it,
President Reiterates German Agqres-
sions.
The president recited again the Ger
| man aggressions which drove the Unit
ed States to war. He declared the pur-
pose for which American soldiers now
carry the Stars and Stripes to Europe
| for the first time in history are not
new to American traditions because
realization of Germany's war aims
| must eventually mean the undoing of
| the whole world. He spoke in full as
| follows:
| 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 d
| 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
4 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 cele
brate the day of it's birth; and from
| its birth until now it has witnessed
| great history, has fleated on high the
| symbol 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, hundreds of thousands, it
| may be millions, of our men, the
young, the strong, the capable men OF
! the nation, to go forthA And die beneath
| 1t on fields of blood far away-for
/ what?
unjust Use U. S. Flag as 1t Has Al
! ways Been Used."
| "For some unaccustomed thing? For
something for which it has never
sought the fire before? American ar
mics 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, mailiar, heroic
| purpose for which it has seen men, its
| own men, die on every battlefield upon
which Americans have borne arms
since the revolution?
"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
1 s,i.o Ifa- oil UNIV
used it. We are accountable at the
bar of history and must plead in utter
frankness what purpose 1t is we seek
to serve.
at is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The extraordl-
| 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
! free people 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 ulllSenlIy SpAtdo SSAAhoh
| 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 industries and
| arrest our commerce.
Tells of Trying to lncite Mexico.
.'They tried to incite Mexico to take
up arms against us and to draw Japan
| into 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 repeat
eddy executed their threat that they
would send to their death any of ouI
| people who ventured to approach the
! coasts of Europe. And many of our
/ own people were corrupted. Men be
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