Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-09-03
WILSON FLAILS
DSLOYAL AND
PACIFTT BOARDS
Battle Line For Democracy
Extends From Flanders
Front to American Shops

washington sept. q. - mo one
who is not blind can fail to see that
the battle line of democracy for
America stretches to-day from the
fields of Flanders to every home and
workshop where toiling, upward
striving men and women are count
ing the treasures of right and justice
and liberty which are being threat
ened by our present enemies"
In this ringing statement Presi-
dent Wilson summarizes the fight
that is being made for democracy
IN the present war in letter sent
10 Samuel Gompers, declining an in
Vltation to address the Minneapolis
conference of the American Alliance
1or Labor and Democracy. Mr..
Gompers, who is the president of
the American Federation of Labor,
Is also chairman of the Alliance.
The Presidents letter, made pub
lie to-day, denounces those who seek
TO ignore Americas grievance against
Germany.
The Presidents Letter
Following Is the text of the Presi-
dents letter:
My Dear Mr.. Gompers:
am sure that you understand that
my inability to accept the invitation
TO address the Minneapolis confer
ence OF the American Alliance for
Labor and Democracy is due only to
official necessity and not in any de-
gree to lack of appreciation of the
Importance of the occasion. The
cause you and your fellow patriots
uphold is one with the cause we
are defending with arms. While our
soldiers and sailors are doing their
manful work to hold back reaction
in its most brutal and aggressive
form, we must oppose at home the
organized and individual efforts of
those dangerous elements who hide
disloyalty behind a screen of spe-
ctous and evasive phrases.
l have read with real pride the
names of the men and women who
are to take part in the Minneapolis
conference. Not one but has a rec
ord of devoted service to fundamen-
tai democracy; not one but has
fought the long, hard fight for equal
justice, Drawing every bitterness that
the humblest life might know a larg-
er measure of happiness.
With all my heart l want them
to feel that their devotion to country
is in no wise a betrayal of principle,
and that in serving America to-day.
they are serving their cause no less
faithfully than in the past. l my
self have had sympathy with the
fears of the workers of the United
Safes, for the tendency of war is
toward reaction, and too often mill
tary necessities have been made an
excuse for the destruction of labor
iously erected industrial and social
standards.
Hold Every Inch of Ground
These fears, happily, have proved
to be baseless. With quickened
sympathies and appreciation, with
new sense of the invasive and in
sidious dangers of oppression, our
people have not only held every inch
of ground that has been won by
years of struggle, but have added to
the gains of the twentieth century
along every line of human better
ment. Questions of wages and hours
of labor and industrial readjustment
have found a solution which gives
to the toiler new dignity and q
new sense of social and economic Sc
curity. l beg you to feel that my
support has not been lacking and
that the government has not failed
at any point in granting every just
request advanced by you and your
assistants in the name of the Amer
ican worker.
No one who is not blind can fail
to see that the battle line of demo-
cracy for America stretches to-day
from the fields of Flanders to every
house and workshop where toiling,
upward striving men and women are
counting the treasures of right and
justice and liberty which are being
threatened by our present enemies.
1t has not beenNa matter of sur
prise to me that the leaders in GER
tain groups have sought to ignore
our grievances against the men who
have equally misled the German peo-
pie. Their insistence that a nation
whose rights have been grossly vio-
lated. whose citizens have been foul
ly murdered under their own flag,
whose neighbors have been invited
to join in making conquest of its
territory, whose patience in pressing
the claims of justice and humanity
hase been met with the most shame
full policy of turbulence and treach-
cry, their insistence that a nation so
does not know it's own
mind, that it has no comprehensive
reason for defending itself, or for
joining with all its might in main
tanning a free future for itself and
it's ideals, is of a piece with their
deafness to the oft-repeated state
ment of our national purposes.
The Voice of Democracy
Is it perhaps that these forces ofl
have not yet learned to
know the voice of that America we
love and serve? 1t may well be that
those among us who stand ready to
the plans of aggression bred
in secret do not understand the
language of democracy when 1t pro-
claims the purpose of war in terms
of peace for the peoples that shall
be untroubled by those to whom
men are hut the pawns in their
struggle for power and gain. But
true Americans, those who toll here
for home and the hope of better
whose lifted eyes have caught
The vision of liberated world, have
said that of the policy of blood and
IRON there shall be an end, and that
equal justice, which is the heart of
democracy, shall rule in its stead.
May not those who toll and those
who have made common cause of the |
larger hope for the masses of man.
kind take renewed heart as they
think on those days when America
has taken it's stand for the rights of
humanity and the fellowship of So
a. .