The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1917-09-13
LESSO N NO. 2S.
WHY WE FIGHT.

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 Capital. They sought by vio-
lence to destroy our industries and ar
rest our commerce. They tried to in
cite Mexico to take up arms against
us and to draw Japan into hostile
alliance with her-and that, not by
indirection, but by suggestion from
the foreign Office in Berlin. They i'm
pudently 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"
Our Liberty and Safety Involved
Yet even this list of extraordinary
insults and aggressions" does not tell
the whole story. Our mot es for war
60 even deeper. Not only our rights
and self-respect, but our liberty and
safety are involved. Speaking on
July 20, 1917, at the officers training
camp at Madison Barracks, N. Y, the
Secretary of State said
1.-THE evil character of the German
Government is laid bare before the
world. We know now that that Gov
eminent is inspired with ambitions
which menace human liberty, and that
to gain its end 1t does not hesitate
to break faith, to violate the most sa-
cred rights, or to perpetrate intoler-
able acts of inhumanity " Let us
understand once for all that this is
no war to establish an abstract prin-
ciple of right. 1t is war in which
the future of the United States is at
stake"
The record out of which grows our
deep conviction that 1t is necessary
at once to put curb on so powerful
and rnscrupuplus an enemy is set
forth in an official publication. How
the War Came to America"
Judging the German Government
now in the light of our honest attempt
to keep the peace, we could see the
great autocracy and read her record
through the war. And we found that
record damnable. With a ia
natical faith in the destiny Of German
kultur as the system that must rule
the world, the Imperial Governments
actions have through years of boast
ing, double dealing, and deceit tend
ed toward aggression upon the rights
of others. And If there still be any
doubt as to which nation began this
war, there can be no uncertainty as
to which one was most prepared, most
eXultant at the chance, and ready in
stantly to march upon other nations
even those who had given no offense.
he wholesale depredations and hid
eous atrocities in Belgium and in Ser
bia were doubtless part and parcel
with the Imperial Governments pur-
pose to terrorize small nations into
abject submission for generations to
come. But in this autocracy has been
blind. For its record in those coun-
tries, and In Poland and in northern
France, has given not only to the al !
lies but to liberal peoples through
out the world the conviction that this
menace to human liberties must be
utterly shorn of its power for harm.
For the evil 1t has effected has
ranged far out Of Europe-out upon
the open seas where its submarines
in defiance of law and the concepts of |
have blown up neutral ves-
sells and covered the waves with the
dead and the dying, men and women
and children alike. Its agents have |
conspired against the peace of neu-
trail nations everywhere, sowing the |
seeds of dissension, ceaselessly en-
by tortuous methods CT de-
ueit, CT bribery, false promises, and
intimidation, to stir up brother ma
tons one against the other, in order
that the liberal world might not be
able to unite, in order that the auto
cracy might emerge from the war.
"All this we know from our own /