Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1917-06-12
LANE EXPLAINS WAR.
sWHY WE FIGHT" is TOLD
WORLD BY MEMBER OF WILL
SONS CABINET.
Is FIGHT OF SELF-DEFENsE
kaiser Thrust the Battle Upon Amers
i ica-Attacked v. s. by Sinking
Our Ships and Attempted
to Rule the Seas.

Washington, June Con the eve OF
war registration day Secretary Lane
made a speech before the Home club
of the interior department in which
he addressed a word TO those who
have not seen clearly the reason for
the cOuntry's call upon its young men,
and in ringing sentences answered the
question, why are we fighting Ger
many"
America is at war, Mr.. Lane said,
in sclf-defense and because she could
mot keep out; she is at war to save
herself with the rest of the world
from the nation that has linked itself
with the Turk and adopted the method
of Mohammed, setting itself to make the
world bow before policies backed by
Its organized and scientific military
system.
why are we fighting Germany"
said the secretary. 1.-The brief answer
BIS that ours is war of self-defense.
I'VE did not wish to fight Germany.
iShe made the attack upon us, not on
Jour shores, but on our ships, our lives,
our rights, our future. For two years
land more we held to a neutrality that
!made us apOlogists for things which
Outraged mans common sense of fair
lplay and humanity.
"At each new offense we said: This
IFS war-atchaic, uncivilized war, but
war. AL rules have been thrown
iaway; all nobility. Man has come
down TO the primitive brute, and while
I'VE cannot justify we will not inter-
lvene. 1t is not our war
"Then why are we in? Because we
could not keep out The invasion of
belgium, which opened the war, led to
1.-THE invasion of the United States by
lslow, steady, logical steps. Our sym
Ipathies evolved into a conviction of
iself-interest. Our love of fair play
Iripened into alarm at our own peril.
1--WE talked in the language and in
1.-THE spirit of good faith and sincerity,
Jas honest men should talk, until we
discovered our talk was construed as
!cowardice And Mexico was called
upon to COW us. We talked as men
would talk who cared alone for peace
land the advancement of their own ma
Iterial interests, until we discovered
that we were thought to be nation
iof mere money makers, devoid of all
Icharacter-until, indeed, we were
told that we could not walk the high
ways of the world without permission
of a Prussian soldier, that our ships
might not sail without wearing a
striped uniform of humiliation, mar
row path of national subservience.
"And so we came into this war for
yourselves. 1t is a war to save Ameri-
ica, to preserve self-respect, to justify
our right to live as we have lived, not
Ias someone else wishes us to live. In
the name of freedom we challenge with
ships and men, money and an I'M
,daunted spirit, that word 'verboten'
which Germany has written upon the
,sea and upon the land. For America it
lis not the name Of so much territory.
1T is living spirit, born in travail,
grown In the rough school of bitter ex-
Iperiences, living spirit which has
purpose and pride. knows why it
wishes to live and to what end, knows
how 1t comes to be respected of the
world, and hopes to retain that respect
by living on with the light of Lincoln's
love of man as its old ana new tesla
inent"