The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1917-06-14
STRIKING SPEECH
rs GIVEN OUT
tcontinueo from page one,


and sought to corrupt the opinion of
our people in their own behalf. When
they found they could not their agents
deliberately spread sedition amongst us
and sought to draw our own citizens
from their allegiance-and some of
q these agents were men connected with
the official embassy of the German gov
eminent itself in our own capital They
sought by violence to destroy our in
dustries and arrest our commence. 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 repeatedly executed their
threats that they would send to their
death any of our people who ventured
to approach the coasts of Europe. And
many of our own people 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 work
What great nation in such circum-
stances would not have taken up arms
Much as we desired peace it was de-
MED US, and not of our own choice.
This flag under which we serve would
have been dishonored had we withheld
our hand
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 originate or
desire this hideous war or wish that
we should be drawn into it; and we are
vaguely conscious that we fighting
their cause. as they will some day see
il. as we'll as our own. They are them
selves 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 military
masters of Germany who proved to be
also the masters of Austria-Hungary.
These men have never regarded ma
dren of like blood and frame as them
selves. for whom governments existed
and in whom governments had their
life. They have regarded them merely
as serviceable organizations which they
could by forced intrigue bend or cor
rupt to their own purposes. They have
regarded the smaller states. in particu-
lar and the peoples who could be over
and instruments of domination. Their
purpose has been long avowed The
statesmen of other nations, to whom
that purpose was incredible, paid little
attention; regarded what German pro-
fessors expounded in their classes and
German writer's set forth to the world
as the goal of German policy as rather
the dream of minds detached from
practical affairs. as preposterious priv
ate conceptions of German destiny. than
as the actual plans of responsible rul-
ers; but the rulers Of Germany them
selves knew all the while what con-
crete plans. what well advanced in
trigues lay back of what the professors
and writer's were saying and were glad
to go forward unmolested. filling the
thrones of Balkin states with German
service of Turkey to drill her armies
and make interest with her government
.deveIoping plans of sedition and re-
bellion in India and Egypt, setting their
fires in Persia. The demands made by
Austria upon Servia were mere single
step in a plan which compassed Europe
and Asia. from Berlin to Bagdad They
hoped these demands might not arouse
h11f MI fo
whether thew did not. for they
thought themselves ready for the final
issue of arms.
Their plan was to throw broad belt
of German military power and political
control across the very center of Europe
and beyond the Mediterranean into the
heart of Asia; the Austria Hungary
was to be as much their tool and pawn
as Servia or Bulgaria or Turkey or the
ponderous states of the east. Austria
Hungary. indeed, was to become part of
the central German empire. absorbed
and dominated by the same forces and
influences that had originally cemented
the German states themselves. The
dream had it's heart at Berlin. 1t could
have had a heart nowhere else.
1T rejected the idea of solidarity of
race fnllTely. ne CnOlCe OF peoples
playedj no part in it at all. 1t con-
templated binding together racial and
political units, units which could be
kept together only by force-Czechs.
Magyars. Croats. Serbs, Roumanians.
Turks, Armenians--the proud states of
Bohemia and Hungary, the stout little
commemorative of the Balkans. the in
domitable Turks. the subtle peoples of
the east. These peoples did not wish
to be united. They ardently desired to
direct their own affairs, would be salts
fed only by undisputed independence.
They could be kept quiet only by the
presence or the constant threat or arm
ed men. They would live under a COM
mon power only by sheer compulsion
and await the day of revolution