River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1917-06-21
SCORES THE KAISER
PRESIDENT SAYS MILITARY MAS
TIERS DENIED U. S. RIGHT
TO BE NEUTRAL.
FILLED COUNTRY WITH SPIES
Failed In Attempt to Spread Sedition
German People in Grip of Same
Sinister Power That Has
Drawn Blood From Us.


Washington, June 15.-President
Wilson in a Flag day address deliv-
cred here on Thursday declared that
we were forced into the worldwide
war by the extraordinary insults and
aggressions of the military masters Of
Germany.
The presidents address in part is 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 a
nation. It 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
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 wom-
en- who went before us and of the rec
ords they wrote upon 1t. We celebrate
the day of it's birth; and from it's birth
until now it has witnessed a great his
tory, has floated on high the symbol of
great events, of great plan Of life
worked out by great people. We are
about to carry 1t into battle, to lift it
where it will draw the fire of our en-
emies. We are about to bid thousands
hundreds Of thousands, it may be mil
lions Of our men, the young, the strong,
/ &Ia ~ @I1O 70
forth and die beneath it on fields of
blood far away-for what? For some
unaccustomed thing? For something
| for which 1t has never sought the fire
before? American armies were never
before sent across the seas. Why are
| they sent now? For some new pur-
pose, for which this great flag has new
er been carried before, or for some DID,
familiar, heroic purpose for which it
has seen men, it's own men, die on ev-
cry 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 must
use her flag as she has always used it.
We are accountable at the bar Of his
| tory and must plead in utter frankness
what purpose it is we seek to serve.
United States Forced Into War.
1t is plain enough how we were
forced into the war. The extraordi-
nary insults and aggressions of the i'm
perial German government left us no
self-respecting choice but to take up
arms in defense of our rights as a free
people and Of our honor as a sovereign
government. The military masters of
| Germany denied rs the right to be neu-
trail. They filled our unsuspecting COM
| munities with vicious spies and con-
spirators and sought to corrupt the
| opinion of our people in their own be-
half. When they found that they could
not do that, their agents diligently
spread sedition 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 it
self here in our own capital. They
! sought by violence to destroy our in
| dustries and arrest our commerce
| They tried to incite Mexico to take up
arms against US andsto draw Japan in
| to 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 repeated
/ ly executed their threat 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 be-
gan 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 Turk. What
great nation in such circumstances
would not have taken up arms? Much
as we had desired peace, it was denied
us, and not of our own choice. This
| flag under which we serve would have
| been dishonored had we withheld our
hand.
No Emnity Toward German People.
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 enemies of the German peo-
pie 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 con-
scious that we are fighting their cause,
as they will some day see it, as well as
our own. They are themselves in the
grip of the same sinister power that
has now at last stretched its ugly tai
ons out and drawn blood from US. The
whole world is in the grip Of that pow
er 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-H Hungary.
These men nave never regarded ma
tons as peoples, men, women, and