The Nome daily nugget., 1918-04-15

(By Franklin K Lane. Secretary of the fnterIor)
 Why are we fighting Germany? The brief answer is that ours is a war of self-defense We did not wish to fight Germany. She made the attack upon us; not on our shores. but on our For two years and more we held to a neutrality that made us apologists for things which outraged mans common sense of fair play and humanity. At each new offense-the invasion of Bel gium, the killing of civilian Belgians, the attack on Scarborough and other |. defenseless towns, the laying of mines in neutral waters, the fencing off of the seas-and on and on through the months we said: This Is war--archaic, uncivilized war, but war! All rules have been thrown away: all nobility; man has come down from the prin.- live brute. And while we cannot justify we will not int ervcne It 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 the invasion of the United States by slow, steady, logical steps. Our sym pathies evolved into a conviction of self-interest. Our love of fair play ripened into alarm at our own peril.
 We talked in the language and in the spirit of good faith and sincerity, as honest men should talk, until we dis covered that our talk was construed as cowardice. And Mexico was called upon to invade us We talked as men would talk who cared alone for peace and the advancement of their own ma terial interests, until we discovered that we were thought to be a nation of mere money makers, devoid of all
 
 that we could not walk the highways of the world without permission of a Prussian soldier; that our ships might not sail without wearing a striped uni form of humiliation upon q narrow path of national subservicncc. We talked as men talk who hope for hon. est agreement, not for war, until WIG found that the treaty torn to pieces at Licge was but the symbol of policy that made agreements worthless against q purpose that knew no word but success.
 And so we came into this war for ourselves. It is a war to save Ameri- cato preserve self-reopect, to justify our right to live as we have lived, not as some one else wishes us to live. In the name of freedom we challenge with ships, and men, and money, and an undaunted spirit, the word "Ver- boten" which Germany has written up- on the sea and upon the land. For America is not the name of so much territory. It is a living spirit, born in travail, grown in the rough school of bitter experiences, living spirit which has purpose and pride, and con- science--knows why 1t wishes to live and to what end, knows how is comes to be respected of the world, and hopes to retain that respect by living on with the light of Llncoln's love of man as it's Old and New Testament. It is more precious that this America should live than that we Americans should live. And this America, as we now see, has been challenged from the first of this war by the strong arm of a power that has no sympathy with our purpose and will not hesitate to de- stroy us if the law that we respect, the rights that are to us sacred, or the spirit that we have, stand across her set will to make this world bow before her policies, backed by her organized and scientific military system. The world of Christ--a neglected but not reflected Christians come again face to face with the world of Mahomet,