The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-07-26
APPEALS To
AMERICAN PEOPLE
TO PROVE BY THEIR ACTIONS THERE IS Nd TRUTH IN AC-
CUSAT|0S OF LAWLESSNESS BROUGHT AGAINST
THEM BY THE TEUTOhS
ASSOCIATED Press)

Washington, July 26.-President
Wilson today, in a personal state
ment addressed to his fellow country
men, denouncing mob spirit and mob
action, called upon the nation to
show the world that while it fights
for democracy on foreign fields, it is
not destroying democracy at home.
The president referred not alone to
mob action against those suspected
of being enemy aliens or enemy SYM
pathiZers; he denounced most en-
phatically mob abtion of all sorts,
especially lynchings, and while he
did not refer specifically to lynchings
that he included them in his charac-
terization of mob spirit as ga blow
at the heart of ordered law and hu-
name justice"
It is known that the lynchings OF
negroes, as well as attempts upon
those suspected of being enemies or
sympathizers, have been used by Ger
man propaganda throughout Central
and South America as well as Eu-
of the United States as champion
of democracy are a sham.
Deeply concerned by the situation,
the president decided to address his
fellow countrymen and to declare
that ''every mob contributes to Ger
man lies about the United States
what her most gifted liars cannot
improve upon by way of calumny."
The presidents statement in full
follows:
"My Fellow Countrymen: l take
the liberty of addressing you upon a
subject which so vitally affects the
honor of the nation and the very
character and integrity of our insti-
tutions that | trust you will think me
justified in speaking very plainly
about it.
II allude to the mob spirit which
has recently here and there very
frequently shown it's head amongst
US, not in any single region, but il.
many and widely separated parts of
the country. There have been many
lynchings and every one of them has
been a blow at the heart of ordered
law and humane justice. No man who
loves America, no man who really
cares for her fame and honor and
character, or who is truly loyal to her
institutions, can justify mob action
while the courts of justice are open
and the governments of the states
and the nation are ready and able to
do their duty. We are at this very
moment fighting lawless passion.
Germany has outlawed herself among
the nations, because she has disre-
garded the sacred obligations of law
and has made lynchers of her armies.
Lynchers emulate her disgraceful ex-
ample. l, for my part, am anxious to
see every community in America rise
above that level. with pride and
fixed resolution which no man or set
of men can afford to despise.
"We proudly claim to be the cham
pions of democracy. If we really are,
in deed and in truth, let US see to it
that we do not discredit our own. /
say plainly that every American who
takes part in the action of mob or
gives it any sort of countenance is no
true son of this great democracy, but
its betrayer, and does more to dis
credit her by that single disloyalty to
her standards of law and of right
than the words of her statesmen or
the sacrifices of her heroic boys in the
trenches can do to make suffering
peoples believe her to be their savior.
How shall we commend democracy to
the acceptance of other peoples, if we
disgrace our own by proving that ir
is, after all, no protection to the
weak? Every mob contributes to
German lies about the United States
what her most gifted liars cannot
improve upon by the way of calumny.