The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1918-03-07

]
after eonquering Europe TO attack and
conquer us.
Through the patient years Of our
honest attempt TO keep the peace q
nations the records Of the German
autocraey Is damnable.
With fanatical faith in the destiny
Of German kultur, its submarines in
defnance OF law and the concepts OF
humanity have blown up neutral ves-
sells, and covered the waves with dead
and dying men, women and little chill
dren alike: IL has set the torch Of the
ineendiary 10 our factories, our work
shops, our ships and our wharves: laid
the bomb of the assassin in our muni-
tion plants and in the holds Of our
ships; sought to corrupt our manhood
with selfish dream of peace when
there is no peace; destroyed our COM
merce and murderously butchered our
citizens on the high seas; sought to
terrorize the world with its hellish poll
icy Of frightfulness; violated every
canon of international deceney, set at
naught every solmn treaty and every
precept of international law, and
plunged the world into the maddest
orgy Of blood, rapine and murder
which history records.
To refrain from entering into the
war, this stupendous civil war of all the
world, this new campaign in the age
old war the prize of which is liberty.
a struggle in which all who love free
dom have stake, would have been a
crime against civilization and against
our ancestors who gave their lives in
order that we might be free.
For two years and more we were
lulled to sleep by German propaganda.
We held to a neutrality that made US
ashamed, that made every red blooded
American deep down in his heart apol-
ogize for the human race, for those
things which outraged mans every
sense of decency, fair play and human
ity. There came day when we
awoke, genuinely alarmed at the peril
which confronted US. We have come
to know that from the day of the in
vasion of Belgium the German war
lords plan led onward across bloody
fields, westward, with slow but steady
strides to an invasion of our shores.
Aroused at last from our lethargy,
patience ceased to be longer virtue,
further endurance was cowardice, sub
mission to Prussian demands was
slavery.
So we came into the war for self
defense. So now, as President Wilson
says: "We are fighting as truly for
the liberty and self-government of the
United States as if the war of our own
Revolution had to be fought over
again, and every man in every busi-
ness in the United States must know;
but this time, that his whole future
lies in the balance"
1t is our lives, liberty, property and
happiness that are at stake! If any
man has an idea that we are fighting
Others battles, not our own, the soon
er he gets away from that idea the
better it will for him, the better it
will be for all of US.
The immediate duty of America is to
send men and resources to the battle
fields of Europe to help France and
England win the war before their
strength is further depleted and the
war brought to America. 1t is our
plain duty TO fight in self defense and
for and with our friends, while we
have them, and to the end that there
may be an end of all war forever.
"We are as nation in the presence
Of a great task which demands su- I
preme sacrifice and endeavor of every |
one of us. The eliminating crisis Of
the struggle has come and the achieve !
ments of this year, on the one side or ;
the other, must determine the issue" {
We should get it out of heads that s
he only way in which we can show our i
that the only way in which |
we can save ourselves is to serve as
for to save the soldiers some d
IF US must serve at home This will q
De long war, and against the millions '
IF men that Germany is now massing d
IN the western front, our millions of
men must be opposed We must pre- c
)are for days, weeks, months and S
Years of struggle, Of suffering and Of S
sacrifice, the like of which the world h
las never seen. This is life and
ieath struggle which we have entered, ?
determined to establish once for all d
hat government of the people, by v
he people, for the people shall not s
,erish from the earth" We have not n
IS yet fully comprehended the magni- v
ude Of the conflict in which we are s