Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-07-09
The Presidents ReS0Iute
Fourth of ,Wiv Speech

OHI W " OUEy Ope6CU
President Wilson's independence Day address
breathes out the calmness of the serene and hal
lowed spot where he spoke. On the green hillside,
where sleeps the Father of his Country and where
in the days of old he and his counseors looked
upon the world and it with the light of the
future upon it," the President found an abiding
quietness that we'll accords with moments of great
resolution. That is the presiding spirit of his
Fourth of July message, with its unbending and
untroublcd determination He enyisages the war,
few can in its terrible Wilderness and in the
earthwide tangle of its issues He sees as few can
its disastrous chances its heart-crushng sacrifices
its grim ordeals before victory shall come But
seeing all this. he says with calmness worthy of
the nations strength:
There can be but one issue. The settle
mcnt must be final. There be no compro-
mise. No halfway decision will be tolerable.
No halfway decision is conceivable"
If Prussianism has a lingering doubt Of Amer
cas purpose and resolution, there is it's
If Foreign Minister Kuehlmann putting
forth peace query when he recently told the
Rechstag that the war hardly could be ended
through military decision, there is his answer If
the Potsdam Gang expects TO patch up settlement
in the West on the condition of holding its bandit
spos in the East and retaining the power to launch
another onset against civilization, it should fno
establishment in President Wilson's latest deca
ration. For he lays down the prime requisite to
peace:
The destruction of every arbitrary power
that separately, secretly, and of its own
single choice disturb the peace of the world;
or if it cannot be presently destroyed, at least
its reduction to virtual impotence"
Tbis reaf6rnos and re-arnbasizes Americas mr.
pose to fight on until German militarism is van
quished. We could have peace today,
content to take it on the Kaiser's terms; and ere
long perhaps he will be offering peace with cunning
y camoufaged concessions. But the only peace We
dare accept from him and his conspirators will be
the peace of their complete surrender That is the
only settlement to be trusted, the only one worthy
of the brave legons who have poured out their life
blood for freedom. What assurance of the future
would we have if Ptussiansm came out of this war
unconquered and holding ajsubstantial part of its
spos? What covenant would its leaders keep?
What of nations would they respect longer than
their own criminal interests dictated? Not until
Prussanism is beaten down and stripped naked OF
its conquests will the German people forsake it;
and not until then will there be hope of morally
responsible Government in Germany or of durable
peace in the world.
1t is Americas unshakable resolution, it is
of her heroic Allies, to fight until those ends
achieved. They cannot be achieved, the President
truly declares, "by debating and seeking to
cile and accommodate what statesmen may wish,
with their projects for balances of power and OF
national opportunity" They can be achieved only
by pressing intrepidly in the way now
going. The Italians the Piave, the Americans at
Chateau Thierry and in Belleau wood the French
in Picardy and the British in Flanders-in these
and the gallant millions behind them lies the
worlds hope of justice and concord Let these be
now our sole concern. Let us support them with
our labor and love- Let us prove worthy of the
supreme sacrifices they make scorning the thought
of peace that would betray their ideals and trust
ing them as the glorious embodiment of those forces
that have at their heart IAN inspiration and pur-
pose which are deathless and of the very stuff OF
triumph"